INTRODUCTION
The idea that an enforceable contract requires consideration – a promise in exchange for a promise or for a completed act or forbearance – has been referred to as ‘one of the most basic propositions of contract doctrine’. Ibbetson argues that contract law’s focus on relationships of reciprocity is visible by the year 1300, and Baker writes that from the 1580s, the law reports are full of discussions of consideration. And yet, though widely regarded as central to the common law of contracts, the doctrine of consideration has long been a target of attack. That doctrine, which demands reciprocity in exchange and so blocks the enforcement of a gratuitous promise even if unequivocally expressed and seriously intended, has been criticized by scholars as ‘anomalous and absurd’, and as an ‘unnecessary … technical rule’ that defeats the principle of pacta sunt servanda and so impedes the pursuit of justice …
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Jennifer Nadler, Consideration and Its Problems: A Re-Interpretation, Law and Philosophy (2026). Published: 4 August 2026.
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