Carl Anton Martini and Natural Law at the University of Vienna after 1752

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F60076658%3A12210%2F24%3A43908851" target="_blank" >RIV/60076658:12210/24:43908851 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/grot/45/2/grot.45.issue-2.xml" target="_blank" >https://brill.com/view/journals/grot/45/2/grot.45.issue-2.xml</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18760759-20240010" target="_blank" >10.1163/18760759-20240010</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Carl Anton Martini and Natural Law at the University of Vienna after 1752

Original language description

Natural law as a discipline was definitively institutionalized at universities in the Habsburg monarchy during the reforms of Maria Theresia after 1752. The guiding principles of these reforms were set in the instruction for the chair of natural law in Vienna which was given to Carl Anton Martini. It was Catholic in conception, but it ordered the professor to draw on Grotius. Our article reconstructs the elementary structure of Martini’s theory of natural law with a focus on his conception of state. The article proves that Martini did not adopt Wolff’s conception of deducing duties and obligations from the highest principle for that would conflict with the Catholic emphasis on freedom of will. Instead of that, Martini derived duties and rights from the three God-given ends. Martini perceived the state as based on social contract, after the model of Christian Wolff. However, it seems that Martini rejected the two-contract model and acknowledged only the contract of submission as binding. Martini sought to hold the middle ground between Machiavellians arguing that the subjects lose all rights after the social contract, and radical ‘monarchomachs’ who believe that the ‘populus’ retains the supreme power. Martini argues that the ruler is limited by natural laws; the subjects retain rights to life and to property, but they are denied any right to resistance. Since Martini derived the monarch’s powers from the unlimited duty to guarantee security, he admitted even encroachments on religious freedom. He admitted coercion in matters that would threaten salus civitatis, but respected the inner libertas conscientiae. He also acknowledged a peculiar division of powers differentiating between a legislative, an inspectorial and an executive power. Even though the aim of this division was not a system of checks and balances, a precise description of the scope of the executive power helped to delimit a sphere of individual freedom.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_SC - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the SCOPUS database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60101 - History (history of science and technology to be 6.3, history of specific sciences to be under the respective headings)

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2024

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Grotiana

ISSN

0167-3831

e-ISSN

1876-0759

Volume of the periodical

45

Issue of the periodical within the volume

2

Country of publishing house

NL - THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS

Number of pages

29

Pages from-to

181-209

UT code for WoS article

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EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85210942910