Law Commons^™

Convergence By Design: Who Contracts And The Plural Purposes Of Contract Law, Gregory Klass

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

A theory is robustly pluralist if it maintains that law is justified by multiple independent nonordered principles. Some have argued that robustly pluralist theories are deficient because they can provide no practical guidance when those principles conflict. The objection is misplaced when applied to pluralist theories of contract law.

This article demonstrates the possibility of a robustly pluralist and practically relevant theory of contract law by modeling a multipurpose law of contract. Five simple models are constructed to illustrate several purposes a contract law might serve, depending on preferences of the populace (self-interested utility maximizers, a preference for sharing, a …