Roman Law in the State of Nature: The Classical Foundations of Hugo Grotius' Natural Law: 108 (Ideas in Context, Series Number 108)
Cambridge University Press, 11/28/2019
EAN 9781107470163, ISBN10: 1107470161
Paperback, 285 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
Roman Law in the State of Nature offers a new interpretation of the foundations of Hugo Grotius' natural law theory. Surveying the significance of texts from classical antiquity, Benjamin Straumann argues that certain classical texts, namely Roman law and a specifically Ciceronian brand of Stoicism, were particularly influential for Grotius in the construction of his theory of natural law. The book asserts that Grotius, a humanist steeped in Roman law, had many reasons to employ Roman tradition and explains how Cicero's ethics and Roman law - secular and offering a doctrine of the freedom of the high seas - were ideally suited to provide the rules for Grotius' state of nature. This fascinating new study offers historians, classicists and political theorists a fresh account of the historical background of the development of natural rights, natural law and of international legal norms as they emerged in seventeenth-century early modern Europe.
Introduction
1. Natural law in historical context
2. A novel doctrine of the sources of law
nature and the classics
3. Proving natural law
the influence of classical rhetoric on Grotius' method
4. Social instinct or self-preservation?
5. Justice for the state of nature
from Aristotle to the Corpus Iuris
6. Grotius' concept of the state of nature
7. Natural rights
Roman remedies in the state of nature
8. Natural rights and just wars
9. Enforcing natural law
the right to punish
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index.