Product safety and liability

Product safety and liability

1. Defective product: product which doesnt function in the way it is meant to, when it is used for purposes it was designed for or used in other forse/unforseeable ways

2. 3 Views for product safety:

   • Restrictive view: its never morally permissible for a biz to product on sale if theres a chance that product can be defective in a way that can cause harm
     • Anti-harm principle: except in v special circum. one should not cause harm to another person OR one has right not to be harmed
     • Linking principle: since its morally impermissible to harm one in a certain way, thus its morally impermissible to carry action whereby one risks harming another in that way
       • Problem of Paralysis: if linking principle correct it rules out everyday actions because they impose some risk on others
     • Intention objection: what actually makes an action right or wrong is the intention of the action, not on basis on consequences
       • BUT: knowledge of actions potential harmful conseq = suff. to ground wrongness AND intention insufficient unless there's effort to make it effective
     • Consent objection: if buyer willing or seller willing its a special case whereby its appropriate to impose harm on another person
   • Permissive view: people should be free to choose level of risk they are willing to adopt
     • Protects freedom of consumer & producer
       • Problem of injustice objection: insensitive to vulnerability of poor, assumes economic choices match personal pref. i.e income
       • Market failure objection: information asymmetry, irrationality, negative externalities, monopolies
         • info asymmetry: when producer of commodity knows more about commodity than buyer, which they use to make consumer make purchase decision that wouldn't have made had they had equal info
         • Irrationality: free markets only allocate goods efficiently when people act in self- int rational manner, grounds to doubt if consumers are able to think rationally about their safety
         • negative externalities: costs pf producing commodity which are borne by neither producer or consumer of commodity
         • monopolies: competition tousually cheapest, best quality goods but potentially dangerous, however when competing w other manus it'll come on top
     • Allocates risk efficiently
     • Consent/freedom objection: consent only morally transformative if it meets criteria of rationality, choice and informedness. 2) Limits to consent: even if done, there are acts that may be immoral regardless of fact of consent
   • Intermediate view: always morally permissible for manufacturer to sell product which risks being harmfully defective except when risk cost-benefit anal. wuld recomm. banning sale of prod.
     • Crude RCBA: method assigning numerical value to each possible course of action, based on possible outcomes and likelihood of that of the actions
       • Problem: 1) how theres an instrumental calc of persons value based on how much society stands to benefit or lose from it 2) allows high risks to be imposed on small minorities as long theres a benefit to majority
     • Refined RCBA: has 4-step approach- 1) establish cost of nw safety measure 2) estab. how many lives new safety measure is expected to save 3) divide cost of new safety measure by expected no. lives saved 4) if CPF </= VPF intro new safety measure
       • Internal problems: 1) methodological diff 2) generic (one size fits all vpf) 3) non-linear risk value preferences 4) fairness
       • external problems: 1) negligence obj: may be wrong for manufact. to expose consumers to risk that is within limits of RCBA policy, if that risk is result of negligence 2) Non exposure obj: unfair for one party to benefit from exposing another to risks which first party not exposed
     • Value Per Fatality: monetary value o reducing expected deaths due to defective product, by one. Its about reducing statistical risks that apply to large no. of people. Willing to put price on risk imposition
       • calc. by labour market studies, individual surveys and consumer preference studies

3. 3 views for liability of harmful defects

   • Caveat emptor: biz. not morally liable to pay compensation unless entered into explicit contract w consumer. If they offer its supererogatory
     • Problems: unfair burden on consumer: info asymmetry and negligence
   • Negligence standard: if defect exists because of manufacturers negligence then manufacturer liable to compensate the consumer, comp said to be negligent when they fail to discharge 'duty of care'
     • Problems: 1) diff. w how negligence is interpreted 2) unfair to consumer as its difficult for them to prove negligence is manus fault
   • Strict product liability: manu is ALWAYS liable to compensate for harms incurred by consumer as result of harmful defect in product
     • Unfair to manufacturer: unfair to hold the morally liable for ones bad luck, however provides incentives to manufacturer and manu in better position to distribute these costs amongst appropriate stakeholders
       • worries: manu not always in best position to pay and ability to pay does not see to be only relevant consid. in detrmin. liability
     • Non- exposure objection: unfair for one party to profit from exposing other parties to risk which first not exposed itself, so its justified as it imposes some of risks on manu.
       • this could justify only some of costs of prod-related injuries to manu and leaves no room for negligence penalities