This article examines the role culture plays in contract law. It demonstrates that even in contract law, the branch of law most committed to the ideal of individual autonomy, law’s reliance on culture makes compulsion by the law an unavoidable outcome. The concept of culture is applied to contract law in two principal ways. First, it attempts to explain the rise of objectivism in late nineteenth-century contract law as a manifestation of some central experiences prevalent in modern culture. Second, it (...) analyzes the role played by culture within the context of some of the central doctrines of contract law, namely, the doctrines on the formation and interpretation of contracts. (shrink)

Over the last twenty years, liberal thinkers have invested a great deal of effort in adapting liberal political theory to the multicultural condition. The central question that has occupied these thinkers is how a liberal state ought to treat cultural practices of non-liberal groups living within it. One major group of thinkers insists that it is incumbent on the liberal state to make sure that autonomy, together with some other central liberal values, are made part of the lives of all (...) the citizens living in the state. Another major group holds that it is the function of the liberal state to serve as framework for the peaceful co-existence of people who have diverse conceptions of the good life. These thinkers therefore call for "restraint" on the part of the state in its relations with non-liberal groups. This Article wishes to go beyond these two approaches. It is motivated by the conviction that the only standards that a liberal state can invoke in its relations with non-liberal groups are universal standards, i.e., standards that can be viewed, to the utmost extent possible, as transcending any particular culture, and that can be applied not only to non-liberal cultures, but to the culture of the mainstream liberal society itself. The Article puts forth a series of considerations that must be taken into account when intervention on the part of a liberal state in cultural practices of non-liberal groups is considered. It also sets forth two proposals as to the standards that need to guide the liberal state in cases in which it considers intervention in cultural practices of groups living in it: the doctrine of human rights and the concept of humanness. (shrink)

The liberalism of flourishing : two versions -- Intellectualist-moralist liberalism of flourishing -- Comprehensive liberalism of flourishing -- The liberalism of flourishing and autonomy liberalism : some comparisons -- Flourishing, art, and the state -- Art and flourishing -- Art and the liberal state -- Liberalism, art, and religion -- Liberalism, religion, nationalism : liberalism in the domains of meaning.

A situation in which luck determines what happens in our lives is composed of two elements: the existence of a multiplicity of possible outcomes, and lack of control over the situation, namely that we have no way, or at least no meaningful way, to affect the outcome. Adjudication is a luck situation: law is indeterminate and in a decent society litigants are not supposed to have control over their judges. Can we minimize luck in adjudication? The primary way to do (...) this is to make every decision given in the system resemble as much as possible the decision that would have been reached by the majority of the judges active in the system had they all been given the opportunity to decide the case at hand as a group. Put differently, luck in judicial decisions can be lessened by increasing the number of judges in panels. Even though in a decent society the option of controlling the conduct of judges is out of the question, several means do exist for litigants to employ some control over the identity of the persons who are to resolve their disputes. (shrink)

Journal Name: The Law & Ethics of Human Rights Issue: Ahead of print.

In recent years there have been numerous warnings in the press and in the social networks that Israel is about to convert its liberal democracy into a fascist regime. This Article argues that the occupation of the West Bank stands at the root of the most important processes that have been taking place in Israel in the past five decades. One of those processes is the erosion of Israel’s liberalism. I claim that the prolongation of the occupation is the central, (...) lasting threat to Israel’s liberalism. In essence, the occupation breeds denunciations of and protests against the government and the Israel Defense Forces, and these, in turn, bring about measures on the part of the government and right-wing civil society organizations that undermine or threaten Israel’s liberalism. In addition, the full-scale wars between Israel and Gaza, and the continuation of violence between the parties in the periods between the wars, undermine or threaten Israel’s liberalism. (shrink)