Private Law And The Value Of Choice

Some say that private law ought to correct wrongs or to protect rights. Others say that private law ought to maximise social welfare or to minimise social cost. In this book, Emmanuel Voyiakis claims that private law ought to make our responsibilities to others depend on the opportunities we have to affect how things will go for us. Drawing on the work of HLA Hart and TM Scanlon, he argues that private law principles that require us to bear certain practical burdens in our relations with others are justified as long as those principles provide us with certain opportunities to choose what will happen to us, and having those opportunities is something we have reason to value. The book contrasts this 'value-of-choice' account with its wrong- and social cost-based rivals, and applies it to familiar problems of contract and tort law, including whether liability should be negligence-based or stricter; whether insurance should matter in the allocation of the burden of repair; how far private law should make allowance for persons of limited capacities; when a contract term counts as 'unconscionable' or 'unfair'; and when tort law should hold a person vicariously liable for another's mistakes.

This book focuses on the subject of choice of law as a whole and provides an analysis of its various rules, principles, doctrines and concepts. It offers a conceptual account of choice of law, called "choice equality foundation" (CEF), which aims to flesh out the normative basis of the subject. The author reveals that, despite the multiplicity of titles and labels within the myriad choice of law rules and practices of the U.S., Canadian, European, Australian, and other systems, many of them effectively confirm and crystallize CEF's vision of the subject. This alignment signifies the necessarily intimate relationship between theory and practice by which the normative underpinnings of CEF are deeply embedded and reflected in actual practical reality. Among other things, this book provides a justification of the nature and limits of such popular principles as party autonomy, most significant relationship, and closest connection. It also discusses such topics as the actual operation of public policy doctrine in domestic courts, and the relation between the notion of international human rights and international commercial dealings, and makes some suggestions about the ability of traditional rules to cope with the advancing challenges of the digital age and the Internet.

"This book ... is a descendant of my eponymous Quain Lectures, delivered at University College London in 2014"--Preface.

Some say that private law ought to correct wrongs or to protect rights. Others say that private law ought to maximise social welfare or to minimise social cost. In this book, Emmanuel Voyiakis claims that private law ought to make our responsibilities to others depend on the opportunities we have to affect how things will go for us. Drawing on the work of HLA Hart and TM Scanlon, he argues that private law principles that require us to bear certain practical burdens in our relations with others are justified as long as those principles provide us with certain opportunities to choose what will happen to us, and having those opportunities is something we have reason to value. The book contrasts this 'value-of-choice' account with its wrong- and social cost-based rivals, and applies it to familiar problems of contract and tort law, including whether liability should be negligence-based or stricter; whether insurance should matter in the allocation of the burden of repair; how far private law should make allowance for persons of limited capacities; when a contract term counts as 'unconscionable' or 'unfair'; and when tort law should hold a person vicariously liable for another's mistakes.

Given the unprecedented recent turmoil on financial markets we now face radically challenged, 'post-Lehmann' assumptions on protecting the vulnerable in financial transactions. This collection of essays explores conceptions of, and responses to, unconscionability and similar notions across Europe with specific reference to financial transactions. It presents a detailed analysis of concepts of unconscionability in Europe against a backdrop of Commission initiatives aimed, variously, at securing a single market in financial services, producing greater coherence in EC consumer protection law and consolidating European private law. This analysis illustrates, for example, that concepts of unconscionability depend on context and can be shaped by a variety of factors. It also illustrates that jurisdictions may choose to respond to questions of unconscionability through a variety of legal instruments located in different branches of the law rather than through a single doctrine. Thus this collection illuminates many of the obstacles facing harmonisation in this area.

New Directions in Private Law Theory brings together some of the best new work on private law theory, reflecting the breadth of this increasingly important field. The contributions interrogate a wide range of topics including aspects of private law doctrine, its development, ordering and application. The authors adopt a variety of different approaches and contribute to ongoing and important debates about the moral foundations of private law, the individuation of areas of private law and the connections between private law and everyday moral experience. Questions addressed include: Does the diversity identified amongst claims in unjust enrichment mean that the category is incoherent? Are claims in tort law always about compensating for wrongs? How should we understand parties’ agreement in contract? The contributions shed new light on these and other topics, and the ways in which they intersect and open up new lines of scholarly enquiry. The book will be of interest to researchers working in private law and legal theory, but it will also appeal to those outside of law, most notably researchers with an interest in moral and political philosophy, economics and history.

Non-instrumentalist private law theory has been dominated by an interpretivist methodology that seeks to understand the concepts, doctrines, and structures of the law in principled terms. This has resulted in the neglect of purely normative analysis and a failure to engage systematically with the methodologies of moral and political philosophy. Wrongs, Harms, and Compensation: Paying for our Mistakes departs from this approach, arguing instead that the justification of tort law is dependent on our underlying moral corrective duties. In this book, Adam Slavny develops a pluralistic account of these duties, which encompasses both wrongful and non-wrongful conduct, complicating the view that torts should be regarded as a coherent set of wrongs. He also places the practice of enforcing corrective duties in a broader context, arguing that it should not be isolated or immune to critiques based on distributive justice, and that our duties are in fact consistent with institutional arrangements other than tort law, including various types of compensation schemes. What emerges is neither a wholesale defence of or attack on tort law, but an insistence that its normative foundations are much more complex, diverse, and malleable than a focus on current legal practices would suggest.