Reasonableness and Responsibility: A Theory of Contract Law (Law and Philosophy Library Book 101)

"If, as John Rawls famously suggests, justice is the first virtue of social institutions, how are we to understand the institution of contract law? This book proposes a Rawlsian theory of contract law. It argues that justice requires that we understand contract rules in terms of the idea of reasonable, terms of interaction - that is, terms that would be accepted by reasonable persons moved by a desire for a social world in which they, as free and equal, can cooperate with others on terms they accept. On that basis, the book explains the main doctrines of contract law, including those governing third parties, in both the Common Law and the Civil Law"--provided by publisher Front Matter....Pages i-vii Introduction....Pages 1-7 Setting the Scene: Distributive Justice, Corrective Justice, and Monism in Political Philosophy and Contract Law....Pages 9-17 The Distributive Understanding of Contract Law: Kronman on Contract Law and Distributive Justice....Pages 19-32 Libertarianism and the Law of Contracts....Pages 33-44 The Division of Responsibility and Contract Law....Pages 45-65 Explaining Contract Doctrine....Pages 67-89 The Objective Standard of Interaction in Contract Law: The Reasonable Person....Pages 91-102 Fuller, Fried, and the Nature of Contractual Rights and Remedies....Pages 103-114 Contracts and Third Parties....Pages 115-156 Material Nondisclosure, Corrective Justice, and the Division of Responsibility....Pages 157-169 Back Matter....Pages 171-182