ROMAGNOSI, GIANDOMENICO. — Philosopher and jurist, born at Salsomaggiore on 11 December 1761, died at Milan on 8 June 1835; author of works on philosophy, public and private law, economics, statistics, the history of culture, and also mathematics and physics. Particularly noteworthy are: Genesi del diritto penale (Pavia 1791); Introduzione allo studio del diritto pubblico universale (Parma 1805); Assunto primo della scienza del diritto naturale (Milano 1820); Instituzioni di civile filosofia, ossia di giurisprudenza teorica (posthumous, Firenze 1839); Scienza delle costituzioni (posthumous, Torino 1847).
The thought of R. is strongly influenced by the philosophical atmosphere in which he was formed, namely that of the then prevailing sensationalism (v.), but on the other hand reveals traces of Wolffian abstractism; naturalism (v.). The act of cognition is the effect of the concurrence of two powers, the I and the non-I (doctrine of causal competence): between spirit and nature there is a continuous series of actions and reactions, through which the former adapts itself to the latter, while not being entirely passive with respect to II. His fundamental naturalism leads R. to attempt to treat the moral sciences by the same method as the physical sciences; and indeed, especially in the field of the social sciences, his doctrine anticipates positions that would later belong to positivism and evolutionism. The life of society, which R., much as Spencer would do later, conceives as an organism, is governed by natural laws, which constitute an order of necessity corresponding, in the moral sphere, to the ethical-juridical order, which thus becomes subordinate to the former. The consequence is the utilitarian character of R.’s doctrine, according to which natural law, deriving from the imperative order of goods and evils that man must serve for his own interest and well-being, is the systematic knowledge of the rules moderating human acts, derived from the real and necessary relations of nature, in order to attain the best or avoid the worst: (Assunto primo della scienza del diritto nat., § 1, in Opere, ed. De Giorgi, III, 1, Milano 1842, p. 555); the qualification of “just” or “unjust” refers to the constant and necessary relations
that exist between human actions and their useful or harmful effects. The moral order is the “order of reason” constructed upon the natural order; natural law, however, is not, for R., eternal and immutable: it is “as extensive, as broad, as manifold as the needs are broad, extensive, and varied—not artificial but natural, that is, those induced by the very force of nature, either perpetually or at given times and places” (Ragguaglio storico e statistico degli studi di diritto germ. e nat. in Allemagna, § 2, loc. cit., p. 552). The order of reason varies according to the changing relations among facts; once one of these relations is given, however, the law corresponding to it is one of necessary reason.
R. was one of the earliest proponents of the principle of nationality; and “ethnicarchy,” as he calls it, lies at the foundation of his constitutional doctrine. In the field of criminal law, in accordance with his fundamental naturalistic determinism, he disregards free will and understands punishment exclusively as the defense of society, conceiving it as a “repelling force” that must be opposed to the “impelling force” constituted by the motives that lead man to crime, so as to neutralize them.