With customary penetrating wit, Alasdair MacIntyre observed that, if one collects “together four political theorists… the chances are that you will be presented with at least five rival interpretations of one and the same set of events” (“The Indispensability of Political Theory” in D. Miller and L. Siedentop (eds.), The Nature of Political Theory (Oxford 1983), 25). Things may be even worse with regard to theorists of private law, for four such theorists would likely generate at least eight interpretations of private law: the interpretation that each theorist favours and that with which they disagree. Even if this claim proves to be an exaggeration, there is still an ostensibly embarrassing fecundity with regard to theories or philosophies of private law. The law has been subject to analysis from the standpoint of, inter alia, neo-classical and behavioural economics, Aristotelian and non-Aristotelian conceptions of corrective justice, the notion of civil recourse, a veritable glut of conceptions of distributive justice, as well as autopoietic systems theory and related approaches. Contemporary philosophy and theory of private law therefore offers a whistle-stop tour of the thought of the (male) greats of ancient and contemporary philosophy and social science.

There is nothing embarrassing about these riches, save for the unwitting gender and ethnic limits placed upon participation. For all the disciplines of the social sciences and humanities should surely be mined in order to cast light upon law and, of course, any other equally complex aspect of the social world. A commitment such as this might foster an ecumenical pursuit of knowledge, but producers of philosophical theories of private law, on the whole, see that endeavour as akin to a zero-sum game: an allegedly new theory cannot be viable unless an older, pre-existing theory is rejected. Andrew Gold's account of private law is “philosophical” in this sense, it being no surprise to learn that he thinks corrective justice accounts of private law must be rejected and replaced by his own “redressive justice” account (p. 5). What comes as a pleasant surprise in Gold's book is that, first, the internecine quarrelling which abounds in the philosophical literature is kept to a reasonably decent minimum; and, second, that the redressive justice account is genuinely interesting and informative. What follows elaborates both points.

The principal internecine quarrel in which Gold engages is this: he has to get corrective justice accounts of private law out of the way because they are currently dominant in the philosophical literature. This dominance should be the cause of another surprise, insofar as our understanding of corrective justice – pro or con – begins with Aristotle. That account leaves those who would invoke it as means of understanding contemporary private law with a huge amount of work to do. Not only does Aristotle's account fit badly with contemporary private law in particular and law in general, it also contains numerous notorious gaps. These include, for example, an account of the exact basis of corrective justice obligations, of what, besides being akin to an arithmetical mathematical operation, they entail; and of why they should hold in the face of significant inequality as between wrongdoer and victim. For Gold, corrective justice accounts of private law “centre… on a wrongdoer's obligations to repair the effects of her wrong” (p. 6) and he is specifically interested in those that call “for allocation back – that is, … that call … for the undoing of a transaction” (p. 6).

Gold has doubts about corrective justice, understood thus, suggesting that it cannot satisfactorily either explain or justify “the coercive role of the state in private law settings” (p. 30). He does not think it plausible to regard the state as acting on the wrongdoer's behalf in such contexts, nor does he see how the wrongdoer, when being coerced by the state, can genuinely be meeting their obligations. These doubts provoke the search for a better explanation and understanding of these features of private law, which Gold finds in the notion of redressive justice. This idea “governs the conduct of [a] … right holder who wishes to undo a wrongful transaction” (p. 30) and therefore switches the focus away from the wrongdoer. This shift from wrongdoer (or duty-bearer) to victim (or right holder) seems to be the core feature of redressive justice since it, like corrective justice, is also concerned with allocation back. But, “[w]here it is the right holder who is responsible for the allocation back, we have redressive justice” (p. 32). Despite appearing to be a slender reed on which to tether another philosophical account of private law, Gold's discussion shows that the idea of redressive justice is perfectly capable of taking the strain.

And that is what makes the book genuinely interesting and informative. For if, like me, you failed to notice the existence of this form of justice, then Gold's book is an eye-opening exposé of its role in private law and beyond. While operating in and having purchase upon some of the same scenarios as corrective justice, Gold shows that redressive justice has an altogether wider range, fitting more private law doctrines, procedures and remedies than its competitor. It plays, as Chapters 4 to 7 show, an important and distinctive explanatory-cum-justificatory role in relation to significant features of contract and tort law, the role of self-help in private law and the role of the state – which Gold argues is a fiduciary one – in the adjudication of disputes. Perhaps most significantly, for Gold, redressive justice's focus upon right holders rather than wrong-doers serves to value their agency, ensuring that they are sovereigns in relation to those of their rights protected by private law. Hence, “[i]t is not simply that private parties get to choose whether or not to sue a … [wrongdoer]. The authority involved in rights of redress may be attributable to the private individual herself. She is not then a stand-in for the state… nor is she occupying a public office; she is exercising her own authority to enforce her own rights on her own behalf” (p. 58).

While those less familiar with philosophy of private law will no doubt see the significance of Gold's argument here, they might find his discussion of the state as fiduciary in Chapter 7 more interesting. That is not just because a range of jurists operating in a number of different legal and jurisprudential fields have converged upon this idea as a fruitful means of resolving specific conundrums about, for example, state sovereignty, international law, administrative law, the law of trusts and property law. It is also because these jurists’ rediscovery of the idea shows – as does Gold's discussion – that it has a great deal of explanatory power with regard to some general and fundamental juristic matters. One such matter, addressed by Gold, is that of the role state organs (the courts) play in the resolution of ostensibly private disputes. One might be tempted to think that, if the state is involved in the resolution of these disputes, then “its” interests – or those of its constituents – must be represented in the court's deliberations and decision. But the fiduciary state operates in a different way, giving citizens, via private law and the court structure, “space for … individualized projects that … [they] find meaningful” (p. 158). Hence “[i]t is up to individual citizens to find meaning for themselves, but the fiduciary state [via private law and the courts] can help give us the tools to do so” (p. 158). There is, then, a sense in which private law is both public (being state-sponsored and endorsed) and private (since it is a means for individuals to pursue their own projects). While that is something all lawyers intuitively know, it is helpful to have the intuition unpacked in such a felicitous and interesting way.

There are, of course, a number of questions that can be posed of Gold's arguments. Some critics will, for example, press hard upon the distinction between corrective and redressive justice, challenging the thought-experiments Gold bases it on (pp. 34–38), and the implications he draws from them. No doubt others will attempt to impugn his fiduciary account of the state since, although currently undergoing a renaissance, the idea runs up against two very well entrenched but also puzzlingly limited competing positions (Lockean and neo-contractualist). That the book will provoke these and related reactions is undoubtedly a good sign, showing it to be a stimulating and worthy contribution. The arguments offered are always clear and careful, and the fact that the book carves out an original position in a crowded and now somewhat repetitive field attests to its value. It will reward all readers.