Il «buon costume» come limite ai diritti: prospettive e problematiche

This doctoral thesis concerns the concept of «good mores» as a limitation to constitutional rights. The goal of this research is to devise a definition of this concept that a secularized and pluralist society can accept. In the first part of the thesis I have examined the «good mores» within Italian legal system. I have singled out the legal sources that refer to «good mores», or to similar notions, and I have studied how these concepts live in the jurisprudence and in doctrinal opinions. In the second part of the thesis I have analyzed the «good mores» in a transnational context, and I took into account this clause in the European dimension and, in a comparative perspective, in a foreign legal system, namely that of U.S.A. In the last part of the work I attempted a definition of the «good mores». Since this concept has a content that belongs to the sphere of ethics and values, I held that the source of shared values in a liberal-democratic society might be its Constitution, and, within a pluralist Constitution, there might be an overlapping consensus on the value of human dignity. Therefore, I examined the possibility to link the «good mores» to human dignity, and I explored the consequences of that interpretive solution with regard to fundamental rights of the individual. .