What is the point of charity law?

Abstract

Introduction Charity law – the legal rules, doctrines, principles and practices that apply to ‘charity’ as such – remains remarkably underexamined from philosophical perspectives despite its great age. While there is a vast and rich literature on not-for-profit activity from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, scholars who have turned their attention to that part of not-for-profit regulation that is made up of charity law have typically taken either historical or doctrinal approaches to the subject, or recommended the abandonment of charity law for a broader regulatory framework built upon foundations that the legal concept of charity cannot provide. Rarer are approaches to charity law t..