Paper's abstract

Paul Moreau, Thinking Family Law with Michel Villey
With its intempestive appearance, Michel Villey’s thought is today very precious to warn against a conception of family law that would consist merely in shaping the law of individuals. Thanks to it, one can better understand how this conception, branded by legal subjectivism, takes root in a philosophy that, heiress to nominalism, denies any ontological dimension to communities such as the family, as well as to family relationships in their specificity (fatherhood, filiation, brotherhood, difference between genders) and claims, from the only principles of equality and freedom to think the relation on the basis of a mere contract. Family is no more a natural community of interest; organised hierarchically and harmoniously, it is the place to express and demanding everyone’s rights and therefore the place of their quasi-necessary antagonism. About family we consider three aspects of contemporary law: the judicialisation of family life; the rise in individualism inside the family and the predominant role of will in the framing of intra-family relations; the confusion between these orders that are law and right. Finally, the author questions the limits of Michel Villey’s thought concerning the future of the family: maybe the right connection between law, civil law and moral should, in particular, be more precisely defined. In addition, beyond the naturalistic conception of Michel Villey, should not family be viewed as food for thought, especially as institution of the republic?

Key Words : Family, subjectivism,, judicialization, individualism
t. 50, 2007 : p. 331-342

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