Search

This paper studies the meaning of the term species in Justinian’s Digest. It considers the uniqueness to the jurisprudential meaning of this concept in the works of the classical Roman jurists and how this meaning rivals that of the theory of forms derived from dialectical and classificatory methods found in Greek philosophy. The paper, offering a reading of fragments of the Digest, argues that the word species refers there to the product of a casuistic approach to jurisprudence, interested in the ‘juridical morphology’ of cases as well as objects. Such species are shown to ‘repeal’ rather than reproduce the taxonomy of general laws and generic classes, pursuing a thought that is at odds with the aim of a ‘general’ jurisprudence. It is hoped that this paper may help point to new approaches to studying the relationship between legal institution and the life sciences, drawing attention to the limitation for legal thought in a dominant biological understanding of the species-concept.

The consideration of the material or the moral object in determining the nature of sin, is fundamental in the Christian tradition. Moral theology has focused mainly on the sexual sphere, where non datur parvitas materiae. The idea of the object in the nature of sin in general, is less explored. This article aims to investigate this very aspect, to understand how the moral object has been understood in history and what its role has been in determining the seriousness of sin. This first part, mainly historical in nature, reaches up to the modern era. The research shows how, from the very beginning, the moral object essentially refers to the act, although to some extent, the need to also introduce the agent appears in the explanation of the nature of the moral object itself. Conceptually, it avoids reducing object to the physical quantity of the action, but, on a casuistic level, the profile of object seems rather physical in nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The period of 16th to 18th centuries has brought about significant changes in legal thought. In addition to looking for a system in conflicting Roman law and Canon law texts, late scholastics formulated the first general rules (regulae) that they derived from the Roman case law and which were to become the nucleus of current, predominantly systematic, approach to law in Europe – applying the rule prescribed by law, court practice or legal science onto the facts of the case via the so-called legal syllogism method. And although in the mid- 20th century there were also attempts to reinvigorate the casuistic approach to law known previously in the ancient Rome and in medieval moral theology (revived through Viehweg’s topics or Perelman’s new rhetoric), these efforts have ultimately not changed the prevailing way of legal thinking. However, current technological challenges as well as strongly perceived ambiguity of law, especially in the so-called hard cases (the most difficult legal cases), where there is no clear legal solution to be found in legal norms, the approaches and methods of problem-based (casuistic, topical) legal thinking resurface again. There seems to be thus a need for a new (and indeed beneficial) reconsidering of legal casuistry, helping to address the so far unclear legal problems, arising more often than ever before. This sort of new legal casuistry can be thereby built on the foundations taken from Roman law as well as from ethics, more specifically from the early modern moral theology.

Copyright of Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni is the property of Editrice Morcelliana S.p.A. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This essay discusses the recent collection of essays on Machiavelli by Ginzburg (Nondimanco, Adelphi, 2018) and shows its many shortcomings. It is unlikely that casuistry counted much for Machiavelli (whose thoughts on necessity and derogation are indebted instead to Roman law); Machiavelli did not limit himself to subverting Aristotelianism from within but attacked the Aristotelian tradition head on; The Prince's caesura in the history of political philosophy has nothing to do with a shift in politics from praxis (ethically connoted) to poiesis (ethically neutral), which would have for Ginzburg caused the separation of politics from ethics; Blaise Pascal's anti-Machiavellianism cannot be traced back to his polemic against casuistry and the Jesuits, and so on. At the origin of these profound misunderstandings is the decontextualizing use of erudite elements and a minimizing of the role Machiavelli's involvement in Florentine struggles played in the birth of his revolutionary political theory. Moving beyond the failure of Nondimanco's investigation, however, above all this essay intends to discuss the problems of «cultural» micro-history and to offer a new explanation for the methodological differences that arose early on between Ginzburg himself and «social» micro-historians like Edoardo Grendi and Giovanni Levi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]