Introduction To Private Law

Introduction To Law

Textbook: P. Sirena. Introduction to private law, Il Mulino, 2020.

Chapters: 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ( only 6, 6.1, 6.2) and 11.

What is law in general?

We can find numbers of definitions of law by reading texts and documents coming from different cultures and different times. For instance:

• Dictionary of Han’s Dynasty (III century b.C): Law is punishment.
• Carl Marx: Law is a tool of oppression to exploit the working class.
• John Austin: A rule laid down for the guidance of an intelligent being by an intelligent being having power over him.
• Oliver Wendell Holmes: The prophecies of what courts will do.

Modern definitions of law:

• US legal dictionary: A Body of rules of conduct of binding legal force and effect, prescribed, recognized, and enforced by a controlling authority;
• Oxford Dictionary: The system of rules which a particular country of community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and which it may enforce by the imposition of penalties;
• Sirena (or book): Law is a social infrastructure which binds its members in that aims primarily to solving conflicts among them and secondarily to promoting their beneficial behavior.

Recurrent features:

• Law is somehow connected to prescriptions and sanctions;
• Law is always in relation to society.

Every man needs to get into relation with others. Humans are ‘society beings’ at least in the sense that getting what we need and wish requires to engage ourselves in relation with other members of our community. Humans are relational beings.

We use to call society the typical organization of a community of men and women.

Like any other organization, society needs a certain level of stability. In order to reach stability we need rules governing both the organization of the community, and the relations between the members, that we call social order.

Introduction To Law

Textbook: P. Sirena. Introduction to private law, Il Mulino, 2020.Chapters: 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ( only 6, 6.1, 6.2) and 11.

What is law in general?

We can find numbers of definitions of law by reading texts and documents coming from different cultures and different times. For instance:

• Dictionary of Han’s Dynasty (III century b.C) Law is punishment.
• Carl Marx: Law is a tool of oppression to exploit the working class.
• John Austin: A rule laid down for the guidance of an intelligent being by an intelligent being having power over him.
• Oliver Wendell Holmes: The prophecies of what courts will do.

Modern definitions of law:

• US legal dictionary: A Body of rules of conduct of binding legal force and effect, prescribed, recognized, and enforced by a controlling authority;
• Oxford Dictionary: The system of rules which a particular country of community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and which it may enforce by the imposition of penalties;
• Sirena (or book): Law is a social infrastructure which binds its members in that aims primarily to solving conflicts among them and secondarily to promoting their beneficial behavior.

Recurrent features:

• Law is somehow connected to prescriptions and sanctions;
• Law is always in relation to society.

Every man needs to get into relation with others. Humans are ‘society beings’ at least in the sense that getting what we need and wish requires to engage ourselves in relation with other members of our community. Humans are relational beings.

We use to call society the typical organization of a community of men and women.

Like any other organization, society needs a certain level of stability. In order to reach stability we need rules governing both the organization of the community, and the relations between the members, that we call social order.

We need rules establishing what is permitted and what is prohibited, to what extent a member of the society is free to do whatever he wants and what kind of behaviors are mandatory, and so on. Without such rules no society can resist stable and even exist.

We have numbers of different kinds of rules dealing with the organization of the society and the relations among its members (religion, morality, customs ecc). They are all techniques of social control.

In our daily life we can appreciate that sometimes these rules match perfectly, sometimes they differ or even collide.

EXAMPLES:

• Helping poor and needy people is a religious and moral rule, but not a legal rule;
• Leaving your seat to a pregnant woman is a moral rule (good manners), but neither a religious nor a legal prescription;
• Keeping your words, or paying your dues are at the same time moral, religious and legal rules;
• Refusing blood transfers is a religious rule but not a legal rule.

The relations among these set of rules can be indifference, coincidence and conflict.

What is the key feature of a legal rul