The Philosophical Foundations of Roman Law: Aristotle, The Stoics, and Roman Theories of Natural Law

2017 ◽  
pp. 229-268
Author(s):  
John R. Kroger
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Philosophical Foundations

The Integrity of Faith

1960 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 247-261
Author(s):  
Robert A. Gessert
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
English Language ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
True Meaning ◽  
Concept Of Law

Though at first it seems quite simple and straightforward and though he devotes hundreds of pages to its exposition, Calvin's idea of law is subtle and elusive. He, like Luther, stresses the Protestant principle of justification by grace alone, but not a few interpreters have seen him as the severest of legalists who finally relegates grace to the position of being merely a means to works righteousness. It is undoubtedly pretentious to try to put law in its ‘true’ meaning and context in Calvin's schema. This paper must therefore be regarded as simply an exploratory effort in that direction.Since Calvin was himself a competent student of the secular law, a fruitful method for investigating this problem would be to inquire into the character of the legal studies that formed such an important part of his background. How did he regard the Roman Law which had been shaping European civilisation for several centuries? To what extent was he influenced by Greek versions of the Natural Law which had been so important to Thomas Aquinas? In the English language we make the word ‘law’ (like ‘love’) carry, somewhat promiscuously, nuances of meaning that the more analytical languages of Latin and Greek distinguish. The tools of Philology and History may be necessary for a definitive examination of Calvin's concept of law.

“Bringing Philosophy Down from the Heavens”: Natural Right in the Roman Law

1989 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Zuckert
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
The Relationship

The treatment of the natural law in the Roman law is puzzling because the relationship between jus naturale and the two other forms of law, jus gentium and jus civile, is far from clear in the texts. Moreover, the jus naturale does not appear to have the dignity most readers expect it to have. This article attempts to sort out the relationships among the three types of jus by showing that the various classifications the jurists use are based on their perceptions of the complexities of nature as a source of right and on the attempt to work out a political embodiment of natural right.

Natural Law in Early Modern Legal Thought

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Ibbetson
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
Legal Thought ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Hugo Grotius

Natural law thinking in the early modern world had two principal roots: Greco-Roman moral philosophy and Roman law. These two strands came together in sixteenth-century Spain, from where they influenced the Dutchman Hugo Grotius. Grotius can be seen as the channel through which this thinking reached a pan-European audience. His works, and the works of his followers, came to have an enormous influence on the development of legal thought and practice after the seventeenth century. Ideas of natural law were no longer regarded as dependent on God’s will. A rational structure could be derived from self-evident premises in the law of nature and identification of concrete rules of natural law was regarded as the work of human reason. These features, coupled with its seeming moral objectivity, allowed natural law to provide a template for positive legal systems, and fuelled the move towards codification of law in eighteenth-century Europe.

scholarly journals Private Law and Human Rights

Dixi ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Maxym Tkalych ◽  
Oksana Safonchyk ◽  
Yuliia Tolmachevska
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Freedom Of Contract ◽  
The Social

Point of view: One of the basic concepts that underlies law as a phenomenon, as well as private law as one of the two areas of law, is the concept of natural law. This concept presupposes that rights and freedoms are an inalienable good of every person, regardless of the will of any external institutions. The ideas of natural law have been expressed in the concept of private law (the fundamental principles of private law are such principles as justice, good faith, reasonableness, dispositiveness, legal certainty, inadmissibility of interference in private affairs, inviolability of property rights, and freedom of contract). Object: The subject of the study is the problems of reforming of private law in modern conditions. The object of research is the social relations that arise in the plane of «person-person» and «state-person» in modern transformation processes. Methodology: The research methodology is formed by methods of analysis, synthesis, and modeling. Additionally, logical-legal, comparative-legal forecasting methods are used. The authors of the article tried to draw a parallel between the concepts of natural law, Roman law and private law. Results and discussion: An analysis of these concepts revealed that each of them is an integral part of the concept of modern Western civilization. At the same time, in modern conditions of pandemic, deglobalization, regionalization, collapse of human rights and the very concept of Western civilization, which is based on the ideas of humanism, liberalism, absolute human rights, inviolability of property rights and respect for privacy, are under threat.

Cicero on Natural Law and Ideal Laws

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Annas
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
The Political ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Crucial Difference ◽  
Better Than ◽  
The Ideal

Aristotle takes over many of the political ideas of the Laws in the final two books of his Politics, but despite following Plato on some things he makes no use of the idea of preambles or getting citizens to understand their laws in terms of structuring a virtuous way of life. The Stoics do take over Plato’s idea of law as an embodiment of cosmic reason, and develop it into their conception of natural law, explicated by Cicero in his unfinished work on laws. Cicero’s work, On the Laws, is based on Stoic ideas and also on Plato’s Laws, parts of which he closely follows. A crucial difference is that Cicero looks to the ideal past of earlier Roman law. Further, he thinks that natural law is universal. Cicero claims, however, that particular (Roman) laws have ethical authority because they embody natural law better than other systems of law do.

scholarly journals Religious Liberty in «Natural Law and Natural Rights»

2020 ◽  
pp. 591-610
Author(s):  
Gerard Bradley
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
Clear View ◽  
Anchor Points ◽  
John Finnis ◽  
Connecting The Dots

John Finnis since 1980 has published many important scholarly papers treating different aspects of religious liberty. These works include both philosophical and theological perspectives. Some of the best of this work has specifically addressed Dignitatis humane, the Second Vatican Council’s declaration of Religious Freedom. Perhaps surprisingly, then, Finnis says almost nothing explicitly about either the Council or about religious freedom in Natural Law and Natural Rights. I shall argue here that Finnis nonetheless identifies and cogently defends in Natural Law and Natural Rights (NLNR) the foundational components of a sound conception of religious liberty. Building upon these anchor points – drawing a line connecting the dots, if you will – one can bring this conception into clear view. Because it is constructed bottom up from deep philosophical foundations, this implicit account of religious liberty is critically justified, as well as robust. In this article I also build upon Finnis’s foundations, and show how putative divine revelations to humankind impact religious liberty and, then, describe the cultural formations conducive to making robust religious liberty practically available to the inquiring, deliberating, acting person.

Jurisprudence, historical

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Stein
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Economic Change ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
The Will

Historical jurisprudence is the title usually given to a group of theories, which flourished mainly in the nineteenth century, that explain law as the product of predetermined patterns of change based on social and economic change. It is thus opposed both to theories that see law as essentially an expression of the will of those holding political power (positivist theories) and to those that see it as an expression of principles that are part of man’s nature and so applicable in any kind of society (natural law theories). The writers of the Scottish Enlightenment first connected the historical development of law with economic changes. In the nineteenth century, Savigny and Maine postulated grand evolutionary schemes, which purported to be applicable universally. They were, however, based on the development of ancient Roman law and could only with difficulty be applied to other systems. These schemes are now discredited, but in the twentieth century more modest studies have successfully related particular kinds of law to particular sets of social circumstances.

Law’s Nature: Philosophy as a Legal Argument in Cicero’s Writings

Cicero's Law ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benedikt Forschner
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Legal Discourse ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Legal Argument ◽  
Philosophical Concept ◽  
Positive Law ◽  
Legal Arguments ◽  
Theory Of Law ◽  
Holistic Theory ◽  
Forensic Speeches

The paper deals with the use of philosophical arguments in Cicero's legal writings, in particular his forensic speeches. It tries to demonstrate that Cicero developed a unique, holistic theory of law, which is not based on a juxtaposition of natural law and positive law, but tries to deduce the nature of law from the nature of men. Even though this theory probably did not influence the writings of the later classical jurists in a direct way, Roman law was open enough for philosophical arguments to allow Cicero to make use of this theory within the legal discourse. Using examples from Cicero's forensic speeches, the paper demonstrates how Cicero refers to his philosophical concept in order to develop specifically legal arguments.

Greek Philosophy and Classical Roman Law

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Giltaij
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Legal Practice ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Methodological Difficulties

This chapter explores the relation between Greek philosophy and classical Roman law, focusing on various currents as intellectual backgrounds to the works of individual jurists as well as apparently philosophical notions and theories present in the Roman legal sources. These notions range from systematic considerations such as the subdivision of certain legal categories, to moral and ethical concepts like justice and natural law. Even though there are many methodological difficulties associated with exploring the relation between Greek philosophy and Roman law, it seems certain the Roman jurists employed Greek philosophy in a scientific manner in their legal practice, to define and elucidate points of law, and perhaps even to develop new legal theories.

Is Modern Liberty Ancient? Roman Remedies and Natural Rights in Hugo Grotius's Early Works on Natural Law

2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Straumann
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Law And Ethics ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
Scholarly Attention

The Dutch humanist Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) is widely acknowledged to have made important contributions to an influential doctrine of individual natural rights. In this article I argue that Grotius developed his rights doctrine primarily out of normative Roman sources, that is to say Roman law and ethics. If this Roman tradition has been as central to Grotius's influential writing on natural rights as I claim, why has it not received more scholarly attention? The reasons lie in the view that while rights are constitutive of modern liberty, they were unknown in classical antiquity.

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