Open AccessEmociones draconianas: la institucionalización afectiva del perdón en la ley ateniense sobre homicidio (IG I3. 104, 13-20)
Author(s) -
Emiliano J. Buis
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
nova tellus/nova tellus (en línea)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2683-1759
pISSN - 0185-3058
DOI - 10.19130/iifl.nt.2020.38.2.0001
Subject(s) - forgiveness , pathos , rationality , institutionalisation , social psychology , humanities , psychology , sociology , political science , philosophy , law , linguistics
It has been frequently stated that, after the displacement of private interpersonal revenge by third-party public mechanisms controlled by the polis, Draco’s law on homicide replaced the emotions related to the repression of crime with an order founded on a group-based rationality which is expected within an objective legal system. However, an examination of the provisions referring to pardon (aidesis) in the preserved text of the norm allows us to identify a mechanism of affective institutionalization. As a result of the implementation of legal artifice, this mechanism manages to endorse the fiction of a collective forgiveness capable of overcoming individual pathos.