In many situations legal systems use ambiguous standards and moral language in instructing people to behave. In the realm of the common law, much of this ambiguous, morally inflected legal component is associated with “equity.” In civil law systems, something similar goes under the banner of...

Despite the fusion of law and equity and the apparent demise of equity as a distinct system, this Article argues that equity is a distinct decision making mode within a legal system. Private law relies on formal structures of rights and rules that can be exploited and abused by opportunists. The...