 Shiffrin and others take departures from promissory morality to be reasons for law reform. However, given that theoretical work in this area proceeds on the assumption that the normativity of contract law is worth engaging with on its own terms, there is reason for desiring a theory that is not too revisionary. While the contract-as-promise theory is explanatorily powerful and morally appealing, its adequacy in the final analysis turns on whether it can plausibly explain away the tensions it perceives in contract law, a question that remains very much unsettled.