Contract, Culture, Compulsion, or: What Is So Problematic in the Application of Objective Standards in Contract Law?

Abstract

This article examines the role culture plays in contract law. It demonstrates that even in contract law, the branch of law most committed to the ideal of individual autonomy, law’s reliance on culture makes compulsion by the law an unavoidable outcome. The concept of culture is applied to contract law in two principal ways. First, it attempts to explain the rise of objectivism in late nineteenth-century contract law as a manifestation of some central experiences prevalent in modern culture. Second, it analyzes the role played by culture within the context of some of the central doctrines of contract law, namely, the doctrines on the formation and interpretation of contracts.