Relational Justice

Relational Justice proposes a wholesale renovation of private law. Familiar theories remain caught between two equal but opposite vices: a quietist commitment to restoring the status quo; and flat-footed reduction of private law into a tool of public justice. Now Dagan and Dorfman argue that law should help people to establish reciprocal respect for self-determination and substantive equality, one private relationship at a time. They then apply this overarching insight to reconstruct all of private law doctrine, across both conventional topics-including remedies, negligence, and good faith-and unconventional ones-including poverty, discrimination, and even workplace safety. This is a hugely creative and ambitious book. * Daniel Markovits, Guido Calabresi Professor of Law, Yale Law School *
The limelight of legal scholarship seems to be focussing once again on the significance of private law within a wider political economy, drawing as much on ethical-relational exploration of care or human rights as on recent moves in the opposite direction of neo-formalism. Dagan and Dorfman's ambitious and fascinating book joins forces with the former, standing out however by its unusual plea for the responsibility of private law theory to make explicit private law's core normative commitments in respect of pre-distributional, structural justice towards the poor, the marginalised, the foreign. Interestingly in this latter respect, their argument also resonates with current attempts on the private international scene to engage responsibly with natural and cultural alterity in legal terms. * Horatia Muir Watt, Professor of Law, Sciences Po Law School (Paris) *
Relational Justice delivers on its sweeping promise to offer a unifying theory of private law. It does so by examining fundamental questions about how citizens in a liberal state should treat one another, and then linking its theoretical conclusions with concrete examples of the how the state can provide the legal framework for just interpersonal relationships. The project is animated by a sense of deep moral urgency, and the theory that Dagan and Dorfman offer should indeed help advance help the moral imperatives to which they respond. * Aditi Bagchi, Wilkinson Professor of Law, Fordham University *
Going against the grain of fragmentation and relativism in contemporary private law and its theory, Dagan and Dorfman offer a comprehensive account with universal vocation of how the law should contribute to just interpersonal relations. This is grand theory at its best. * Martijn Hesselink, Professor of Transnational Law and Theory, European University Institute *
Relational Justice makes a fundamental contribution towards shifting the dominant theory of private law scholarship away from the view that private law is all about wealth and consequences and towards the view that private law is about what we owe to one another in some of our most important interpersonal relationships. Relational Justice bills itself as a theory of private law but, in a tribute to the fertility of the conception it advances, the book ranges beyond private law to illuminate legal domains as diverse as discrimination and workplace safety. By synthesizing and extending a decade's worth of influential scholarship, Relational Justice makes clear the richness, the range, and the perceptiveness of Dagan's and Dorfman's theory of private law. * Gregory C. Keating, William T. Dalessi Professor of Law and Philosophy, USC Gould School of Law *
If you think that the ideas of self-determination and substantive equality are too abstract or malleable to support a unifying account of private law, Relational Justice is the best attempt to convince you otherwise. No other work in private law theory treats those ideas in so deep, insightful and carefully balanced manner, or derives more practical mileage from them. As the culmination of Dagan and Dorfman's pioneering research, this book is both a major reference point and the seed for fruitful new lines of thought. * Emmanuel Voyiakis, Professor of Law, LSE Law School *
In this important book, Dagan and Dorfman argue that private law, at its core, is not about markets or power, but about relational justice. Private law in theory and practice enables individuals to organize their horizontal relations with one another, unburdened by the demands of collective politics. The book is a must read for anybody who wishes to construct a just order from the deeply fractured order of capitalism. * Katharina Pistor, Edwin B. Parker Professor of Comparative Law, Columbia Law School *
The book is a breakthrough achievement, first for showing the sheer need for some sort of theory of justice that might make our private law intelligible, and then for proposing one. The theory of relational justice the authors propose is morally attractive, and the proposed reforms they claim it requires are provocative, well-reasoned, and attainable. Their account will convince many, and will move others who may not be convinced by the theoryâs particulars to propose alternatives. The result will be a conversation which is long overdue. * Robin West, Professor of Law, Emerita, Georgetown University Law Center *
Dagan and Dorfman present a conceptually coherent vision of private law arguing that it should, and to a significant degree already does, abide by the fundamental maxim of reciprocal respect for self-determination and substantive equality. This is the best book we have, not just on the distinctive significance and core intellectual principles of private law, but on its heart and soul. * Thomas Gutmann, Chair for Private Law and Legal Philosophy, University of Muenster *