Economic theory and legal theory can both claim to provide plausible accounts of rational decision-making. Yet, despite the growth of “law and economics” as a hugely successful area of interdisciplinary study, there is very little intellectual exchange between the rational choice theorist who attempts to explain economic behaviour on the one hand, and the more philosophically inclined theorist who seeks to comprehend legal reasoning and adjudication on the other. Thus, the claim that each sort of theorist makes to account for rational decision-making seems largely to go unanswered by the other, this despite the fact that the two disciplines are otherwise so interconnected.   This paper was first presented at the Oxford-Toronto Jurisprudence Symposium in Oxford, February 2001, and later at the Social and Political Philosophy Seminar at the Chaire Hoover d’Ethique Economique et Sociale, Catholic University of Louvain, June 2001, and at the School of Law, Universidad Torcuato di Tella, Buenos Aires, October 2001.

Universidad Torcuato Di Tella