Jeutner argues that the reasonable person is, at heart, an empathetic perspective-taking device, by tracing the standard of the reasonable person across time, legal fields and countries. Beginning with a review of imaginary legal figures in the legal systems of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, the book explains why the common law's reasonable person emerged amidst the British industrialisation under the influence of Scottish Enlightenment thinking. Following the figure into colonial courts, onto battlefields and into self-driving cars, the book contends that the reasonable person invites judges, jury-members, and lawyers to take another person's perspective when assessing their own or another person's conduct. The perspective of another is taken by means of empathy, by feeling what others might feel in a particular situation. Thus construed, the figure of the reasonable person can help us make more accurate judgments in a diverse world.

Long-listed, 2025 Book Prize, Inner Temple

‘A fascinating read’

Dominic Regan Source: New Law Journal

‘This book is an amazing work of scholarship, very readable and above all very positive about the way the law aims to be do justice, be fair, and adapt to society.’

David Pickup Source: The Law Society Gazette

‘This legal biography of a concept is not intended to settle matters, but it is bound to be of interest to many scholars and practitioners in fostering, at the very least, thought and discussion of a complex phenomenon.’

Robert Shiels Source: Scottish Legal News

‘The book is not just a legal-historical or doctrinal study, but a work that is admirably interdisciplinary. It raises a number of jurisprudential questions. As a legal philosopher myself, I will zero in here on one of them, namely what is the purpose of law and how does this purpose determine its limits? Legal concepts such as the reasonable person standard do not exist in a vacuum but reflect their drafters’ philosophical dispositions with regard to how this question should be answered. This makes Jeutner's work especially valuable as an account of how and why the reasonable person evolved into its current form.’

Anna Lukina Source: Modern Law Review

‘The portrait Jeutner has drawn, and the vision of law that Jeutner brings to the conversation is humane and most welcome. With an interdisciplinary reach and writing that is unfailingly measured, Jeutner has given us a socio-legal study worth embracing.’

Source: Law and Society Review

‘This is a unique, insightful, witty and engaging book written by a legal academic trained in the Anglo-American and continental traditions of legal education.’

Christopher Stanley Source: The Law Society Gazette