Introduction

Abstract

Abstract This chapter introduces the dominant philosophical account of contract law: the ‘promise theory’. According to the promise theory, promise plays a ‘foundational’ or special normative role in the justification of contract law rules and doctrines. This chapter explains that the book’s purpose is to debunk the promise theory and its foundationalist assumptions. It provides an overview of the main argument of the book, which relies on showing that the promise theory obscures or underplays the role that other values and normative concerns have in shaping contract law rules and doctrines. Contract law is the product of ‘normative pluralism’, and this chapter explains how that theme is approached in the book in the following three interrelated contexts: contract theory, legal doctrine, and transnational trends toward the harmonization of contract law. The central claim of the book is introduced as a plea to move away from a ‘top-down’ theory of contract law such as the promise theory and toward a distinctly republican or ‘bottom-up’ approach to contract law that focuses on justifying the legal rules and doctrines we find in particular jurisdictions at particular times.