The functions of the reasonableness in the chilean Private Law

Abstract

This paper presents a panoramic view of the reception that has had the notion of reasonableness in Chilean Private Law. Through the identification of the word reasonableness and its lin-guistic derivatives in the main normative bodies, as well as in the national doctrine and Jurisprudence, the text describes the multiple technical uses that have been made of the reasonableness in the context of national Private Law, concluding that they can be grouped mainly in three functions: (i) as a general clause, that is, as a forwarding of the legislator to the judge’s judgment; (ii) as a synonym of good sense, indicating a parameter or standard of conduct; and (iii) as a resource for elude the uncertainty of some civil institutions.