LAW 142 Study Guide - Final Guide: Specific Performance, John Q., The Seller
Document Summary
The lack of trust renders the non simultaneous exchange impossible, at least between strangers. This is what hume meant when he wrote that the farmers had no kindness for each other. If they were relatives or friends, then the trust would have been innate in the relationship itself. Now without the ability to make the non simultaneous exchange, a great deal of value is lost: we can do so much more working together rather than alone. Hume thought that the answer was the institution of convention of promising and promise- However what hume described is really the law of contract keeping. The law of contract affords us the ability to make exchanges with others that are non simultaneous by creating in each of us, the power to make binding obligations. Assurances that others can rely on even though there is no trust between them. Almost all exchanges we make during everyday life are non simultaneous.
