Rights and Duties in Late Scholastic Discussion on Extreme Necessity

Mäkinen, Virpi

doi:10.1007/1-4020-4212-4_02

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 14 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…According to a well-known principle of medieval canon law and scholastic philosophy, extreme necessity suspends the regime of private property and reintroduces the natural state in which all things are common (omnia sunt communia). 15 Early modern scholastics such as Dr Navarrus and Lessius were anxious to specify that this did not mean that ownership (dominium) was transferred in cases of extreme necessity, but that goods became common as far as the right to use of those goods (ius utendi) was concerned. 16 Therefore, the extremely indigent were allowed to vindicate the right to use the goods belonging to other people in order to provide for the conservation of their own life and that of their family and neighbours.…”

Section: Terms Of the Debatementioning

confidence: 99%

Law, Religion, and Debt Relief: Balancing above the ‘Abyss of Despair’ in Early Modern Canon Law and Theology

Decock¹

2017

American Journal of Legal History

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Debt forgiveness is at the heart of the Gospel message. The Lord sent his Son to redeem the debts of the world as created by Adam and Eve and transmitted to the subsequent generations of man. The New Testament restored older Biblical ideas of debt relief such as the Jubilee. In the Lord's prayer God is begged to forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors (Mt 6:12). Yet, what, if anything, does that mean for legal practice? Is there a Christian way of collecting debt and enforcing contractual promises? Should Christian creditors refrain from exercising their rights? This paper wants to explore the responses given to these questions by canon lawyers and moral theologians in sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe, many of whom belonged to the so-called "School of Salamanca". They took natural law as the ultimate yardstick to evaluate the lawfulness of man's actions in the world. We will conclude that these moral and legal experts were sensitive to the needs of indigent debtors, but certainly not to the point of promoting cancellation of debt. They insisted upon the bindingness of contractual promises (pacta sunt servanda), considering extension of payment to be the most appropriate manner to deal with insolvent debtors. Debt relief in the strict sense of the word raised only suspicions, since the marketplace is subject to the dictates of justice, not charity.

show abstract

Section: Terms Of the Debatementioning

confidence: 99%

Law, Religion, and Debt Relief: Balancing above the ‘Abyss of Despair’ in Early Modern Canon Law and Theology

Decock¹

2017

American Journal of Legal History

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the thirteenth century the canonistic teaching was transferred to theology by Guillaume of Auxerre, and after having been endorsed by Bonaventure and Aquinas, it was accepted by all schools of theology (Couvreur 1961: 208–53). During the famous poverty debate until the beginning of the fourteenth century, it figured in the arguments of both sides (see, e.g., Mäkinen 1999a, 1999b, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2006). Similarly, the principle was transposed to civil law when it appeared in Accursius's Glossa Ordinaria , after which it became generally accepted by subsequent generations of civil lawyers (Couvreur 1961: 151–2; Swanson 1997: 399–459, 407–8).…”

Section: The Religious Theory: Natural Rights Of Subsistencementioning

confidence: 99%

Natural Rights to Welfare

Duffel¹

2011

European J of Philosophy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Many people have lamented the proliferation of human rights claims. The cure for this problem, it may be thought, would be to develop a theory that can distinguish ‘real’ from ‘supposed’ human rights. I argue, however, that the proliferation of human rights mirrors a deep problem in human rights theory itself. Contemporary theories of natural rights to welfare are historical descendants from a theory of rights to subsistence which was developed in twelfth‐century Europe. According to this theory, each human being has a special role to fulfil in God's plan and therefore has inalienable rights to subsist. Later theories have secularized this idea by claiming that human beings are purposive agents. Secularization, however, comes at a price. In the case of these theories, the price is a failure to provide satisfactory answers to the most basic questions we would expect of a theory of natural rights to answer. They have failed to provide a basis for ascribing these rights to all and only to human beings. They have not been able to generate a clear and viable criterion for ascribing duties correlative to these rights. And they cannot limit rights‐claims in a non‐arbitrary way. Hence we should abandon these theories.

show abstract

Distributive Justice Before the Eighteenth Century: The Right of Necessity

Duffel

Yap

2009

SSRN Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Rights and Duties in Late Scholastic Discussion on Extreme Necessity

Cited by 4 publications

References 14 publications

Law, Religion, and Debt Relief: Balancing above the ‘Abyss of Despair’ in Early Modern Canon Law and Theology

Law, Religion, and Debt Relief: Balancing above the ‘Abyss of Despair’ in Early Modern Canon Law and Theology

Natural Rights to Welfare

Distributive Justice Before the Eighteenth Century: The Right of Necessity

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About