Rather than asking if there is some common normative concern that unites tort and contract, we should ask why each body of law results in civil liability. What unites the normative foundations of each field is the fact that creating vulnerability can advance their normative goals. For example, this Author has argued elsewhere that contract law’s primary normative goal is the support of healthy markets.126 Markets, in turn, are valuable because they provide a host of moral goods, such as mechanisms for social coordination between otherwise antagonistic people, the inculcation of desirable
moral habits, and—not least—the creation of wealth. One of the primary impediments to the functioning of healthy markets is invulnerability.127 Merchants and other market participants need to be able to retaliate against those that opportunistically abuse the trust inherent in market transactions. 128 Accordingly, contract law provides a mechanism by which those who wish to participate in the market can render themselves vulnerable to retaliation in the event that they breach their agreements.