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In U.S. law, a contract is described as a legally enforceable promise. So to make a contract, one must make a promise. The legal norms regulating these promises diverge in substance from the moral norms that apply to them. This divergence raises questions about how the moral agent is to navigate both the legal and moral systems. This Article provides a new framework to evaluate the divergence between legal norms and moral norms generally and applies it to the case of contracts and promises. It introduces and defends an approach to the relationship between morality and law that adopts the perspective of moral agents subject to both sets of norms and argues that the law should accommodate the needs of moral agency. Although the law should not aim to enforce interpersonal morality as such, the law's content should be compatible with the conditions necessary for moral agency to flourish. Some aspects of contract not only fail to support the morally decent person, but also contribute to a legal and social culture that is difficult for the morally decent person to accept. Indeed, U.S. contract law may sometimes make it harder for the morally decent person to behave decently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes the legal implications of the context usage of promise as equivalent to a legal contract in the U.S. Definition of promise in the legal context; Contention of Harvard University law professors that promise in law is always equivalent to obligation; Facts and information of cases relating promise as a binding legal contract and transaction.

The article focuses on two theories of consideration. Since a promise is an act, one who defines consideration as an act of forbearance given in exchange for a promise, will necessarily find a consideration in every case of mutual promises. This, it is submitted, is the correct view upon principal. In point of authority no difficulty is presented except in two classes of cases. First, those in which one of the parties promises to perform a preexisting contractual duty to a third person. Secondly, those in which one of the parties promises to perform a pre-existing contractual duty to the counter-promisor.

Examines the issue on whether mere gain to the promisor without some corresponding loss to the promise is ever a sufficient consideration in the United States. Observation that in the vast majority of cases, the consideration is at the same time a benefit to the promisor, and also a loss or detriment to the promisee; Cases of promises by the original promisor to pay an additional amount to the original promisee for merely performing his original promise.

Discusses the difference of opinion and judicial decision that exist in regard to the possibility of the same promise or performance. Factors to consider for successive promises; Analysis of the question that has the indirect value of testing the adequacy of received definitions of consideration; Division of the case in promises made and the parties involved.

Discusses the history of assumpsit, an action to recover damages for the nonfulfillment of an agreement or promise, written, spoken, or implied, but not under seal. Basis of the action; Applicability of Assumpsit as a substitute for Debt on a simple contract; Development of Indebitatus Assumpsit as a solution to quasi-contracts or contracts implied in law; Limitation of Assumpsit for money.

Discusses consideration in relation to mutuality. Enforcement of a promise; Extension of a remedy to one who seeks to get something for nothing; Regard of promised based on moral obligations; Examination of the theory of consideration in bilateral contracts.

The article focuses on principles of torts. The beginning of the modern action for deceit was only twenty years earlier in 1789; there was no conception of the now-recognized principle that one who, without excuse, causes expectable harm to another is liable. Combining the principle that one has no duty to aid another with the rule that a gratuitous promise is not binding, it would have appeared that one who does nothing other than to make a non-binding promise would not be responsible for the harm resulting from his undertaking and his failure to perform.

Discusses the case Pessin versus Fox Head Waukesha Corp., which concerns the effectiveness of a promise to buy goods in the U.S. Details of the case; Judgment of the court; Precedents.