Liam B. Murphy: Private Law and Public Illusion

Liam B. Murphy (Herbert Peterfreund Professur für Recht und Professor für Philosophie an der New York University)

I: Artificial Morality
II: The Persistence of an Illusion

In the public at large, property and contract law are commonly thought to reflect moral proprietary and promissory rights. Contemporary philosophers are mostly skeptical about natural property rights, but not about promissory rights. I argue that contract and promise, no less than property, can only be justified instrumentally – by appeal to the social good that these conventional practices produce. The etiology of the tenacious and harmful public illusion that the law of the market reflects individual natural rights deserves investigation.

I argue that the inevitably deontological form of contract and property law plays a significant role in sustaining this illusion.