Contract Law and Social Morality

A concise and readable guide to reasoning about the source and content of contractual obligations when disagreements arise.

Peter M. Gerhart (Author)

9781107136762, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 18 February 2021

250 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.6 cm, 0.49 kg

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.

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.

Subject Areas: Contract law [LNCJ], Company, commercial & competition law [LNC], Laws of Specific jurisdictions [LN], Law & society [LAQ], Law [L]