Why Relational Justice

In Relational Justice (OUP 2024) we rethink the normative foundations of private law and chart the path for a just reconstruction. We claim that the fundamental maxim of reciprocal respect for self-determination and substantive equality—relational justice, as we dub it—is (or should be) the distinctive normative commitment of a genuinely liberal private law. Anna Stilz, Mark Gergen, Abbye Atkinson, and Daniel Viehoff intriguingly challenge this proposition from various important perspectives. Addressing their critical concerns allows us to clarify the irreducible function of relational justice in guiding law’s construction of the legal frameworks that significantly structure a range of social spheres such as work, home, family, community, and commerce. These settings figure prominently in people’s lives as private persons rather than members of a specific political community. Relational justice captures the distinctive justice considerations that must guide law when it sets up the terms of interaction—the interpersonal rights and duties—within the legally constructed frameworks that constitute private law. Adherence to relational justice is necessary to establish private law’s legitimate authority and should guide its forms and functions.