Who is the 'reasonable person' invoked by the law?

The reasonable person is often associated with the law of accidents.

When determining if someone is legally responsible for causing an injury, courts want to know if the person causing the injury acted with the care of a reasonable person. But theorists often remark that the reasonable person is not the average person. In turn, this sparks 'ideal' theories of a reasonable person.

How ordinary people judge reasonableness is mostly neglected. The standard of 'reasonable care' might be viewed as the standard level of care or a good level of care or both.

An experiment suggested that our conception of reasonableness is informed by thinking about what people actually do and what people should do.

When the law elaborates on reasonableness, it often suggests statistical considerations.

Historically, courts referred to the 'reasonable person and the 'ordinary' person, or otherwise, the 'ideal average prudent person'.

Acknowledging the relevance of statistical considerations offers progressive implications: when we want to include personal characteristics in reasonable-person analyses, should it include age, gender, race, etc.? For example, apparently sexist remarks. Women may understand certain remarks in the workplace differently from men.