When I saw the word calculus in my lecture slides I had to double-check that I wasn’t actually sitting in an economics class. Sure enough, I was in a torts law lecture.
In the tort of negligence the ‘calculus of negligence’ is a term used to describe the weighing up of diverse variables to assess whether a party has behaved appropriately in the face of a foreseeable risk. This inquiry is made to determine whether the party has breached a duty of care.