Aristotle, Contract Law, and Justice in Transactions

This article sheds new light on Aristotle’s conception of voluntary corrective justice through an engagement with Peter Benson’s theory of transactional justice as expounded in his new work, Justice in Transactions: A Theory of Contract Law. Benson relates his theory of transactional justice to Aristotle’s conception of voluntary corrective justice. He also states that his theory “engages some fundamental themes and outstanding questions arising from Aristotle’s account” (2019: 30). The article provides a faithful reading of the nature and working logic of voluntary corrective justice as envisaged by Aristotle to argue that Benson neither thematizes the link between his theory and Aristotle’s conception of voluntary corrective justice, nor sheds new light on Aristotle’s thought on justice more generally. In fact, the article shows, Benson’s views on justice are incompatible with Aristotle’s. This is unfortunate, the article concludes, for Benson’s contract law theory is otherwise fascinating and analytically coherent. Keywords: contract law; transactional justice; Aristotle; corrective justice; Peter Benson.