Rethinking the Reasonable Person

The 'reasonable person' is used to assess the acceptability of behaviour in many areas of the law including criminal law and accident law. However the reasonable person has also attracted substantial criticism from egalitarian critics and feminists insofar as it presupposes contested notions of 'normal' behaviour and may discriminate against certain classes of defendant. Rethinking the Reasonable Person systematically investigates whether there are deeper foundations to these criticisms and discusses how the legal standard might be reconstructed in a more egalitarian way.