From Personal Life to Private Law

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Fresh Start ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
Moral Domain ◽  
Problems And Solutions ◽  
The Law

The book examines some of the philosophical foundations of private law, particularly the law of torts and the law of contract, arguing that the law’s problems and solutions are often much the same as those that we encounter in our personal lives, and have much the same rationales. Arguing against the idea that private law operates as an autonomous moral domain, and simultaneously against the idea that it is a tool of welfarist social policy, the book emphasizes the affinity between ideas of duty, responsibility, and reparation in private life and those same ideas in the law. In particular, the book traverses questions about the nature and justification of relational duties, the relevance of an action’s outcome to that action’s appraisal, the case for an agent to be the repairer of his or her own derelictions, the value of apology and other expressions of regret, the importance of restoring what one loses, and the value of opting to make a fresh start. The book is based on the Quain Lectures delivered by the author in 2014, which have been substantially revised and expanded.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Personal Life ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Unjust Enrichment ◽  
The Law ◽  
Monist View

This introductory chapter clarifies the definitions of ‘personal life’ and ‘private law’ as undertaken by this book. Roughly, ‘personal life’ refers to what people do (as well as what they think, believe, want, etc.) apart from the law. The chapter discusses a ‘monist’ view that what private law would have us do is best understood by reflecting on what we should be doing, quite apart from private law, which entails reflection on the reasons why we should be doing it. As to ‘private law’, this chapter and the book as a whole primarily refer to the law of torts and the law of contract. This definition excludes a few similar but unrelated concepts such as unjust enrichment, breach of trust, and breach of confidence.

Philosophical Foundations of the Law of Equity

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Social Goals ◽  
Private Law ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
Order Constraint ◽  
The Common ◽  
Law And Morality ◽  
The Law

A late-comer to the field of private law theory, the inquiry into the foundations of the law of Equity raises some fundamental questions about the relationships between law and morality, the nature of rights, the extent to which we are willing to compromise on the Rule of Law ideal in order to achieve various social goals. In this volume, leading scholars in the field address these and the questions about underlying principles of Equity and its relationship to the common law: What relationships, if any, are there between the legal, philosophical, and moral senses of ‘equity’? Does Equity form a second-order constraint on law? If so, is its operation at odds with the rule of law? Do the various theories of Equity require some kind of separation of law and equity—and, if they do, what kind of separation? The volume further sheds light on some of the most topical questions of jurisprudence that are embedded in the debate around ‘fusion’.

Tort’s Landscape

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Herzog
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Tort Law ◽  
Private Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
Posthumous Interests ◽  
What Matters

A sketch of the basic contours of tort law, for those not familiar with it. The chapter defends and starts deepening the traditional case that tort is private law: that what matters in a tort action is simply the claim that one party has wronged another, not making sound social policy or promoting Kaldor-Hicks efficiency or anything like that. It explores settings in which the law does take posthumous interests seriously.

The Law of Contract

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Steiner
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
World Market ◽  
Contract Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Legal Certainty ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law

This chapter examines the law of contract in France and discusses the milestone reform of French contract law. While this new legislation introduces a fresh equilibrium between the contracting parties and enhances accessibility and legal certainty in contract, it does not radically change the state of the law in this area. In addition, it does not strongly impact the traditional philosophical foundations of the law of contract. The reform, in short, looks more like a tidying up operation rather than a far-reaching transformation of the law. Therefore, the chapter argues that it is questionable whether the new law, which was also intended to increase France's attractiveness against the background of a world market dominated by the Common Law, will keep its promise.

Common Interests of Humankind and the International Regulation of the Use of Force

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enzo Cannizzaro
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
State Responsibility ◽  
International Regulation ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Common Interests ◽  
The Law ◽  
Mere Existence ◽  
Further Development

The chapter discusses the philosophical foundations of the current regulation of the use of force. The chapter argues that, in correspondence with the emergence of a sphere of substantive rules protecting common interests of humankind, international law is also gradually developing a system of protection against egregious breaches of these interests. This conclusion is reached through an analysis of the law and practice governing the action of the UN Security Council as well as the law of state responsibility concerning individual and collective reactions to serious breaches of common interests. This system is based on positive obligations imposed upon individual states as well as UN organs, and it appears to be still rudimentary and inefficient. However, the chapter suggests that the mere existence of this system, these shortcomings notwithstanding, has the effect of promoting the further development of the law in search for more appropriate mechanisms of protection.

Torts and Other Wrongs

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Strict Liability ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Moral Significance ◽  
Reasonable Person ◽  
Reasonable Person Standard ◽  
The Law

Torts and Other Wrongs is a collection of eleven of the author’s essays on the theory of the law of torts and its place in the law more generally. Two new essays accompany nine previously published pieces, a number of which are already established classics of theoretical writing on private law. Together they range across the distinction between torts and other wrongs, the moral significance of outcomes, the nature and role of corrective and distributive justice, the justification of strict liability, the nature of the reasonable person standard, and the role of public policy in private law adjudication. Though focused on the law of torts, the wide-ranging analysis in each chapter will speak to theorists of private law more generally.

Law and Economics

2020 ◽  
pp. 84-102
Author(s):  
Daniel B. Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Economic Analysis ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Law And Economics ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
Business Associations ◽  
The Third ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Impact

This chapter analyzes how law and economics influences private law and how (new) private law is influencing law and economics. It focuses on three generation or “waves” within law and economics and how they approach private law. In the first generation, many scholars took the law as a starting point and attempted to use economic insights to explain, justify, or reform legal doctrines, institutions, and structures. In the second generation, the “law” at times became secondary, with more focus on theory and less focus on doctrines, institutions, and structures. But this generation also relied increasingly on empirical analysis. In the third generation, which includes scholars in the New Private Law (NPL), there has been a resurgence of interest in the law and legal institutions. To be sure, NPL scholars analyze the law using various approaches, with some more and some less predisposed to economic analysis. However, economic analysis will continue to be a major force on private law, including the New Private Law, for the foreseeable future. The chapter considers three foundational private law areas: property, contracts, and torts. For each area, it discusses the major ideas that economic analysis has contributed to private law, and surveys contributions of the NPL. The chapter also looks at the impact of law and economics on advanced private law areas, such as business associations, trusts and estates, and intellectual property.

The New Private Law and Intellectual Property

2020 ◽  
pp. 408-426
Author(s):  
Molly Shaffer Van Houweling
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Concepts And Categories ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
Law Courts ◽  
Legal Concepts

This chapter studies intellectual property (IP). A hallmark of the New Private Law (NPL) is attentiveness to and appreciation of legal concepts and categories, including the traditional categories of the common law. These categories can sometimes usefully be deployed outside of the traditional common law, to characterize, conceptualize, and critique other bodies of law. For scholars interested in IP, for example, common law categories can be used to describe patent, copyright, trademark, and other fields of IP as more or less “property-like” or “tort-like.” Thischapter investigates both the property- and tort-like features of IP to understand the circumstances under which one set of features tends to dominate and why. It surveys several doctrines within the law of copyright that demonstrate how courts move along the property/tort continuum depending on the nature of the copyrighted work at issue—including, in particular, how well the work’s protected contours are defined. This conceptual navigation is familiar, echoing how common law courts have moved along the property/tort continuum to address disputes over distinctive types of tangible resources.

scholarly journals The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality – Core Themes

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Katharina Pistor
Keyword(s):  
Coercive Power ◽  
Private Law ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Right

Abstract In this brief introduction, I summarize the core themes of my book “The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality”. Capital, I argue, is coded in law – predominantly in a handful of private law institutions. By relying on legal coding techniques, asset holders invoke the right to enforce claims against others, if necessary with the help of the state’s coercive power.

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