Symposium—Contract as Promise at 30: The Future of Contract Theory
To a generation of law students, lawyers, and legal scholars, Contract as Promise has provided a liberal theory of contract that explains fundamental features of contract law and provides a normative foundation for evaluating the legal doctrine. As is well known by now, the promissory theory of contracts justifies the legal enforcement of contracts in terms of respect for individual freedom and autonomy to make binding commitments. The touchstone of contractual analysis from this perspective is the intent of the promisor. Together with other moral theories of promising, this perspective on contract law has generated voluminous scholarship. Thirty years after the book’s publication, I am unlikely to shed new light on the merits of the perspective. Rather, I take the occasion of this symposium as an opportunity to explore how economic analysis since the book’s publication might elaborate its thesis. . .