Reasonableness and Responsibility: A Theory of Contract Law, 2013 Law and Philosophy Library Series, Vol. 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.

Introduction.- Chapter I: Setting the Scene: Distributive Justice, Corrective Justice, and Monism in Political Philosophy and Contract Law.- Chapter III: Libertarianism and the Law of Contracts.- Chapter IV: The Division of Responsibility and Contract Law.- Chapter V: Explaining Contract Doctrine.- Chapter VI: The Objective Standard of Interaction in Contract Law: The Reasonable Person.- Chapter VII: Fuller, Fried and the Nature of Contractual Rights and Remedies.- Chapter VIII: Contracts and Third Parties.- Chapter IX: Material Non-Disclosure, Corrective Justice, and the Division of Responsibility.- Index.

The only monograph on the Rawlsian foundations of contract law Clarity of exposition, analytical rigour and conceptual sophistication Provides a broad theoretical appraisal of a core area of law Appeals to scholars, professors, and students in both common law and civil law jurisdictions