Abstract:
The aim of this legal-historical-philosophical paper is to highlight the necessity of metaphysics in law, especially in contract law. Law should be based on doctrines of natural law. Law without deeper moral justification is pure and lacks legitimacy. I propose to go back to some old ideas, deeply rooted in Roman times and the Middle Ages. Shortly speaking, I will start with some philosophical considerations, then I will highlight ideas of going back to metaphysics in law, while metaphysics is represented by ideas of natural law taken straight from Roman jurists and the Middle Ages. I will also explain the 18th and 19th centuries collapse of metaphysics in contract law, referring to contemporary outstanding scholars in the field (I follow Gordley’s and Decock’s critiques). I conclude by repeating the necessity of searching the true origins of the European legal culture, and then basing state law on natural law and highlighting a redefinition of a present contract law theory. Thus, for the author, poetically saying, philosophy, theology, and law are marching together, what is a beautiful way, crystallizing the way itself like going back to the true origins of our law in Europe, and in contract law especially.
Bunikowski, Dawid, Going Back to Natural Law in Contract Law. Necessity of Metaphysics in Law (2015).
First posted 2016-02-03 07:23:58
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