What is ‘unjust enrichment’ for?

By many accounts, unjust enrichment is well-developed as an aspect of private law, distinct from property, contract and tort. But the reasons justifying it are not. The modern scholarship gives elaborate accounts describing the law, but has nothing substantial to offer as to why the law is there—or, indeed, whether it should be there at all. Charlie Webb’s Reason and Restitution: A Theory of Unjust Enrichment, recently published by Oxford University Press, now seeks to fill this gap. His conclusion is a striking one: while it is right that we have such a law, the reasons for it have nothing to do with unjust enrichment, and rather a lot to do with property, contract and wrongs. The idea that there is a distinct set of reasons, additional to those motivating the rest of private law, turns out to be an illusion.