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.
Corrective Justice, the Continuity Thesis, and the Duty of Care in Negligence Law: Lessons from John Gardner’s From Personal Life to Private Law
