The (good) desire for justice. A right to feelings ?

It is when faced with borderline cases that the law is put to the test. It happens today with " hard cases " , and it happened in Rome with declamations, which were school exercises for future orators. The declamations dealt with complex and seemingly absurd intrigues, in which the students and the teacher laid bare the difficulty of the law in reconciling all the interests at stake. This is the case of Controversy 1.1. by Seneca the Father, which concerns a young man driven out by his parents on two occasions: his only fault, having behaved generously, but opposing the commands of his father, then of his uncle who became his adoptive father, both divided by a deep-seated hatred. In discussing this case, the speakers highlighted an inner continent, that of feelings of which, they said, " each is master" (and no one is subject to the orders of others, not even those of his pater familias). School declarations and the texts of jurists show that this space of autonomy - the individual space of feelings and nature - instead of coming into conflict with the law, helps to make it more suitable for life in society: it is equity that ensures this suitability. Equity is thus intimately linked to social anthropology.