Autonomy in Transactions
Abstract
The article presents a ‘critique from within’ of Peter Benson’s book ‘Justice in Transactions’, while sharing its premise that a theory of contract has to be liberal one. It identifies three problems with Benson’s answer to the question of how the relation between freedom and equality in contract law should be understood. It criticizes Benson’s Hegelian metaphysics and claims that a principle of mutual recognition and respect between juridical persons does not require that contracts only allow the alienation and appropriation of different things of the quantitatively same value. It demonstrates that Rawls’s idea of a ‘division of labor’ within principles of justice is more plausible than Benson’s reformulated account, which loses sight of the premise that a liberal theory of contract must locate the normative foundations of ‘contract’ in individual rights, and, in addition, is at odds with Rawls’s project in ‘Political Liberalism’ and its concept of public justification.
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Editorial
- EU Legislation
- European Union Legislation and Actions
- Introduction
- Introduction
- Articles – on Justice in Transactions
- Fundamental Rights, Contract Law and Transactional Justice
- Contract Law Theory and The Concept of ‘Ownership’
- Justice in Contract, no Justice in the Background
- Autonomy in Transactions
- The Public of Contract, and of its Justification
- A Theory of Contract Law: What Meaning and for What Purpose?
- Markets and Contractual Fairness
- The Ambition of Public Justification in Contract
- Justice in Transactions: A Public Basis for Justifying Contract Law?
- Would Reasonable People Endorse a ‘Content-Neutral’ Law of Contract?
- Reply – Justice in Transactions
- The Arguments in Justice in Transactions: A Reply to Commentators
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Editorial
- EU Legislation
- European Union Legislation and Actions
- Introduction
- Introduction
- Articles – on Justice in Transactions
- Fundamental Rights, Contract Law and Transactional Justice
- Contract Law Theory and The Concept of ‘Ownership’
- Justice in Contract, no Justice in the Background
- Autonomy in Transactions
- The Public of Contract, and of its Justification
- A Theory of Contract Law: What Meaning and for What Purpose?
- Markets and Contractual Fairness
- The Ambition of Public Justification in Contract
- Justice in Transactions: A Public Basis for Justifying Contract Law?
- Would Reasonable People Endorse a ‘Content-Neutral’ Law of Contract?
- Reply – Justice in Transactions
- The Arguments in Justice in Transactions: A Reply to Commentators
