Roman law in the state of nature : the classical foundations of Hugo Grotius' natural law

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Roman law in the state of nature : the classical foundations of Hugo Grotius' natural law

Benjamin Straumann ; translated by Belinda Cooper

(Ideas in context / edited by Quentin Skinner (general editor) ... [et al.], 108)

Cambridge University Press, 2015

  • : hardback

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. 235-250) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

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.

Table of Contents

  • 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.

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  • Ideas in context

    edited by Quentin Skinner (general editor) ... [et al.]

    Cambridge University Press

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