Legal worldview as an attribute and component of legal consciousness

Zozulia Aleksandr ORCID: 0000-0002-6571-136X PhD in Law Associate Professor of the Department of Theory and History of State and Law, Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education St. Petersburg University of the State Fire Service of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia 196105, Russia, g. Saint Petersburg, ul. Moskovskii Prospekt, 149 alezozulya@mail.ru

Introduction

The domestic legal reality is increasingly actualizing various aspects of the problematic of the "spiritual dimension" of law, and first of all, the formation of a socially acceptable legal consciousness. At the same time, special attention of researchers is paid to the legal worldview as a phenomenon closely related to legal consciousness. The agenda includes not only practical issues of the legal worldview - content, formation, consolidation in the legal consciousness, but also general theoretical problems, including the conceptual aspect.

Until recently, the understanding of the legal worldview as the highest form of law-abiding legal consciousness, as a system of views, according to which the conditions of life in society are viewed by their members exclusively through the prism of legal rights, duties and responsibilities, seemed quite justified. Such characteristics of legal consciousness were perceived as a completely achievable ideal, as evidenced by the experience of developed Western legal systems, which is quite understandable if, following F. Engels considered "the legal worldview to be the basis of the spiritual life of the bourgeois society that emerged in Europe" ^{[1, p. 115]}. In this context, the legal worldview appears as an absolute antipode of legal nihilism.

Unfortunately, the domestic legal reality speaks of more than modest results of almost 30 years of promotion of post-Soviet Russian society to the designated ideals of the legal worldview. A variety of programs and practical measures for the formation of proper individual and public legal awareness not only did not bring our fellow citizens closer to an unconditional perception of the value of law, but the result of these measures ultimately gives reason to talk about the current crisis of domestic law, which is directly related to the processes of modernization, the emergence of new contradictions in society and problems of legal regulation ^[2]. There is a paradox – nihilistic in its essence (understanding the essence of law as a necessary but transient evil), the public legal consciousness of the Soviet period provided greater efficiency of legal regulation than the legal consciousness of modern Russian society, which aspired (at least declaratively) to the perception of the unconditional value of law.

The identified problems actualize the need for a general theoretical development of the ideological characteristics of legal consciousness. The purpose of the study is to develop directions for the formation of a socially acceptable legal worldview. Within the framework of the study , the following tasks are set:

- definition of the content of the legal worldview as a legal phenomenon, its relationship with legal consciousness;

- identification of the determinants of the formation of a legal worldview;

- definition of key criteria for a socially acceptable legal worldview.

Definition of the legal worldview

In the legal doctrine as a system of established, dominant ideas about law, the legal worldview is often identified with a legal consciousness that meets certain criteria and is analyzed in the context of legal culture. Thus, in the textbook "Philosophy of Law" edited by academician V.S. Nersesyants, when considering the problems of interaction of law with other social norms in relation to the system of forms of public consciousness, they talk about legal consciousness and legal worldview as synonyms. T.N. Gromova defines legal worldview as a complex system of feelings, values and rational ideas about society based on the determining role of law and legality in social life ^[3]. It is obvious that the doctrine most often recognizes the perception of law as an unconditional value, the desire of the bearer of legal consciousness to such an order in which legal norms, regardless of other social regulators and circumstances, are subject to mandatory application, as the main criterion that allows to endow legal consciousness with a "degree" of legal worldview.

In the author's opinion, in order to identify the essence of the worldview as a legal phenomenon, it is necessary first of all to move away from the formal dogmatic interpretation of the correlation of the legal worldview and legal consciousness. In this regard, G.V. Palastrova's proposal to perceive the legal worldview "as the basis, the ideological core of legal consciousness, the leading element of its structure, conditioned by the national or civilizational context, seems to be sufficiently reasoned" ^{[1, p. 115]}. The heuristic potential of this approach is much higher than the traditional interpretation, since it allows us to study the legal worldview as a special component of the structure of legal consciousness, derived from a whole complex of factors, including legal reality, mental, axiological and spiritual characteristics of legal consciousness carriers. The author, generally sharing the view outlined above, considers it necessary to identify some more key characteristics of the legal worldview as a component of legal consciousness.

The first thing to emphasize is that the legal worldview is an integrating link of legal consciousness. It is the legal worldview, being the ideological basis of legal consciousness, that provides a single vector of ideological-rational and emotional-volitional elements. Next is the axiological role of the legal worldview, which, as a substantial component of legal consciousness, forms its semantic and value characteristics, sets the criteria of truth in assessing the phenomena of the sphere of legal regulation. And, finally, it is important to note that the legal worldview is not a kind of subjective education abstracted from the outside world (beyond the boundaries of the human personality), and at the same time it is derived from the psychological characteristics of the individual. It follows from this that the legal worldview is the result of the legal socialization of the individual in the specific conditions of state-legal reality. And here it is necessary to differentiate the legal worldview and legal mentality. The latter also often appears in the scientific discussion on the issues of legal consciousness and legal culture as their kind of primary basis, due to a complex of factors ^[4], however, it does not have the most important feature of the legal worldview – recognition of the defining role of law in social life.

Thus, considering the legal consciousness and worldview as an ontologically whole phenomenon, the author understands the legal worldview as the dominant value-normative component of legal consciousness, conditioned by a complex of objective and subjective factors, ensuring such integration of its ideological-rational and emotional-volitional structure, which guarantees socially useful legitimate activity of subjects. With regard to the specifics of the legal worldview in modern conditions, the stated approach calls for an assessment of those factors of state-legal reality that have a decisive impact on public legal awareness.

Modern determinants of the formation of a legal worldview

One of the characteristics of modern legal reality as a factor affecting legal consciousness is its conditionality by the processes of globalization ^[5], to give them a categorical negative or positive assessment is at least unconstructive. Meanwhile, there is no doubt about the fact, and it is increasingly noted in the scientific literature, that as an undeniable consequence of globalization, we have the actualization of the problem of legal understanding ^[6], in which a number of other essential characteristics of law as a regulator of public relations, and especially its communicative, objectively come to the fore (in addition to state obligation)., socializing potential. According to L.I. Glukhareva's fair assessment, "the monistic approach, in which the legal understanding deduces law as a monolithic and homogeneous phenomenon, does not correspond to reality, since it obscures the fact of many forms of law having different essence" ^[7]. And considering that the legal understanding can be considered a central, defining element of the legal worldview, which in turn, as the core of legal consciousness, is a significant factor in legal education and legal regulation, the dominant concepts of law largely predetermine the existence of positive law, and not least its implementation.

The lively discussion that has unfolded in the scientific literature of recent times about the types of legal understanding allows us to draw an unambiguous conclusion - in the conditions of globalization, law as a social regulator cannot exist in the paradigm of the only true comprehensive concept. Nevertheless, a common denominator can be identified in most modern interpretations of law - the legitimacy of legal prescriptions is somehow conditioned by their complementarity to higher-order phenomena, the so-called "spiritual dimension" of law. The inevitable consequence of the legal worldview formed on the basis of such a postulate is the critical, rational attitude of the addressees of legal norms to positive (coming from the state) law, which is not at all a manifestation of legal nihilism, since citizens in a healthy democracy by definition have a natural need not to be unconditionally subordinate to state law (and there is no special need for such subordination in the presence of a developed civil society).

As the next significant determinant of the modern legal worldview, we can single out the level of trust of the addressees of legal regulation to the source of legal norms and the law enforcer. In this context, the source is understood not so much as the forms of positivization of legal prescriptions, as subjects of state rulemaking at various levels. This is especially relevant for the conditions for the formation of a legal worldview in post-Soviet Russia. There are problems here for more than one serious study. In particular, the scientific literature notes the closeness of the rule-making subject as a communicant in the system of bureaucratic management ^[8], the opposition of the population to the current government, which inevitably grows in conditions of deep crises ^[9], the actual absorption of the democratic principles proclaimed in the Constitution of the Russian Federation by public law ^[10], the lack of a spiritual development strategy in power, the spiritual insufficiency of the proclaimed by it goals ^[11], the use of law for the protection and lobbying of particular rather than general interests ^{[12, p. 133]}, etc.

It is clear that these problems do not bring legal awareness closer to the "heights" of the legal worldview (in its classical sense). Rather, on the contrary, the law-abiding superego, when faced with socio-political realities, forms a directly opposite reaction, which in itself not only allows us to conclude that the ideals of the legal worldview are distant in time (as the highest stage of the development of legal consciousness), but makes us think in principle about the achievability of such a goal.

All these characteristics of legal reality have led to the fact that positive (state) law has ceased to be reflected in the prevailing legal consciousness at the level of the legal worldview as the highest moral criterion, and this inevitably entails a decrease in the effectiveness of legal regulation. In combination with the increasing role of dynamic legal consciousness as the main factor of law-making and law enforcement in conditions of accelerating social dynamics ^[13], in practice such a result caused a logically justified reaction of subjects of legal relations - the desire for freedom or autonomy in determining the boundaries of their behavior, that is, to self-regulation of public relations.

It seems that this reflection can be considered one of the key characteristics of the modern legal worldview, and with this in mind, the concept of social law by J. Gurvich seems relevant, which allows us to present the general function of law as an objective integration of a certain totality by arranging the unity of communication of its members ^[14]. From the standpoint of this approach, it is quite justified to consider the desire for self-regulation not as a kind of "curtsey" of the legal worldview to legal nihilism, but as a reflection in the legal consciousness of the synergy of law and other social regulators that is objective in the existing reality.

Criteria for a socially acceptable legal worldview

Some generalizations in the focus of the issues under consideration allow the author to identify two key characteristics of a socially acceptable legal worldview. First, within the framework of the socio-normative aspect of the issues identified, it is necessary to state that the legal worldview is a complex phenomenon that includes both awareness of the legal regulations themselves and moral and ethical requirements, including those recognized in local communities. This characteristic calls for a special "fusion" of morality and rational structures of legal consciousness within the framework of the legal worldview, which will ensure the perception of law as an unconditional moral ideal.

Further, since "types of legal understanding can be used as tools for assessing real problems of state and legal development" ^{[12, p. 135]}, the legal worldview should be based on such a legal understanding that would exclude the opposition of positive law (law in the broad sense of the word) and "genuine law". In this regard, the problem of expediency and justice in law comes to the fore, which in itself means the need to understand the deep properties of legal matter: the principles of law, its essence, the goals of legal regulation, the social value of law.

Conclusions.

The conducted research allows the author to consider the legal worldview as a dominant value-normative component of legal consciousness. The formation of the legal worldview is due to a complex of objective and subjective factors, among which it is necessary to highlight the diversification of modern legal understanding, crisis phenomena in the field of positive law, the actualization of self-regulation in the legal sphere. A proper legal worldview should ensure such integration of ideological-rational and emotional-volitional components of legal consciousness, which ensures the synergy of law and other social regulators, guarantees socially useful legitimate activities of subjects of legal relations. In practical terms, this leads to the conclusion that there is a need for adequate legal education of citizens for these purposes. In this regard, the content of the legal component of educational programs should be the subject of a comprehensive theoretical study in order to modernize it.