36
This course, Equity – law and idea, gives you the opportunity to broaden your skills in and knowledge and understanding of legal principles. Beyond the confines of the Common Law of England and Wales Equity is rarely discussed or understood, but has long played a vital role in the social, economic, cultural and political life of the nation. As a principle of justice, however, equity can be traced back millennia and found, for example, in many different forms of religious and political thought the world over. As law, Equity is important; as an idea, it is timeless.
FREE
This course includes
Hours of videos
Units & Quizzes
0
Unlimited Lifetime access
Access on mobile app
Certificate of Completion
Introduction
This course, Equity – law and idea, is divided into two parts. To begin you will explore the background of equity. The discussion will focus on two interrelated perspectives concerning equity both as a body of laws and the idea of justice. One example of why these might be considered ‘interrelated’ is that equity as an idea represents ‘an ethic for imagining better law and better life’ (Watt, 2012, p. 1), meaning inter alia, taking seriously equity’s foundational principles in the practice of law, and (re)focusing on forms of equity that do not allow the law to be ‘fully in command’ or morality to lose relevance (Fox, 1993, p. 101). The product of this ‘refocus’ is a juridical model of thinking capable of challenging and holding to account opportunism in respect to property dealings within modern capitalist society. Opportunism thus represents negative, immoral or unethical aspects that arise under capitalism as the prevailing form of economic organization in England and Wales. The second section will then develop this evaluation of equity further in terms of the contemporary economic context. This includes, for example, considering the argument that, contrary to a vision of equity as a form of defense or mitigation against opportunism, that it, in fact, promotes opportunism via, for example, trusts.Course learning outcomes
After studying this course, you should be able to:- Describe some basic features of the law of equity
- Critically evaluate and describe tensions between legal and philosophical accounts of equity
- Critically situate equity as both law and idea in contemporary socio-political and economic contexts.
