Contract as Promise (Theory of Contractual Obligation)
[A] readable and provocative book on the philosophical foundations of contract law...Fried's argument makes a powerful case for the view that the law of contracts has a recognizable and distinctive intellectual integrity of its own...Students will find Fried's unifying hypothesis a helpful aid. (Yale Law Review)Fried calls into question some of the most deeply held assumptions of contract law [and] argues powerfully for a moral basis of contract...Fried's book offers a sensitive and subtle investigation, a richly suggestive vision of contract theory. The study and systematic critical discussion of such theory is of the first importance, for it is a question of nothing less than the relationship between law and morals. (New York Law Journal)Charles Fried attempts to restate and defend a liberal theory of contract...In setting out to defend what is, albeit in modified form, the classical theory of contract, Professor Fried is conscious that he is confronting a considerable weight of modern contract scholarship...This Fried confronts or finesses with elegance, grace, and skill. (Harvard Law Review)Charles Fried has written a very sensible, readable, and important book. To have someone argue for the importance of moral reasoning in contracts, or for that matter any common law subject, is refreshing. To have it done well is a real treat. (Richard Epstein)