Managing Moral Risk: The Case of Contract

56 Pages Posted: 31 Mar 2011 Last revised: 19 Jan 2012

See all articles by Aditi Bagchi

Aditi Bagchi

Fordham University School of Law

Abstract

The concept of moral luck describes how the moral character of our actions seems to depend on factors outside our control. Implications of moral luck have been extensively explored in criminal law and tort law, but there is no literature on moral luck in contract law. I show that contract is an especially illuminating domain for the study of moral luck because it highlights that moral luck is not just a dark cloud over morality and the law to bemoan or ignore. We anticipate moral luck, i.e., we manage our moral risk, when we take into account the possibility that our actions might result in serious harm to others for which we would be morally responsible, and adjust our conduct accordingly. Moral risk is present in contract both at the stage of contract formation and, later, when we must decide whether to breach or whether to accommodate a request for modification. We negotiate these risks both through collective background institutions that limit the harms we can inflict on others and through the rules of contract law itself, which align our material and moral interests.

Keywords: Contracts, formation, performance, misfortune, breach, risk, outcome responsibility, moral responsibility, culpability, inequality, modification

Suggested Citation

Bagchi, Aditi, Managing Moral Risk: The Case of Contract. Columbia Law Review, Vol. 111, p. 1878, 2011, U of Penn, Inst for Law & Econ Research Paper No. 11-11, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1799386

Aditi Bagchi (Contact Author)

Fordham University School of Law ( email )

140 West 62nd Street
New York, NY 10023
United States

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