MURATORI AND THE DEFECTS OF JURISPRUDENCE: CONSIDERATIONS ON THE THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF 18TH-CENTURY LEGAL REFORMS

• Autor(a) principal: Castro, Alexander de
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Eletrônica do Curso de Direito da UFSM
• Texto Completo: http://periodicos.ufsm.br/revistadireito/article/view/31837
• topic: Defects of Jurisprudence. Public Hapiness. Legal Enlightenment. Muratori. Eighteenth-century legal reformism.; Defectos em la jurisprudencia. Felicidad pública. Ilustración Jurídica. Muratori. Reformismo jurídico del siglo XVIII.; Defeitos da Jurisprudência. Felicidade Pública. Iluminismo Jurídico. Muratori. Reformismo Jurídico Setecentista.

The purpose of this paper is to take stock of the importance of Lodovico Antonio Muratori’s work for the formation of the 18th-century legal reformism. We analyze Muratori’s criticism of Ancien Régime legal science as a part of the political discourse on the public happiness that spread from the mid-18th Century, which had Muratori as one of its most important representatives. Said discourse, that later – one could argue – would be developed in a way that contributed to the foundations of human and personality rights, was initially an important topic of the justification of absolutist centralization. We seek to demonstrate the connection between the theory of legal reform and the beginnings of the formation of the idea of enlightened absolutism. Thereafter, we explain how Muratori’s ideas were received by Enlightenment authors and, through them, conquered the whole Europe thus becoming part of the common repertoire of Ancien Régime criticism. Finally, we comment on the possible reverberation of Muratori’s ideas in the beginning of Pombaline legal reforms in Portugal.