In summary, the vulnerability of civil liability is structured so as to allow for sharp interpersonal conflict. This conflict is a potential solution to at least two problems created by the success of the modern state in suppressing private aggression. The first is the difficulty in fostering cooperation among parties that are relatively invulnerable to retaliation. The second
is the suppression of the agency of victims in the face of wrongdoing. Seeing civil liability as a system of vulnerability and looking to the sorts of arguments that might justify such a regime also sheds light on how we might think about the relationship between different fields of private law, such as torts and contracts.