Law Commons^™

On Collaboration, Organizations, And Conciliation In The General Theory Of Contract, Ethan J. Leib

Faculty Scholarship

Daniel Markovits's Contract and Collaboration is a thought-provoking and ground-breaking inquiry into the ethics of contract. It argues that the philosophical foundation of contract may be found in what Markovits calls the collaborative view: a principle of forming respectful communities of collaboration where contractors treat each other as ends in themselves and refrain from treating each other as mere instrumentalities. Markovits acknowledges that there are three prototypical forms of contracts: (1) person-to-person; (2) person-to-organization; and (3) organization-to-organization. He is refreshingly honest in arguing that his theory of contract only addresses Type (1) contracts. I wish to argue here that this …