Freedom of Contract, Properly Understood

Freedom of contract plays a key role in many of our legal and public debates, but itsmeaning is rarely explicitly interrogated. Often it is simply assumed that freedom ofcontract stands for the idea that the law should just enforce private deals and otherwiseget out of the way. Professor Hanoch Dagan argues that this libertarian understandingof freedom of contract, shared by both friends and foes of a laissez-faire vision ofthe law, presupposes a conceptually unnecessary and normatively impoverishedview of contract. Properly understood, the author claims, freedom of contract is theright to pursue our voluntary joint plans - facilitated by autonomy-enhancing law thatoffers an adequate range of normatively attractive contract types, protects our futureselves' ability to re-write core life plans, and ensures relational justice, including ameasure of substantive equality.