The Mirage of Product Safety

This article examines the issues of product safety and product liability. It suggests that the concept of safety is inherently a matter of subjective evaluation and the concept of an obligation to produce safe products is not well-formed. On this basis, it can be said that businesses do not have an ethical obligation to produce safe products. However, businesses do have an ethical obligation not to produce deceptively dangerous products, and this obligation derives from the general duty of honest dealing and not from a distinct duty of product safety.