Roman Law

Catalog description

Peace, liberty guaranteed by clear-cut rules, social interaction guided by value-laden principles-it is by these ethical and rational contents, deeply grounded and diligently elaborated in its religious, philosophical, and political history, that Roman Law has become part of the common heritage of the world's jurisprudence. As the course will illustrate in telling detail and general overview, Roman Law is in fact inspired from its beginning by the humanly valid idea that human life has to realize and to reconcile two seemingly contradictory ends, individual freedom an the reliable cooperativeness. Notably, slavery, omnipresent in its day, was branded by Roman lawyers an institution against human nature, thus paving the way for its abolition in modern times.