Legal Theory Commons^™

The Virtues Of Redundancy In Legal Thought, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Redundancy has a bad reputation among legal intellectuals. When someone says, for example, that the ninth and tenth amendments are redundant, we can be pretty sure that this person attaches little importance to these constitutional provisions. Listen to one of the definitions of redundant provided by the Oxford English Dictionary: "superabundant, superfluous, excessive."' In this essay, the author proposes that legal theorists pay serious attention to the concept of redundancy used by engineers. He explains how redundancy--in this special sense--is essential to any intellectual enterprise in which we try to reach action-guiding conclusions, including the enterprise of law. The author …

The Internal And External Analysis Of Concepts, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In Abstract Right and the Possibility of a Nondistributive Conception of Contract: Hegel and Contemporary Contract Theory, Peter Benson criticizes the authors presentation of a consent theory of contract, in part, on the ground that it "refers only to the empirical facts of the requirements of human needs and fulfillment. Like [Charles] Fried's [account], his conception of the consensual basis of a contract does not preserve the required standpoint of abstraction. " On this basis Professor Benson concludes that the author's approach fails to "provide an adequate elucidation of a nondistributive conception of contract.

By explaining contractual obligation …