Roman Law in the State of Nature: The Classical Foundations of Hugo Grotius' Natural Law (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781107092907)

Roman Law in the State of Nature offers a new interpretation of the foundations of Hugo Grotius' natural law theory. Surveying the significance of texts from classical antiquity, Benjamin Straumann argues that certain classical texts, namely Roman law and a specifically Ciceronian brand of Stoicism, were particularly influential for Grotius in the construction of his theory of natural law. The book asserts that Grotius, a humanist steeped in Roman law, had many reasons to employ Roman tradition and explains how Cicero's ethics and Roman law - secular and offering a doctrine of the freedom of the high seas - were ideally suited to provide the rules for Grotius' state of nature. This fascinating new study offers historians, classicists and political theorists a fresh account of the historical background of the development of natural rights, natural law and of international legal norms as they emerged in seventeenth-century early modern Europe.

Author: Benjamin Straumann
ISBN-10: 1107092906
ISBN-13: 9781107092907
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 02/12/2015
Pages: 286
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 0.90d