The Embedding Social Context of Promises and Contracts

This chapter examines the social context of promising. It raises doubts about the notion that promises/contracts have a non-trivial social context. It rejects the view that the context of promises is relational and the opposing view that it is transactional. It then rejects the view that the context of contracts is transactional and the opposing view that it is relational. It proposes a pluralistic view in which the social contexts in which promises and contracts are embedded in the central case cuts across the relational-transactional divide.