Working group Call and Response? The Joint Evolution of Liberalism and Modern Contract Add to calendar 2023-10-06 16:00 2023-10-06 18:00 Europe/Rome Call and Response? The Joint Evolution of Liberalism and Modern Contract Sala del Camino Villa Salviati - Castle YYYY-MM-DD Print Share: Share on Facebook Share on BlueSky Share on X Share on LinkedIn Send by email Scheduled dates Oct 06 2023 16:00 - 18:00 CEST Sala del Camino, Villa Salviati - Castle Organised by Department of Law The EUI European Private Law Working Group hosts its inaugural event for the academic year, featuring Professor Aditi Bagchi (Fordham University). In this examination of the normative foundations of contract, Professor Bagchi will draw a parallel between the evolution of contract theory and of liberal thought. As liberal theory moved in stages from an initial emphasis on negative freedom to a contemporary focus on the demands of robust moral equality, contract theory in the common law moved, also in stages, from a focus on the power of individual will to a new focus on the morality of exchange. "Contract as exchange" calls attention to the substantive benefits that parties receive from contract. While some resist substantive transactional regulation on ostensibly liberal grounds, contract as exchange is a liberal account—indeed, more genuinely liberal than its predecessors—even though its main thrust is in some respects diametrically opposite to that of the principle of negative freedom we associate with early modern theories of contract. Related events