Melancholic Indignation. Suarezian Itineraries

Abstract

Analyzing the coincidence of moral and legal obligation for human conscience as conceptualised by Francisco Suarez, the article retraces the itinerary of the idea of debt in his work. The first formulation of debt is strictly connected with natural law and religion; then Suarez expands his perspective to investigate the relationship between debt and sin – the latter coinciding with the disregard of God and of law as with the contempt of the work of the human legislator. The indignation is the effect of a disorder of affections, of a melancholy that has to be disciplined by the laws and first of all by the indirect Church power.