Our project, The Law and the Inner Self, explores the legal evolution of the idea of an “inner self” and today this quest is more important than ever, as cutting edge research on unveiling the mind progresses everyday through AI and neurotechnology. In the most recent publication of our project, Talya Deibel explores how the concept of the “inner self” has appeared in civil law tradition and traces the transhistorical patterns of the protection of the inner self back to the roots of European tort law .
Published in the Journal of Civil Law Studies, Talya’s paper uncovers how intangible personality interests such as honour, dignity, reputation, and mental integrity were protected in legal history, especially in Roman and medieval law, highlighting their connections to modern laws. The paper explores a key example: Roman delict iniuria, as the basis of modern doctrines on personality right(s).
Iniuria originally referred to physical injury and later extended to the damage to both corporeal and incorporeal elements of personhood. Many modern legal doctrines are rooted in Roman remedies, which have transformed over time through different historical periods, including Medieval law and Enlightenment. Despite shifts in political, social and economic contexts, the protection of the inner self has always been central to private law. Iniuria illustrated exactly this point.
The legal action provided against iniuria (actio iniuriarum) had a broad scope. It was not only directed to restitute material harm, but also functioned as a tool to ‘compensate the victim’s injured feelings’, and as such, provided relief against defamation, privacy violations, intrusion to the private sphere, as well as mental and emotional harm. How Romans approached these aspects was forward-looking and illustrative of a flexible idea of an inner self, which was socially constructed, and contemporary in its feel.
The Roman idea of innerness was distinct from our modern conceptions. Romans had a collective, and status-based understanding of the personhood and subjectivity, where the private sphere was tied to the household, as opposed to the sanctity of the atomistic individual of 19th century. In parallel, the Roman ‘inner self’ was intertwined with the tangible corpus, as opposed to its medieval re-conceptualization which encapsulated it as a closed, metaphysical realm.
The legal evolution of iniuria in Roman law and tort law remedies against the violation of personality rights reflects shifting social and ethical values over time, with different periods offering varying views on how damage to the inner self was understood. The relationship of the body with the inner self is still of the key challenges of modern tort laws and the protection of personality rights. Roman iniuria provides useful insights for contemporary challenges around privacy, personhood, and emerging technologies which blur the lines between the body and the inner self.
Comments