Paternalism and Contract Law

Abstract

This is an overview chapter, published in The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Paternalism. I suggest a classification of contract law rules and doctrines that are potentially or prima facie paternalistic, as constitutive, procedural, informational and substantive limits to freedom of contract. I also discuss non-paternalistic rationalisations of some of these rules in terms of justice or as responses to externalities and collective action problems.