Page 287 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER SIX
6.1.1 Natural law: a changing paradigm
Seventeenth and eighteenth century natural law thinking brought a revolutionary change concerning the way legal scholars thought about the law of latent defects. It was characterized by deductive reasoning instead of taking Roman law cases as point of departure for inductive reasoning. Furthermore, natural law scholars held the firm believe that law could be developed in a consistent way from axioms. Baruch de Spinoza's (1632- 1677) thoughts about how mankind could come to true knowledge illustrates the value which 17th century scholars attached to mathematical modes of reasoning:
'Indeed men have rightly stated that the judgements of the gods are far beyond human understanding. This fact alone would surely have caused that the truth would always remain hidden from mankind, had not mathematics, which is not about ends but which only deals with the essential properties of figures, provided mankind with another standard of truth. In addition to mathematics other causes can be named... by which it might be realised that men... become aware of these common prejudices and be guided to true knowledge of things.'3
Inspired by similar inquiries into philosophy based on mathematical methodologies by Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) and Isaac Newton (1642-1726), legal scholars began to argue analogously. Natural law scholars such as Pufendorf (1632-1694)4, Jean Domat (1625-1696)5, and Christian Wolff (1679-1754)6 shared Spinoza's belief that mathematical precision would bring deeper insights into morality. Exemplary is Wolff's Philosophia practica universalis, mathematica methodo conscripta in which he constructs ethics with the help of a mathematical methodology.7
The majority of the scholars discussed in this chapter use the concept of fairness in exchange or contractual fairness as an axiom from which the rules governing the law of latent defects can be deduced. In contracts in which both parties have to perform (contractus onerosi8), both performances have to correspond in terms of value. All this is not very new. We have already seen the idea of fairness in exchange emerge throughout
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Spinoza, Ethica, pars 1, propositio 36, appendix, p. 148: 'Unde pro certo statuerunt deorum judicia humanum captum longissime superare quae sane unica fuisset causa ut veritas humanum genus in aeternum lateret, nisi mathesis quae non circa fines sed tantum circa figurarum essentias et proprietates versatur aliam veritatis normam hominibus ostendisset et praeter Mathesin aliae etiam adsignari possunt causae... a quibus fieri potuit, ut homines... communia haec praejudicia animadverterent, et in veram rerum cognitionem ducerentur.'
For biographical data see K. Luig, Klaus, 'Pufendorf, Samuel Freiherr von', in: NDB 21 (2003), pp. 3-5. M.F. Renoux-Zagamé, 'Domat, Jean', in: Dictionnaire, pp. 254-256.
For biographical data see W. Schrader, 'Wolff, Christian', in: ADB 44 (1898), pp. 12-28.
Wolff, Philosophia practica universalis, praeloquium, n.p.: 'His quidem praecipue de causis Mathematicum effloruit Studium: reliquae autem disciplinae splendorem, quo nunc effulgent, insignem ideo consecuta, quod earum cultores Mathematice philosophari, h.e. conceptus intellectus a perceptionibus imaginationis accurate distinguere, rerum naturas primo omnium loco investigare et ex iis reliqua deducere, tandemque ab universalibus et simplicioribus et specialiora et magis involuta progredi juxta leges genuina cujusdam methodi inveniendi verum sueverint'.
Contracts that 'utramque partem ad aequale onus adstringunt', Pufendorf, De officiis hominis, 1.15.2, p. 234; Gordley, Origins, p. 127, 132-133; K. Luig, 'Pufendorf, Samuel Freiherr von', in: NDB 21 (2003), S. 3-5.
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