Individual Will and the Civil Law Tradition: Rethinking Lex Privata

This volume sets out to explore the relationship between individual will (voluntas) and the legal rule. What unfolds in the following pages is a wide-ranging itinerary, moving between past and present, most notably ancient Rome and the contemporary world.

The guiding question is as radical as it is enduring: in what way can voluntas (a psychological impulse internal to the individual) come to determine the legal rule? European private law tradition rests on the premise that legally binding a...