The Institution of Contract

What is contract law, and what justifies it? Most theories answer this question by reducing contract law to something else-to the morality of promise-keeping, to individual consent, to economic efficiency, or to a particular vision of justice. The Institution of Contract: A Theory of Contract Law takes a different path. It offers a non-reductive, systematic, and institutional theory of contract law: a comprehensive theoretical framework that understands contract law on its own terms as a distinctive legal institution, while also connecting that institution to the values and goals that can justify it to the citizens who live under it.The book proceeds through four interconnected questions. What is contract law and what does it do? Can it be justified, and how? What are contractual duties and how do they bind parties? And how should contracts be enforced? Each question receives a sustained answer, and together they constitute an account of the entire edifice of contract law. The result is a unified, intellectually cohesive account of one of the central legal building blocks of modern life.