Contract Law and Morality A Documentary History - Contract Law and Morality Combining natural law theory, reliance theory, and economic analysis to develop a jurisprudential approach, this is a prescriptive work presenting a vision of what contract law would be like if it were devoted to teaching moral virtue. The jurisprudential approach draws upon insights of Aristotle, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and other thinkers in the natural law tradition. The author applies this approach to selected legal issues to produce the only contemporary book that uses a natural law approach in prescribing specific reforms in American contract law. Combining natural law theory, reliance theory, and economic analysis to develop a jurisprudential approach, this is a prescriptive work presenting a vision of what contract law would be like if it were devoted to teaching moral virtue. Mather (law, U. of South Carolina) proposes a moral approach to contract law based on common sense and certain notions of decency and fair play. Chapter 1 is an introductory analysis of the social practice of promising. Chapter 2 evaluates and rejects three theories of contract justice, i.e. freedom of contract, wealth maximization, and egalitarian distributive justice. Chapter 3, the heart of the book, proposes a natural law approach in which contract law pursues Aristotelian rectificatory justice but also goes beyond it. .
