La teologia giuridica di Jean Domat

Abstract

Jean Domats’ legal work is inspired by the religious orientations of Jansenism. Domat supported the positions of the group of Port Royal and of the philosopher Blaise Pascal in the battle against the Jesuits. In the general theory of norms, in the five books of Lois civiles dans leur ordre naturel, he proposes an arrangement of private law in force in France during the last decades of the seventeenth century. In Droit Public he deals with political organization. The Roman law of tradition is the starting point of his theoretical work. The image of ‘civil society’ outlined in his writings has a theological foundation. The obligations that govern collective life correspond to the divine plan. From God’s will derive the composition of selfishness, the natural equality that governs contracts and the differentiations between personal statuses. Modern forms of exchange coexist with feudal remnants of subordination, and he illustrates the legal forms of this interweaving, distinguishing lois immuables from arbitrary laws. The idea that legal science must have an unquestionable basis, a dogmatic component, central to the pages of Domat, will return several times in the European culture of later centuries. It will be the basis of contemporary civil law doctrines.