Contract Law and Social Morality
Contract Law and Social Morality
When people in a relationship disagree about their obligations to each other, they need to rely on a method of reasoning that allows the relationship to flourish while advancing each person's private projects. This book presents a method of reasoning that reflects how people reason through disagreements and how courts create doctrine by reasoning about the obligations arising from the relationship. Built on the ideal of the other-regarding person, Contract Law and Social Morality displays a method of reasoning that allows one person to integrate their personal interests with the interests of another, determining how divergent interests can be balanced against each other. Called values-balancing reasoning, this methodology makes transparent the values at stake in a disagreement, and provides a neutral and objective way to identify and evaluate the trade-offs that are required if the relationship is to be sustained or terminated justly.
- Introduces a method of reasoning about contractual obligations that is not restricted by doctrine to demonstrate a unified theory of obligations that undergirds torts, contracts, and property
- Suggests a method of reasoning that integrates deontic and consequentialist thought that breaks down barriers that separate moral and economic reasoning and allows scholars to work across disciplinary boundaries
- Identifies factors and values that determine legal doctrine in order to increase transparency by allowing lawyers and scholars to identify and evaluate the factors and values that support doctrinal implementation and evolution
Product details
August 2022Paperback
9781316501986
231 pages
229 × 152 × 12 mm
0.318kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Introduction: Understanding implied obligations: reasoning and methodology
- Part I. Grounds for a Supplemental Approach:
- 1. Individuals and relationships
- 2. Authority's limits
- 3. Promises and obligations
- 4. Maximization and cooperation
- Part II. Values-balancing Legal Reasoning:
- 5. The foundations of value-balancing legal reasoning
- 6. The scope of obligations
- 7. The source of obligations
- 8. Relationality redux: law on the ground and law on the books
- Part III. Applications:
- 9. Legal enforceability: formation
- 10. Performance obligations: methodological issues
- 11. Performance obligations: the values-balancing approach
- 12. Consumer contracts and standard terms
- 13. Excused performance and risk allocation
- 14. Remedies
- Conclusion.
