Full Description
This volume sets out to explore the relationship between individual will (voluntas) and the legal rule. What unfolds in the following pages is a wide-ranging itinerary, moving between past and present, most notably ancient Rome and the contemporary world.
The guiding question is as radical as it is enduring: in what way can voluntas (a psychological impulse internal to the individual) come to determine the legal rule? European private law tradition rests on the premise that legally binding acts - contract and will, to mention only two paradigmatic cases - derive their force from individual will. From the Roman sources arises, with exemplary force, the notion of lex privata: the idea that private will itself may generate binding legal norms. Such a premise immediately leads to further questions. Above all, it compels reflection on the authenticity of that will: what if voluntas is compromised? The law of defects (error, dolus, metus) opens the problem of whether distorted or corrupted will can truly sustain the validity and effects of a legal rule.
The reflections gathered in this book approach the European civil law tradition as a broad and unified phenomenon, one in which law is inseparably bound to the historical and cultural contexts in which it takes shape.
Contents
Introduction, Tommaso dalla Massara; Part 1: Hypothesis. Individual Will as a Norm; 1. Will and Knowledge, Mauro Orlandi; 2. The Contract Between Will and Norm, Fabrizio Piraino; 3. Voluntas as lex. The Ancient Roots of a Modern Legal Idea, Sara Galeotti; Part 2: Problems. Individual Will and Decision-Making; 4. The Legal Force of the Individual Will: Reflections at the Intersection of Political Philosophy and Legal Theory, Mauro Grondona; 5. Voluntas and lex contractus in the Interpretation of Standard Clauses, Edoardo Ferrante; 6. Legal voluntas ex machina. The Impossibility of Non-Performance in the Age of Code, Giulia Bazzoni; Part 3: Dynamics. Individual Will in Action; 7. Will and Rule in Civil Proceedings, Augusto Chizzini; 8. The Will in the per formulas Procedure in Roman Law. The Actio, Federica Bertoldi; Part 4: Pathology. Imperfect Individual Will; 9. Error and Contractual Synállagma in Ulpian's Thought, Sara Galeotti; 10. Error and Last Will in Ulpian's Thought, Marta Beghini; 11. The Will in the Performance of the Obligation: Between Coercibility and Spontaneity, Paola Pasquino; 12. Omissive Fraud During Negotiations from the Perspective of Contractual Liability, Silvia Romanò; Part 5: Absence. Fragile Dimensions of Individual Will; 13. Invitus. The Unwilling Between State of Mind and Declaration, Margherita Scognamiglio; 14. The Absent Voluntas: Roman Semantics and Modern Dogmatics, Carlo De Cristofaro; 15. Free Will and Remedies Against Violence in Roman Provinces. Cases and Issues in Epigraphic and Papyrological Sources, Alessio Guasco; 16. Invitus and Legal Practice. Technical Language as Imperative, Maria Vittoria Bramante; Part 6: Arbitrium beyond Individual Will; 17. The Determinative Will of Contractual Content: The Russian Roulette Clauses, Francesco Castronovo; 18. Limits to the Will of a Party, Between Arbitrariness and Potestativity: The Case of the Russian Roulette Clause, Martina D'Onofrio
