abstract. Law, and particularly tort law, serves definable human goals. Often these goals are multidimensional, and too often, those who view tort law in a goal-oriented way move quickly to a single, simple goal – whether it be economic efficiency, furthering loss spreading or anything else – and, having examined tort doctrines and cases on that basis, are properly attacked for being reductionists. The thesis of this chapter is that the pursuit of one-dimensional goals in tort law is fraught with such risks.

Generally speaking, courts are unlikely to be reductionist. Judges derive law from many sources. The problem arises from the ever-increasing incursions by federal courts into the tort process, and is worsened when the incursion is by the Supreme Court. This chapter concentrates on punitive damages. Its thesis is that punitive damages in tort law can perform at least five very different functions, and that each is a sufficient reason for a state to seek to impose exemplary awards. These objectives may reveal or include a desire to: (1) enforce societal norms, through the use of private attorney's general; (2) employ “the multiplier,” in the sense that the proper size of the deterrent assessed on those one would deter is not the harm to any one victim but rather that harm multiplied by all those victims whose harms are not likely to be charged to the injurer; (3) the “Tragic Choice” Function, such as in the Pinto case; (4) permit Recovery of Generally Nonrecoverable Compensatory Damages; and (5) permit Righting of Private Wrongs.