Martijn W. Hesselink (European University Institute; University of Amsterdam) has posted Anything Goes in Private Law Theory? On the Epistemic and Ontological Commitments of Private Law Multi-pluralism on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This paper argues that the New Private Law Theory (NPLT) recently proposed by Grundmann, Micklitz, and Renner is radically multi-pluralist, in that it combines pluralism along a multitude of dimensions with the absence of any organising or constraining principle on the metalevel. Consequently, the NPLT makes no epistemic commitments about private law truth or ontological commitments about private law reality. The paper raises the question of whether a theory which makes no such commitments is a theory at all. Indeed, a site where quite divergent epistemic and ontological commitments are equally acceptable is not usually referred to as a theory but as a democracy. Therefore, the paper discusses how NPLT could be turned into a democratic theory of private law. It concludes that to that end NPLT’s selection of materials should be more diverse, in particular less economically oriented, less Eurocentric, and more inclusive of various critical perspectives.