Product Liability

Product liability refers to the responsibility of manufacturers to compensate for injuries brought about through the use of their products. Legal and moral accounts of product liability seek to determine the conditions under which businesses can be held responsible for such harms. Since the risk of injury in the use of consumer products can never be completely eliminated, the notion of product liability raises important legal and philosophical questions about who should bear the burden of costs for such injuries. Determining the answer to these questions raises deontological issues of fairness and justice as well as utilitarian considerations as to how society can best prevent and recompense such harms. The wide publicity of famous cases of product liability, such as those involving McDonald's coffee, the ...