Abstract

According to the principle of corrective justice, one who causes a wrongful loss or receives a wrongful gain is obligated to make good that loss or restore that gain. The guiding principle of the remedies of private law is to put the aggrieved party in the position s/he would have been in had the complained of conduct not occurred. The connection between corrective justice and private law’s remedies thus appears analytic. My article challenges this orthodoxy. I argue that, on the one hand, if corrective justice is treated narrowly, as an exclusively remedial principle, it severs the connection between right and remedy that lies at the heart of the corrective justice theories of private law. On the other, if it is interpreted broadly to encompass as well the parties’ original relationship, it becomes otiose