Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

The Constitutional Dimension of Contract Law pp 289–322Cite as

Reflections on the Pactum in the Public and Private Spheres

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Abstract

This chapter delves into the nature of the pactum as both substantial and functional bond, as well as mythical canon of any contractual-constituting initiative in the public and private spheres. The aim is to show that the movement toward the conceptualisation of good faith as an organising principle and implied term in the Common law tradition is due to the need to counterbalance our inhuman condition as made manifest by the humanitarian façade of the modern constitutional project. This claim is supported by an unconventional method of investigation that will promote the comparison between the role of political action at the public level and the increasing utilisation of the doctrine of good faith in Contract law theory and practice.

This chapter is based on a paper presented at the Annual Conference of the UK Branch of the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (IVR), held at the School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast, on 23 October 2015. The theme of the conference was Public/Private: Unlocking the Boundaries of Legal Thought. I wish to thank all those who provided me with valuable suggestions. I am particularly grateful to Oscar Roos for constructive comments on an earlier draft. Errors are mine only.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Siliquini-Cinelli and Hutchison (2016).

  2. 2.

    On the importance of having a philosophical approach to comparative law, see Ewald (1995). See also Samuel (1998).

  3. 3.

    Supiot (2007), p. 83.

  4. 4.

    Ibid., p. 84. See also Collins (1999), pp. 128–147.

  5. 5.

    Supiot (2007), p. 85.

  6. 6.

    Supiot (2007), p. 106.

  7. 7.

    Cotterrell (2008), p. 175. (Emphasis in original).

  8. 8.

    Ibid.

  9. 9.

    Ibid., p. 176.

  10. 10.

    Ibid.

  11. 11.

    My approach to homo oeconomicus is purely philosophical. Given how often the term ‘self-determination’ is used to describe this form of conduct, it is expected that some commentators would not share this view. See Schütte, in this book.

  12. 12.

    Kahn (2008), p. 175. See also Stein (1980), p. 3.

  13. 13.

    Heidegger (1998a), p. 50.

  14. 14.

    Supiot (2007), pp. 79–86.

  15. 15.

    Both terms refer to the belief that governments should educate consumers and build or reform institutions to regulate economic activities according to rational global standards determined by outsiders.

  16. 16.

    I use capital ‘C’ to refer to the Common law as a legal tradition. Common (with an uppercase c) law and common law are two different things: while the former is a legal tradition marked by a number of particular characteristics, the latter refers to only a part of the Common law (and includes elements of both case law and Customary law).

  17. 17.

    [2014] SCC 71 (Supreme Court of Canada) and [2015] IEHC 547 (Irish High Court) respectively. The growing relevance of good faith in the Common law tradition may also be witnessed in the (not linear and at time inconsistent) developments of the subject in England, Australia, New Zealand, and Scotland (a mixed legal jurisdiction). Cf. Lymington Marina Ltd v MacNamara [2007] Bus LR Digest D29 (England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil)); Socimer International Bank Ltd v Standard Bank London Ltd, [2008] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 558 (England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil)); Yam Seng Pte Ltd v International Trade Corporation Ltd, [2013] EWHC 111 QB (England and Wales High Court (Queen’s Bench)); North East Solutions Pty Ltd v Masters Home Improvement Australia Pty Ltd [2016] VSC 1 (Supreme Court of Victoria); Pacioccio v Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited, [2015] FCAFC 50 (Federal Court of Australia); Mineralogy Pty Ltd v Sino Iron Pty Ltd, (No 6) [2015] FCA 825 (Federal Court of Australia); Commonwealth Bank of Australia v Barker [2014] HCA 32 (High Court of Australia); Bobux Marketing Ltd v Raynor Marketing Ltd, [2002] 1 NZLR 506 (Court of Appeal of New Zealand); Smith v Bank of Scotland, [1997] SC (HL) 111 (House of Lords).

    It seems that the courts shared Martijn W. Hesselink’s conviction that ‘common law lawyers should not fear the concept of good faith.’ See Hesselink (2010), p. 648. Contra, arguing that good faith in the performance of contracts ‘is not a concept foreign to the common law’, see Allsop JC’s remarks in United Group Rail Services Ltd v Rail Corporation New South Wales, [2009] NSWCA 177, para 634 [58] (New South Wales Court of Appeal), and in Paciocco v Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited, cited above, para 287. To be compared to Bingham LJ’s statements in Interfoto Picture Library Ltd v StilettoVisual Programmes Ltd [1989] QB 433, paras 439 and 445. See also Lowly and Rawlings (2005), p. 83. See also Carter (2012), p. 22.

    Given the scope of this contribution, in the following pages I will not deal with the content of these judgements, nor with their analytical repercussions. Suffice to say that in Bashin, before awarding to good faith the status of an organising principle ‘in order to make the common law less unsettled and piecemeal, more coherent and more just’ (at [33]), Cromwell J discussed the US scenario and endeavoured in a comparative enterprise among Common law jurisdictions to point out how, from the UK to the Australia, the doctrine of good faith has become increasingly important in recent years. Yet it would be prudent to set the US apart from comparable cases because of its well-known ‘exceptionalism’, which in Contract law assumes the form of the peculiar relationship between the Anglo component of its legal system as a whole and a code (the Uniform Commercial Code) in which, along with the doctrine of fair dealing, the duty to act in good faith is normativised. For a compelling account on the role that good faith and bad faith play in American Public law, see Pozen (2016).

  18. 18.

    It should be clarified at this early stage that, contrary to Arendt, I conceive of the ‘will’ as a vital component of political action.

  19. 19.

    Zumbansen (2012) and Goderis and Versteeg (2015). See Sects. 3 and 4, below.

    Arendt’s insight into the vanishing of (legal and political) authority may be of assistance here. In her words, the loss of authority ‘is tantamount to the loss of the groundwork of the world, which indeed … has begun to shift, to change and transform itself with ever-increasing rapidity from one shape into another … ’. See Arendt (2006a), p. 95. See also ibid. p. 91, and (2006b), pp. 171–206. Yet some commentators might contend that this depends on how the transposition of constitutions to external arenas is historically interpreted. See Frankenberg (2012).

  20. 20.

    Somek (2012), p. 58.

  21. 21.

    Nail (2015), pp. 21–38.

  22. 22.

    Agamben (2012a), p. 40. To be compared to the notion of ‘mercatocracy’ used by Cutler (2003).

  23. 23.

    Negri (2010), p. 217.

  24. 24.

    Supiot (2007), pp. 83 and 103, correctly links the ‘weakening of the State’ brought about by the processes of ‘(re-)territorialization’ to the ideology of ‘contractualism’.

  25. 25.

    The label ‘post-humanist’ refers to the need to protect and promote human values and Fundamental rights through politics and justice whilst at the same time neutralising humanism’s secular exclusions. The increase in inequality brought about by the (allegedly civilising) globalisation of trade is testament to this. See Rosanvallon (2013).

  26. 26.

    Zumbansen (2007).

  27. 27.

    Arendt (1973), p. 139. See also Arendt (2005), pp. 98–99.

  28. 28.

    Ibid.

  29. 29.

    Weiss and Hobson (1995).

  30. 30.

    Gellner (1983).

  31. 31.

    Thornhill (2012).

  32. 32.

    O’Donoghue (2014).

  33. 33.

    Loughlin (2003), pp. 93 and 80, respectively.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., p. 78. From this it inevitably follows that the concept of constitutional pluralism is an oxymoron. See Loughlin (2014).

  35. 35.

    Ibid., p. 83.

  36. 36.

    Tierney (2008), p. 15.

  37. 37.

    Agamben (2011a).

  38. 38.

    Loughlin (2003), p. 95; Loughlin (2008), pp. 56–59. Similar suggestions are made by many. Others argue instead for the possibility of relativising the concept of legitimacy/authority itself. See van der Vossen (2011); Roughan (2011). See also the (2013) 4(3) Issue of Transnational Legal Theory.

  39. 39.

    Loughlin (2015), p. 6. See also Loughlin (2012), p. 282: ‘The modern constitution is … conceived by Hobbes to be a contract entered into by the people to establish a comprehensive framework through which the institutions of government are established and the exercise of their powers regulated’.

  40. 40.

    Arendt (1973), p. 140. On this point, see also Franz Borkenau’s scholarship on Hobbes.

  41. 41.

    Agamben (2016), p. 23. For an introduction, see Liska (2013).

  42. 42.

    Agamben (2011b); see also Agamben (2007a, 2012a, 2013a, 2015).

  43. 43.

    Agamben (1998), pp. 6 and 127. See also ibid. p. 121; Agamben (2016), p. 263, where Agamben seems to contradict himself on the use of the terms ‘natural’ and ‘bare’ life.

  44. 44.

    Arendt (1998), p. 68.

  45. 45.

    Arendt (2006a), p. 147.

  46. 46.

    Ibid. See also ibid. p. 153.

  47. 47.

    Barbour (2013), p. 307. (Emphasis added).

  48. 48.

    Arendt (1998), pp. 28 and 46.

  49. 49.

    Arendt (1998), p. 53. See also Agamben (2005), pp. 95 and 106.

    The table metaphor recalls Heidegger’s (otherwise very different) scholarship on the role of ‘nearness’ in every act of ‘ek-sistence’. In Heidegger’s words, ‘the human being, existing as a transcendence that exceeds in the direction of possibilities, is a creature of distance’. See Heidegger (1998b), p. 135.

  50. 50.

    Agamben (1998), pp. 44–48.

  51. 51.

    Cassirer (1946), pp. 163–75.

  52. 52.

    The founding of dedicated law journals and book series, as well as the launch of new undergraduate and postgraduate courses in transnational and global law worldwide, are testament to this subject’s increasing relevance within legal discourse. For present purposes, in addition to Teubner’s scholarship on post-national societal constitutionalism, see Twining (2009), Kuo (2010), Handl et al. (2012), Dobner and Loughlin (2010), Walker (2012), Krisch (2010), Amhlaigh et al. (2013), Zumbansen (2013) and Helfand (2015). See also the (2008) 6(3)–(4) Special Issues of the International Journal of Constitutional Law on the symposium ‘Constitutionalism in an Era of Globalization and Privatization’, and the interview with Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the New York Times, in which Canada is defined as the ‘first post-national state’, Available at: http://www.nytimes.come/2015/12/13/magazine/trudeaus-canada-again.html?_r=0. Accessed 15 February 2016.

  53. 53.

    MacPherson (1962), pp. 3, 22, 29, and 46.

  54. 54.

    Agamben (1998), p. 105.

  55. 55.

    Arendt (1973), p. 157.

  56. 56.

    Agamben (2011b), pp. 286–287. See also Agamben (2015), pp. 42–69.

  57. 57.

    Agamben (2012b), p. 4.

  58. 58.

    D’Agostini (2014).

  59. 59.

    Husa (2015), Tushnet (2014), Samuel (2014b), Smits (2014), Örücü and Nelken (2007) and Gordley (2006).

  60. 60.

    Adams and Heirbaut (2014), Adams and Bomhoff (2012), Van Hoecke (2011), Van Hoecke (2004), Siems (2014), Monateri (2012) and Clark (2012).

  61. 61.

    Michaels (2015), p. 1.

  62. 62.

    Legrand and Munday (2003), Nelken and Feest (2001) and Nelken (1997).

  63. 63.

    Fletcher (1998), p. 695.

  64. 64.

    In addition to Cotterrell’s (2013), p. 23, scholarship on law ‘as a flexible, but distinctive and unifying, value structure’ with ‘a specific effectivity’, see Bertea (2009) and Croce (2014).

  65. 65.

    de Coninck (2010), p. 348; de Coninck (2012). See also Parisi and Luppi (2012).

  66. 66.

    Benvenisti and Downs (2007) and Zürn and Faude (2013).

  67. 67.

    Donlan (2014).

  68. 68.

    Redgwell (2012) and Siliquini-Cinelli (2014).

  69. 69.

    Pihlajämaki (2014), p. 121.

  70. 70.

    Husa (2014).

  71. 71.

    Örücü (2007), p. 43. A suggestion that seems to be supported by Cotterrell’s (at times ambiguous) belief that Comparative law’s and legal sociology’s ‘most general and most scientific projects—to understand law in its development and its variety as an aspect of social life—are identical’ see Cotterrell (2003), p. 134.

  72. 72.

    Millns (2014), p. 285.

  73. 73.

    Samuel (1998, 2011, 2014a, b).

  74. 74.

    Örücü (2007), p. 58.

  75. 75.

    Twining (2000), p. 45. On comparative law’s limits in overcoming the challenges that globalisation poses to legal scholarship, see Goodwin (2013), pp. 692–694.

  76. 76.

    Smits (2006), p. xvii.

  77. 77.

    Melissaris (2009) and Melissaris (2014).

  78. 78.

    Dedek and Van Praagh (2015), p. xv.

  79. 79.

    Örücü (2007), p. 48.

  80. 80.

    Adams and Bomhoff (2012), p. 4.

  81. 81.

    Cotterrell (2008), pp. 308 and 43 respectively (emphases added). See also Cotterrell (2012).

  82. 82.

    Kahn (2010), p. 175, according to whom ‘[r]eason is not self-defining’. See also Kahn (2008).

  83. 83.

    Although in a different way, Heidegger put forward this argument throughout his scholarship. See paragraphs 12–13 of Being and Time, as well as On the Essence of Truth, Letter on Humanism, The Thing, The Age of World Picture, Introduction to Metaphysics, What is Called Thinking?, Identity and Difference, Discourse on Thinking, The Nature of Language, The Question Concerning Technology, and Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics.

  84. 84.

    Heidegger (2008), p. 88. See also ibid., p. 237.

  85. 85.

    Heidegger (2014), p. 24. See also ibid., pp. 15, 23–24, 33, 49, and 189.

  86. 86.

    Cassirer (1944), p. 208. See also ibid., pp. 29, 34, 60, and 73.

  87. 87.

    Cassirer (1955b), p. xvi (emphasis added). See also Cassirer (1955a), pp. 89, 107, 111, and 114; Cassirer (1957), p. xiii.

  88. 88.

    Cassirer (1957), p. 47. Cotterrell’s notion of ‘cognitive experience’ is in line with this form of perceptive knowledge.

  89. 89.

    Cassirer (1946), p. 45.

  90. 90.

    See, in particular, Cassirer (1996), pp. 194–200.

  91. 91.

    Cassirer (2000), p. 102.

  92. 92.

    Cassirer (1944), p. 57 and Cassirer (1957), p. 1.

  93. 93.

    Cassirer (1996), p. 193.

  94. 94.

    Cassirer (1946), p. 45.

  95. 95.

    Cassirer (1944), p. 57.

  96. 96.

    Cassirer (1996), p. 217; Cassirer (1944), p. 57.

  97. 97.

    Cassirer (1996), p. 217.

  98. 98.

    Cassirer (1955a), p. 73.

  99. 99.

    Agamben (2007b), p. 18.

  100. 100.

    Ibid. p. 20. Cassirer also writes that ‘[i]n the objective content of science individual features are forgotten and effaced, for one of the principal aims of scientific thought is the elimination of all personal and anthropomorphic elements. See Cassirer (1944), pp. 1–22, 207–221, and 228.

  101. 101.

    Ibid., p. 121.

  102. 102.

    Agamben (2011b), pp. 122 and 141. Similarly, Marramao (2005, 2007, 2013) places the voiding of experience at the centre of modern secularisation.

  103. 103.

    Agamben (2007b), p. 22.

  104. 104.

    Cassirer (1944), pp. 21 and 13 respectively.

  105. 105.

    Agamben (2007b), p. 21.

  106. 106.

    Ibid., p. 20.

  107. 107.

    Cassirer (1955b), p. 44.

  108. 108.

    Cassirer (1944), pp. 222–228, at 228; see also Cassirer (2000).

  109. 109.

    Cassirer (1944), p. 207.

  110. 110.

    Cassirer (1955b), pp. 30–33.

  111. 111.

    Arendt (2006b), pp. 156–170. To Arendt, political action can only be such through collective experience. See also Arendt (2005), p. 127.

  112. 112.

    For two recent accounts, see Galimberti (2016), p. 442; Wootton (2016), pp. 286–299.

  113. 113.

    Pocock (1989), p. 165. The ‘knowledge-experience’ antithesis is particularly emphasised in Behemoth as well (1990), pp. xvi–xviii.

  114. 114.

    Pocock (1989), p. 165. See also ibid., pp. 165–66.

  115. 115.

    Hobbes (1998), p. 116. See also Hobbes (1990), pp. 42 and 58; Hobbes (2009), ch. 17 and 29.

  116. 116.

    See what Holmes argues in his Introduction to Hobbes' Behemoth (1990), p. xi.

  117. 117.

    On this point, see Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals and Benjamin’s Capitalism as Religion.

  118. 118.

    Krisch (2010), p. 18.

  119. 119.

    Pocock (1989), p. 166.

  120. 120.

    In different terms, see Schiavone (2012), pp. 123–125.

  121. 121.

    Legenre (2009), p. 41. See also Supiot (2007), p. 31.

  122. 122.

    Arendt (1973), p. 149.

  123. 123.

    Ibid., p. 139.

  124. 124.

    Ibid., p. 126.

  125. 125.

    Arendt (1998), pp. 139 and 299–300.

  126. 126.

    Schmitt (2007), p. 19.

  127. 127.

    Cf. Art. 1337 Civil code.

  128. 128.

    See, respectively, Culpa in Contrahendo der Schadensersatz bei nichtigen oder nicht zur Perfection gelangten Verträgen, in Jahrbücher für die Dogmatik des heutigen röminschen und deutschen Privatrechts, IV.1; Dei Periodi Precontrattuali e della loro vera ed esatta costruzione scientifica, in Studi Giuridici in Onore di Carlo Fadda, III, 271. In particular, Fagella showed the importance of distinguishing three different periods of good faith (the period before any offer has been drafted; the period during which an offer is drafted; the period when the offer has been made). Cf. Saleilles (1907).

  129. 129.

    Betti (1953), p. 90.

  130. 130.

    Hamson (1938), p. 234.

  131. 131.

    Supiot (2007), p. 103.

  132. 132.

    Cf. Schiavone (2012), pp. 145–153 and 221–224.

  133. 133.

    On this point, see George Williams’ scholarship on Human Rights protection.

  134. 134.

    In Pacioccio v Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited, quoted above, Allsop CJ described good faith as a ‘normative standard’ and further maintained that ‘it is a good example of the presence of values in the common law’, at paras 290 and 287 respectively. His Honour also described good faith ‘as an implication or feature of Australian contract law attending the performance of the bargain and its construction and implied content’, at para 287. The lead on this issue was taken in the early 1990s by the New South Wales Court of Appeal, followed by the Victorian Court of Appeal and the Federal Court. The debate about the existence of an implied contractual obligation of good faith tends to be accompanied by that about the effective purview of its content (i.e., reasonableness, fair dealing, etc.) and the existence of fiduciary obligations. Recently, cf. Mineralogy Pty Ltd v Sino Iron Pty Ltd (No 6), [2015] FCA 825 (Federal Court of Australia), paras 998–1019.

  135. 135.

    Teubner (1998), p. 11. To be compared with the more recent developments quoted at the beginning of this chapter.

  136. 136.

    Costigan and Thomas (2005), p. 51. But see also du Bois’ contribution to this book, arguing the Human Rights Act has had very little impact thus far on the law of contract.

  137. 137.

    Agamben (2005); Agamben (2011b), pp. 15–29; Agamben (2016), p. 23.

  138. 138.

    Cassirer (2000), p. 3.

  139. 139.

    Heidegger (2012), p. 31; Heidegger (2008), pp. 283–284.

  140. 140.

    Cassirer (1955b), p. 3.

  141. 141.

    Ibid., p. 48. (Emphasis added).

  142. 142.

    Ibid., p. 85. (Emphasis added).

  143. 143.

    Agamben (2011b), p. 27. (Emphasis added).

  144. 144.

    Straume and Humphrey (2011).

  145. 145.

    Ibid., p. 72.

  146. 146.

    Kant (1997), p. 54.

  147. 147.

    Besson (2013), p. 341.

  148. 148.

    Ibid., p. 345.

  149. 149.

    Ibid.

  150. 150.

    Ibid., p. 346. (Emphasis added).

  151. 151.

    Kahn (2012), p. 127.

  152. 152.

    Arendt (2003), pp. 68 and 70–72.

  153. 153.

    Arendt (1978), p. 63.

  154. 154.

    Kahn (2010), p. 59.

  155. 155.

    Agamben (2013b), p. 121. See also Agamben (2013b) and Agamben (2011b).

  156. 156.

    Agamben (2013b), p. 114.

  157. 157.

    Ibid., p. 118.

  158. 158.

    Ibid., p. 129.

  159. 159.

    See Caputo (2001), pp. 42–43: what we are standing before here is the ‘“thinking thing” fully in charge of its potencies and possibilities, surveying the contents of its mind to sort out which among them represents something objective out there in the external world and which should be written off as merely internal and subjective’ (emphases added). Cf. Arendt (1978), p. 86.

  160. 160.

    Agamben (2013b), p. 114.

  161. 161.

    The inequality of bargaining power and the fact that commercial interests do not necessarily need to be sacrificed on the altar of good faith are of course different issues from those discussed here. As Consumer law and unconscionable conduct regimes, broadly understood, make clear, what is relevant in the courtroom is the modality through which this power is exercised and the reasons why it is exercised that way.

  162. 162.

    Besson (2013), p. 346.

  163. 163.

    Joo (2013), p. 64.

  164. 164.

    The use of Heidegger at this stage of our inquiry requires prudence because of his commitment to fighting the metaphysical tradition of subjectivity which, as set out in Besinnung, he believed culminated in the ‘modern historical animal’. Yet in The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, Heidegger clearly distinguished between human comportment as acting and doing, and animal behaviour as a disinhibited, captivated form of conduct, which confirms the appropriateness of his scholarship for the purposes of our discussion. Attention should also be paid to Heidegger’s peculiar use of the ‘will’ in the lectures on Nietzsche that he gave between 1936 and 1940, that is, in the years of his much-discussed ‘reversal’. I particularly refer to the first and second Volumes of Nietzsche, in which Heidegger’s decisionism is prominent, as it is in his lectures and writings of the 1940s such as Basic Concepts. More specifically, to Heidegger, decision (Entscheidung) is the fundamental act of self-appropriation (Selbstbehauptung). Thinking, which becomes the central topic of Heidegger’s later works, is the most powerful expression of this event (Ereignis) as he himself describes it. Finally, the role that Heidegger gives to the ‘decisive essence of willing’ towards our ‘open resoluteness’ in his Introduction to Metaphysics, published in 1953, is in line with that which he expounded in Being and Time, published in 1927. His admiration for Paul, the founder of the faculty of the will, is therefore less surprising than it might first appear.

  165. 165.

    Heidegger (2008), pp. 163, 175, 232 and 238–39. See also ibid. pp. 40, 237, 386, and 470. Agamben has recently contended that ‘[t]o the primacy [that Heidegger confers on] care over use corresponds, in the second division of [Being and Time], the primacy of temporality over spatiality’. If that is the case, it would prove worthwhile to ascertain whether the contractual notion of good faith shares some elements—and if so, which ones, why, and to what extent—with Heidegger’s conception of care as ‘the fundamental structure of Dasein’. See Agamben (2016), pp. 43 and 38 respectively.

  166. 166.

    Heidegger (2008), pp. 372, 236, and 386.

  167. 167.

    ‘Kant’s blindness’, Agamben writes, ‘is not to have seen that, in the society that was arising with the industrial revolution, in which human beings had been subjected to forces that they could not in any way control, the morality of duty would habituate them to consider obedience to a command … an act of freedom’. See Agamben (2013b), p. 123.

  168. 168.

    Agamben (1999), p. 135.

  169. 169.

    Agamben (2013b), p. 124. Agamben clarifies that even though Kant ‘believed himself to have secured … the possibility of metaphysics and to have founded, at the same time, an ethics that was neither juridical nor religious[, his] ontology is in truth an ontology of command [in which] the guarantee of the effectiveness of duty is … the law’. See Agamben (2013b), pp. 122, 123, and 112 respectively. See also Agamben (2004), pp. 49–92.

  170. 170.

    Agamben’s quotation of Arendt’s evaluation of Kant’s influence over Eichmann’s behaviour is fundamental. See Agamben (2013b), p. 123. Cf. also Heidegger (1995), pp. 232 and 240, where human comportment is defined as ‘acting and doing’, and animal behaviour as ‘being driven forward’ by stimuli that captivate the subject’s existence.

  171. 171.

    Caputo (2001), p. 49.

  172. 172.

    Cf. Kymlicka (2002), p. 209; Arendt (2003), pp. 70–72.

  173. 173.

    Bernd (2015).

  174. 174.

    Kelsen (1957), p. 215.

References

  • Adams M, Bomhoff J (eds) (2012) Practice and theory in comparative law. CUP, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Adams M, Heirbaut D (eds) (2014) The method and culture of comparative law. Hart Publishing, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Agamben G ([1995] 1998) Homo sacer. Sovereign power and bare life. Heller-Roazen D trans. SUP, Stanford

    Google Scholar 

  • Agamben G (1999) *Se: Hegel’s absolute and Heidegger’s Ereignis. In: Potentialities. Hellen-Roazen D trans. SUP, Stanford, pp 116–137

    Google Scholar 

  • Agamben G ([2002] 2004) The open. Man and animal. Attell K trans. SUP, Stanford

    Google Scholar 

  • Agamben G ([2000] 2005) The time that remains. A comment on the Letter to the Romans. Daily P trans. SUP, Stanford

    Google Scholar 

  • Agamben G ([1978] 2007a) Infancy and history. Heron L trans. Verso, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Agamben G ([2005] 2007b) Profanations. Fort J trans. Zone Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Agamben G ([2007] 2011a) The kingdom and the glory. For a theological genealogy of economy and government. Chiesa L, Mandarini M trans. SUP, Stanford

    Google Scholar 

  • Agamben G ([2008] 2011b) The sacrament of language. An archaeology of the oath. Kotso A trans. SUP, Stanford

    Google Scholar 

  • Agamben G ([2009] 2012a) Introductory note on the concept of democracy. In: Democracy in what state? Columbia University Press, New York, pp 1–5

    Google Scholar 

  • Agamben G ([2010] 2012b) The church and the kingdom. de la Durantaye L trans. Seagull, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Agamben G ([2011] 2013a) The highest poverty. Monastic rules and form-of-life. Kotso A trans. SUP, Stanford

    Google Scholar 

  • Agamben G ([2012] 2013b) Opus dei. An archaeology of duty. Kotso A trans. SUP, Stanford

    Google Scholar 

  • Agamben G (2015) Stasis. Civil war as a political paradigm. Heron N trans. SUP, Stanford

    Google Scholar 

  • Agamben G ([2014] 2016) The use of bodies. Kotso A trans. SUP, Stanford

    Google Scholar 

  • Amhlaigh CM, Michelon C, Walker N (eds) (2013) After public law. OUP, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Arendt H (1973) The origins of totalitarianism. Harvest Book, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Arendt H (1978) The life of the Mind, vol II. Harvest Book, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Arendt H (1998) The human condition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Arendt H (2003) Some questions of moral philosophy. In: Kohn J (ed) Responsibility and judgement. Shocken Books, New York, pp 49–146

    Google Scholar 

  • Arendt H (2005) Introduction into politics. In: Kohn J (ed) The promise of politics. Shocken Books, New York, pp 93–100

    Google Scholar 

  • Arendt H (2006a) Between past and future. Penguin Classic, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Arendt H (2006b) On revolution. Penguin Classic, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Betti E (1953) Teoria generale delle obbligazioni I. Giuffrè, Milano

    Google Scholar 

  • Benvenisti E, Downs GW (2007) The empire’s new clothes: political economy and the fragmentation of international law. SLR 60:595–631

    Google Scholar 

  • Barbour C (2013) Between politics and law: Hannah Arendt and the subjects of rights. In: Goldoni M, McCorkindale C (eds) Hannah Arendt and the law. Hart Publishing, Oxford, pp 307–319

    Google Scholar 

  • Bernd L (2015) Sympathy for the devil(s)? Personality and legal coercion in Kant’s Doctrine of Law. Jurisprudence 6(1):25–46

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bertea S (2009) The normative claim of law. Hart Publishing, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Besson S (2013) The right to have rights: from human rights to citizens’ rights and back. In: Goldoni M, McCorkindale C (eds) Hannah Arendt and the law. Hart Publishing, Oxford, pp 335–355

    Google Scholar 

  • Caputo JD (2001) On religion. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Carter JW (2012) Contract law in Australia, 6th edn. LexisNexis, Chatswood

    Google Scholar 

  • Cassirer E (1944) An essay on man. YUP, New Haven

    Google Scholar 

  • Cassirer E (1946) The myth of the state. YUP, New Haven

    Google Scholar 

  • Cassirer E ([1923] 1955a) The philosophy of symbolic forms, vol I. Manheim R trans. YUP, New Haven

    Google Scholar 

  • Cassirer E ([1925] 1955b) The philosophy of symbolic forms, vol II. Manheim R trans. YUP, New Haven

    Google Scholar 

  • Cassirer E ([1929] 1957) The philosophy of symbolic forms, vol III. Manheim R trans. YUP, New Haven

    Google Scholar 

  • Cassirer E ([1928] 1996) The philosophy of symbolic forms, vol. IV. Kros JM trans. YUP, New Haven

    Google Scholar 

  • Cassirer E ([1942] 2000) The logic of the cultural sciences. Lofts SG trans. YUP, New Haven

    Google Scholar 

  • Claire Cutler A (2003) Private power and global authority. CUP, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Clark DS (ed) (2012) Comparative law and society. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham

    Google Scholar 

  • Collins H (1999) Regulating contracts. OUP, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Coninck J (2010) The functional method of comparative law. Quo vadis? RabelsZ 74:318–350

    Google Scholar 

  • Coninck J (2012) Comparisons in private patrimonial law: towards a bottom-up approach using (cross-cultural) behavioural economics. In: Adams M, Bomhoff J (eds) Practice and theory in comparative law. CUP, Cambridge, pp 258–278

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Costigan R, Thomas PA (2005) The human rights act: a view from below. J Law Soc 32(1):51–67

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cotterrell R (2003) Comparatists and sociology. In: Legrand P, Munday R (eds) Comparative legal studies. Traditions and Transitions. CUP, Cambridge, pp 131–153

    Google Scholar 

  • Cotterrell R (2008) Living law. Ashgate, Aldershot

    Google Scholar 

  • Cotterrell R (2012) Comparative sociology of law. In: Clark DS (ed) Comparative law and society. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, pp 39–60

    Google Scholar 

  • Cotterrell R (2013) The jurist’s conscience: reflections around Radbruch. In: Del Mar M, Michelon C (eds) The anxiety of the jurist. Ashgate, Aldershot, pp 13–26

    Google Scholar 

  • Croce M (2014) Is law a special domain? In: Donlan SP, Heckendorn Urscheler L (eds) Concepts of law. Ashgate, Aldershot, pp 153–168

    Google Scholar 

  • D’Agostini F (2014) Realismo? Una questione non controversa. Bollati Boringhieri, Turin

    Google Scholar 

  • Dedek H, Praagh S (eds) (2015) Stateless law. Evolving boundaries of a discipline. Ashgate, Aldershot

    Google Scholar 

  • Dobner P, Loughlin M (eds) (2010) The twilight of constitutionalism? OUP, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Donlan SP (2014) World is crazier and more of it than we think: reflections on legal-comparative methodologies. University of Limerick. Available at https://media.heanet.ie/page/4471ea6688e5121d813dcf4be700c021The

  • Ewald W (1995) Comparative jurisprudence (I): what is like to try a rat? Univ Penn Law Rev 143:1889–2149

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fletcher GP (1998) Comparative law as a subversive discipline. AJCL 49:683–700

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frankenberg G (2012) Constitutions in transfer–territoriality and extra-territoriality. In: Handl G, Zekoll J, Zumbansen P (eds) Beyond territoriality: transnational legal authority in an age of globalization. Brill, Leiden, pp 261–294

    Google Scholar 

  • Galimberti U ([1999] 2016) Psiche e techne. L’uomo nell’età della tecnica. Feltrinelli, Milan

    Google Scholar 

  • Gellner E (1983) Nations and nationalism. Basil Blackwell, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Goderis B, Versteeg M (2015) Transnational constitutionalism: a conceptual framework. In: Galligan DJ, Vertseeg M (eds) Social and political foundations of constitutions. CUP, Cambridge, pp 103–133

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodwin M (2013) Embracing the challenge: legal scholarship in a global era. TLT 4(4):686–699

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gordley J (2006) An introduction to the comparative study of private law. CUP, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamson CJ (1938) The reform consideration. LQR 54:233–257

    Google Scholar 

  • Handl G, Zekoll J and Zumbansen P (eds) (2012) Beyond territoriality: transnational legal authority in an age of globalization. Brill, Leiden

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidegger M ([1983] 1995) The fundamental concepts of metaphysics: world, finitude, solitude. McNeill W, Walker N trans. IU Press, Indianapolis

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidegger M (1998a) On the essence of ground. In: McNeill W (ed) Pathmarks. CUP, Cambridge

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Heidegger M ([1982] 1998b) Parmenides. Schuwer A, Rojcewiz R trans. IU Press, Indianapolis

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidegger M ([1927] 2008) Being and time. MacQuarrie J, Robinson E trans. Harper, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidegger M ([1977] 2012) Four seminars. Mitchell A, Raffoul F trans. IU Press, Indianapolis

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidegger M ([1953] 2014) Introduction to metaphysics. Fried G, Polt R trans. (eds) YUP, New Haven

    Google Scholar 

  • Helfand MA (ed) (2015) Negotiating state and non-state law. The challenge of global and local legal pluralism. CUP, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Hesselink MW (2010) The concept of good faith. In: Hartkamp AS et al (eds) Towards a European civil code. Kluwer Law International, Alphaen aan den Rijn, pp 619–649

    Google Scholar 

  • Hobbes T ([1642] 1998) In: Thuck R, Silverthorne M (eds) On the citizen. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Hobbes T ([1651] 2009) In: Gaskin JCA (ed) Leviathan. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Hobbes T ([1681] 1990) Behemoth or the long parliament. Tönnies F ed. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Husa J (2014) Interdisciplinary comparative law – between Scylla and Charybdis? J Comp Law 9(1):28–42

    Google Scholar 

  • Husa J (2015) A new introduction to comparative law. Hart Publishing, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Joo TW (2013) Contracts, courts, and the construction of consent. In: DiMatteo LA et al (eds) Commercial contract law. CUP, Cambridge, pp 41–66

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Kahn PW (2008) Putting liberalism in its place. Princeton, PUP

    Google Scholar 

  • Kahn PW ([2007] 2010) Out of Eden. Adam and Eve and the problem of evil. PUP, Princeton

    Google Scholar 

  • Kahn PW (2012) Political theology. Four new chapters on the concept of sovereignty. Columbia University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Kant I ([1785] 1997) Foundations of the metaphysics of morals. Beck LW trans. Library of Liberal Arts

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelsen H (1957) Value judgements in the science of law. In: Kelsen H (ed) What is justice? Justice, law and politics in the mirror of science. UC Press, Los Angeles/London, pp 209–230

    Google Scholar 

  • Krisch N (2010) Beyond constitutionalism. The pluralist structure of postnational law. OUP, Oxford

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kuo M-S (2010) The end of constitutionalism as we know it? Boundaries and the state of global constitutional (dis)ordering. TLT 1(3):329–369

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kymlicka W (2002) Contemporary political philosophy: an introduction. OUP, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Legenre, P ([2004] 2009) L’Occidente Invisible. Paolo Heritier trans. Medusa Edizioni, Milan

    Google Scholar 

  • Legrand P, Munday R (eds) (2003) Comparative legal studies. Traditions and transitions. CUP, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Liska V (2013) A lawless legacy: Hannah Arendt and Giorgio Agamben. In: Goldoni M, McCorkindale C (eds) Hannah Arendt and the law. Hart Publishing, Oxford, pp 89–97

    Google Scholar 

  • Loughlin M (2003) The idea of public law. CUP, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Loughlin M (2008) Reflections on the idea of public law. In: Christodoulidis E, Tierney S (eds) Public law and politics. Ashgate, Aldershot, pp 47–65

    Google Scholar 

  • Loughlin M (2012) The foundations of public law. CUP, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Loughlin M (2014) Constitutional pluralism: an oxymoron? GC 3(1):9–30

    Google Scholar 

  • Loughlin M (2015) The constitutional imagination. MLR 78(1):1–25

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lowry J, Rawlings P (2005) Insurers, claims and the boundaries of good faith. MLR 68(1):82–110

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MacPherson CB (1962) The political theory of possessive individualism. OUP, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Marramao G (2005) Potere e secolarizzazione. Le categorie del tempo. Bollati Boringhieri, Turin

    Google Scholar 

  • Marramao G ([1992] 2007) Kairós. Towards and ontology of “Due Time”. Trans. Larrey P., Cattaneo, S. trans. The Davis Group, Aurora

    Google Scholar 

  • Marramao G (2013) Dopo il Leviatano. Individuo e comunità. Bollati Boringhieri, Turin

    Google Scholar 

  • Melissaris E (2009) Ubiquitous law. Legal theory and the space for legal pluralism. Ashgate, Aldershot

    Google Scholar 

  • Melissaris E (2014) A sense of law: on shared normative experiences. In: Donlan SP, Heckendorn Urscheler L (eds) Concepts of law. Ashgate, Aldershot, pp 109–122

    Google Scholar 

  • Michaels R (2015) Transnationalizing comparative law. MJECL 12(2)

    Google Scholar 

  • Millns S (2014) Making the case for European comparative legal studies in public law. In: Adams M, Heirbaut D (eds) The method and culture of comparative law. Hart Publishing, Oxford, pp 283–300

    Google Scholar 

  • Monateri PG (ed) (2012) Methods of comparative law. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham

    Google Scholar 

  • Nail T (2015) The figure of the migrant. SUP, Stanford

    Google Scholar 

  • Negri A (2010) Sovereignty between government, exception and governance. In: Kalmo H, Skinner Q (eds) Sovereignty in fragments. The past, present and future of a contested concept. CUP, Cambridge, pp 205–221

    Google Scholar 

  • Nelken D (ed) (1997) Comparing legal cultures. Dartmouth, Aldershot

    Google Scholar 

  • Nelken D, Feest J (eds) (2001) Adapting legal cultures. Hart Publishing, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Donoghue A (2014) Constitutionalism in global constitutionalisation. CUP, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Örücü S (2007) Developing comparative law. In: Örücü E, Nelken D (eds) Comparative law. Hart Publishing, Oxford, pp 43–65

    Google Scholar 

  • Örücü E, Nelken D (eds) (2007) Comparative law. A handbook. Hart Publishing, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Parisi F, Luppi B (2012) Comparative law and economics: accounting for social norms. In: Clark DS (ed) Comparative law and society. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, pp 92–104

    Google Scholar 

  • Pihlajämaki H (2014) Comparative context in legal history: are we all comparatists now? In: Adams M, Heirbaut D (eds) The method and culture of comparative law. Hart Publishing, Oxford, pp 121–132

    Google Scholar 

  • Pocock JGA ([1971] 1989) Politics, language and time. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Pozen D (2016) Constitutional bad faith. HLR 129(4):886–955

    Google Scholar 

  • Redgwell C (2012) 60 years of comparative law scholarship in the International and Comparative Law Quarterly. Int Comput Law Quart 61(1):1–26

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosanvallon P (2013) The society of equals. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Roughan N (2011) The relative authority of law: a contribution to “pluralist jurisprudence”. In: Del Mar M (ed) New waves in philosophy of law. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, pp 254–277

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Saleilles R (1907) De la responsabilité précontractuelle; à propos d’une etude nouvelle sur la matière, RTD civ. 697

    Google Scholar 

  • Samuel G (1998) Comparative law and jurisprudence. Int Comp Law Quart 47(4):817–836

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Samuel G (2011) Does one need an understanding of methodology in law before one can understand methodology in comparative law? In: Van Hoecke M (ed) Methodologies of legal research. Hart Publishing, Oxford, pp 177–207

    Google Scholar 

  • Samuel G (2014a) An introduction to comparative law method and theory. Hart Publishing, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Samuel G (2014b) What is legal epistemology? In: Adams M, Heirbaut D (eds) The method and culture of comparative law. Hart Publishing, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Schiavone A ([2005] 2012) The invention of law in the west. Carden J, Shugaar A trans. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Schmitt C ([1932] 2007) The concept of the political. George Swab trans. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Siems M (2014) Comparative law. CUP, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Siliquini-Cinelli L (2014) Imago veritas falsa: for a (post-) Schmittian decisionist theory of law, legal reasoning and judging. Aust J Leg Philos 39:118–139

    Google Scholar 

  • Siliquini-Cinelli L, Hutchison A (2016) Constitutionalism, good faith and the doctrine of specific performance: rights, duties and equitable discretion. SALJ 133(1):73–101

    Google Scholar 

  • Smits J (2006) Preface. In: Elgar encyclopedia of comparative law. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham

    Google Scholar 

  • Smits J (2014) Contract law. A comparative introduction. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham

    Google Scholar 

  • Somek A (2012) Constituent power in national and transnational contexts. TLT 3(1):31–60

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stein P (1980) Legal evolution. The story of an idea. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Straume IS, Humphrey JF (eds) (2011) Depoliticization. The political imaginary of global capitalism. NSU Press, Malmo

    Google Scholar 

  • Supiot A ([2005] 2007) Homo juridicus. On the anthropological function of the law. Brown S trans. Verso, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Teubner G (1998) Legal irritants: good faith in British law or how unifying law ends up in new divergences. MLR 61(1):11–32

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thornhill C (2012) National sovereignty and the constitution of transnational law: a sociological approach. TLT 3(4):393–460

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tierney S (2008) Sovereignty and the idea of public law. In: Christodoulidis E, Tierney S (eds) Public law and politics. Ashgate, Aldershot, pp 15–25

    Google Scholar 

  • Tushnet M (2014) Advanced introduction to comparative constitutional law. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham

    Google Scholar 

  • Twining W (2000) Globalization and legal theory. Butterworths, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Twining W (2009) General jurisprudence. Understanding law from a global perspective. CUP, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • van Der Vossen B (2011) Legitimacy and multi-level governance. In: Del Mar M (ed) New waves in philosophy of law. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, pp 233–253

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Hoecke M (ed) (2004) Epistemology and methodology in comparative law. Hart Publishing, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Hoecke M (ed) (2011) Methodologies of legal research. Hart Publishing, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Walker N (2012) Postnational constitutionalism and postnational public law: a tale of two neologisms. TLT 3(1):61–85

    Google Scholar 

  • Weiss L, Hobson JH (1995) States and economic development. Polity Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Wootton D (2016) The invention of science. A new history of the scientific revolution. Penguin, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Zumbansen P (2007) The law of society: governance through contract. Indiana J Glob Leg Stud 14(2):191–233

    Google Scholar 

  • Zumbansen P (2012) Carving out typologies and accounting for differences across systems: towards a methodology of transnational constitutionalism. In: Rosenfeld M, Sajó A (eds) The Oxford handbook of comparative constitutional law. OUP, Oxford, pp 75–97

    Google Scholar 

  • Zumbansen P (2013) Why global law is transnational. TLT 4(4):463–475

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zürn M, Faude B (2013) On fragmentation, differentiation and coordination. GEP 13:119–130

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Law, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, UK

    Luca Siliquini-Cinelli

Authors
  1. Luca Siliquini-Cinelli
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luca Siliquini-Cinelli .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Law, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, United Kingdom

    Luca Siliquini-Cinelli

  2. Faculty of Law, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    Andrew Hutchison

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Siliquini-Cinelli, L. (2017). Reflections on the Pactum in the Public and Private Spheres. In: Siliquini-Cinelli, L., Hutchison, A. (eds) The Constitutional Dimension of Contract Law. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49843-0_11

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49843-0_11

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-49842-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-49843-0

  • eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation