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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 August 2018
This article argues that the idea of conscience can play a useful, albeit limited and highly general, explanatory role in private law, if we have regard to two distinctive contexts in which it is used. First, it tells us something about how equitable obligations arise and reminds us that they directly enforce moral duties. Second, it conveys the message that the courts are reluctant to impose primary liabilities which restrict the exercise of legal rights absent a past or prospective breach of moral duty by the defendant. Without further explanation, the indiscriminate invocation of conscience in both contexts can lead to confusion and uncertainty, but if the distinction between obligation and liability is observed, the explanatory force of conscience in relation to each becomes clearer, and it plays a valuable role in bolstering the authority of private law.
Lecturer in Property Law, University College London.
I am very grateful to Professor Sarah Worthington, Dr. Charlie Webb, Professor Charles Mitchell, Professor Ben McFarlane, the participants in the New Work in Obligations Conference at UCL 2016, and this Journal's anonymous reviewers, for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this work. Due to lack of space, it is not possible to discuss all the doctrines in which the courts use the language of conscience here: doctrines such as relief against penalties, forfeiture and rectification for mistake will be considered elsewhere. For similar reasons, this article does not engage in a comparison of the concepts of conscience, good faith and fairness. All errors are my own.
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