journal homepage: http://farplss.org
Volume 26, Number 2, 2018
144
Concept of Law in modern society
V. Varynskyi
ORCID 0000-0001-5837-6201
Odessa State University of Internal Affairs, Odessa, Ukraine
Article info
Received 02.04.2018
Accepted 30.04.2018
Odessa State University of Internal Affairs, Odessa, Ukraine
vlad.varinskiy@gmail.com
The article is written in the framework of a scientific topic: "Social and Humanitarian Priorities of Law Enforcement in the Context of Reform Processes in Ukraine".
Varynskyi, V. (2018). Concept of Law in modern society. Fundamental and applied researches in practice of leading scientific schools, 26 (2),144–148.
The article deals with the semantic information character of the concept of law. The history of formation and national features of the concept are analyzed. The comparison is conducted with content formats in the US and Europe.
It is established that the legal principles of the Slavs strongly depend on spiritual values. In the Ukrainian national picture of the world, the violation of the law presupposed recognition, repentance, that is, a person's awareness of the illegitimacy of his actions. Therefore, for the Ukrainian mentality, the priority was spiritual punishment for crimes – the Judgment of God and the laws of society - the Laws of God. In the early twentieth century in Ukrainian society, spiritual laws had a thousand-year history and established value postulates, while state laws, although they were based on the legal norms of Roman law, in practice depended on officials, were used for their own benefit. Thus, a negative perception of the concept of law was formed in society. The presentation of the concept of law in dictionaries and legal discourse is considered. It is noted that the legal meaning of the concept of law in the XX century in the national legal system was aimed at regulating public relations. At the same time, its normative zone prescribed what should and should not be done.
Also, differences in the national informativeness of the concept of law in Ukrainian, American and European societies were revealed. It outlines the priority of European values reflected in the concept of law, and the need to transform the Ukrainian legal system into a European format.
Key words: concept law; society; values; legal guidelines.
Introduction
Modern society is characterized by the active use of legal concepts in all spheres of life. In recent years, we have seen the use of such expressions as the rule of law, legal development, legal assessment, legal position, democratic values, respect for democratic principles, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms", "Democracy through the law", "Legal culture" and others. Within the framework of democratic legal orientations, the concepts of the state, power, and law are also presented. At the same time, declarations about the construction of a law-governed state are often perceived by the Ukrainian society only as a declaration. Public consciousness for a long time faced with conservatism, therefore the concept of law was not perceived as an effective regulator of social relations. Gradual change of social norms entails the transformation of the basic concepts on which the law relies. At the same time, we note that the perception of these concepts by individual and collective consciousness goes beyond the space in which they were included in the previous ideology.
This situation actualizes the problems of distinguishing the socio-cultural, political and legal components of the concept of law by comparing the semantic priorities of these concepts that are characteristic of different countries and different state systems and presents updated content in the European format,
Studies of this type are ultimately aimed at changing public consciousness. The concepts of the state, power, law, rights are related to the functioning of the cultural, information, political and legal code of society in the dynamic system of the state. Being an integral part of modern society, they carry semantic information about the development priorities of this society.
Let us demonstrate what has been said, using an example of information that the concept carries the law in historical, philosophical and linguistic legal aspects.
Goals of article
Volume 26, Number 2, 2018
145
Materials and MethodsThe article uses general scientific methods, analysis, comparison and generalization.
Results
Modern life, its dynamics, positive and negative sides activate the semantic and cultural components of concepts that become important for a certain time, in a specific national space. Interest in concepts is due to the role they play in the life of modern society and the individual, as well as civilization, political and cultural changes.
In modern conditions, legal values are socially significant, therefore, specific features of legal concepts (in particular, the concept of law), their functioning in society, various parameters are of interest to many researchers S.
Maksimova (Maksimov, 2002), I. Palashevskoy,
(Palashevskaya, 2001, 2005), V. Ryndiuk (Ryndiuk, 2016), A. Skorobogatova and A. Krasnovа (Skorobogatov and Krasnov, 2013), V. Snicar (Snicar, 2017), Yu. Stepanova (Stepanov, 1997), A. Chmyr (Chmyr , 2005) and others.
The concept of the law accumulates legal, socially significant, political and national cultural objectifications of reality: "The concept of LAW is a key concept of the legal picture of the world, as well as a conceptual regulator, that is, in a concentrated form containing the evaluation code of a particular linguistic culture, representing its axiological basis. The concept of the LAW is universal, since it exists in the minds of representatives of any linguistic culture, but in national conceptospheres it acquires specific national characteristics, due to the priority of certain aspects of perception of this fragment of the surrounding reality for the corresponding linguistic cultural community and the features of their interpretation " (Snicar, 2017, 145).
To determine the universal and ethno-specific meaning of the concept, it is advisable to begin the study of the concept of law for Ukrainian society by studying the functioning of the concept in remote chronological sections in time.
Important information for a modern understanding of the concept of law is contained in the data of the language. In Old Slavonic, Old Russian, modern Ukrainian, the concept of law has a common root *kon-, which gives interesting information about the formation of a national sense of justice. The legal semantics in the proto-slavic root *kon- are motivated, according to A. Chmyr, by representations of a limited space. In the archaic consciousness of the ancient Slavs, such a space was perceived as a world of its own, in which there was an established order, the law and everything that was outside this space, was perceived as unsettled and constituted a threat. Thus, the basis of the notion of law lies in the meaning of the limit: the spatial arrangement within certain boundaries of its world. Going beyond this space breaks the order, so "banishment beyond" coercion to go beyond the orderly world is considered a punishment for violation of order. Researchers note that in the ancient law expulsion was a punishment for a serious crime. This is due to the loss of social status, deprivation of guilt of means of subsistence. A person expelled from the community lost not only all social and property rights, every member of the community, having met with exiles, had the
right to kill him. In many European myths, the notion that a person who has committed a serious crime and is compelled to be outside his kind became a creature without a clan and land, a freak, a monster, a werewolf (Chmyr, 2005, 7-8).
In the same plan, there is also a phraseological presentation of the conceptual law. Thus, phraseology "should be outlawed" in the modern interpretation "outside the protection and protection of laws, be deprived of civil rights" (Oliynyk, 1997, 148), is associated with these long-standing views, testifies to the duality of the world: "his own - a stranger".
The legal guidelines of the Slavs were strongly influenced by spiritual values. The binary complex "my world and another world" was perceived as oppositional. At the same time, the first concept of the opposition "in the minds of the ancient Slavs was defined as a value advantage" (Varynska & Varynskyi, 2011, 78). The concept of a stranger caused negative associations. Alien space was analogous to the value of bad, the negative semantics of which is equivalent to the concept of evil spirits, paganism. It is also worth noting that the modern use in Russian of the word "without limit" is analogous to the Ukrainian word "lawlessness". The absence of a limit, a trait that can not be transgressed, in Ukrainian society was tantamount to the absence of a law, and is oriented toward the opposition of "my and the other" ("lawful and lawless").
The subsequent tradition of perceiving someone else as hostile continued until the present time.
To clarify the national-cultural component of the concept of law, one should take into account its genesis. According to the data of the etymological dictionary of M. Fasmer, the Ukrainian society defined the law as "confession, participle", which is quite different from the conceptual informativeness of this concept in other languages. In Serbo-Croatian, for example, the dictionary of M. Fasmer presents the law as "custom, law, faith", and in Polish as "law, covenant, monastic order" (Fasmer, 1986, 75). These are completely different levels of interpretation of the concept.
In the Ukrainian national picture of the world, violations of the law provided for recognition, repentance, that is, a person's awareness of the illegitimacy of his actions. Consciousness was accomplished through repentance in sins before the priest. Therefore, for the Ukrainian mentality, the priority was spiritual punishment for crimes - the Judgment of God and the laws of society - the Laws of God. Consequently, the associative-semantic field of the concept, the law in Old Slavonic and Old Russian languages contains moral and ethical concepts: guilt, shame, shamelessness.
Reconstruction of the semantic motives, on the basis of which the concept was formed, deepens the knowledge of the national-cultural paradigm of the corresponding period, allows us to trace the continuity of the cultural tradition and the evolution of the dominant features. Much later, the semantic load of the concept will expand, which V. Dal will fix in his dictionary.
Volume 26, Number 2, 2018
146
criminal law (Dal, 1991, 588). Recorded in the dictionary definition of judicial punishment: the limit of free will or action; the inevitable beginning, the foundation; rule, the decree of the supreme authority. From this it follows that the concept of the law already presupposed not only "what will end", but also what will begin, that is, certain actions of a legal nature.Thus, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the "Spiritual Laws" had a thousand-year history and postulated value propositions and state laws, although they were based on the legal norms of Roman law (lex homines recte facere yubet, vtat delinguere - the law prescribes people to do the right thing and prohibits misconduct) their system has not yet been formed and in practice depended on the performers. According to the professor of law of the Imperial Moscow University A. Alekseev: "There were no laws that could govern the rulers, but private instructions and orders were given, but at the same time it was added:" to do on this order and look at a specific case and how you will be better, and how God will teach you " (Alekseev, 1897, 443), that is, complete freedom of representatives of laws. V. Dal speaks of this freedom as follows: "Everyone gains power over his good. The law determines the power of every official, and the supreme authority over the law. All power to God answers " (Dal, 1991, 213). The result of this freedom is expressed in proverbs and statements of our people: "not every rod is bent according to the law", "do justice according to the law", "do not be afraid of the law - be afraid of the judge", "where there is power, there the law is powerless" "where the law is a crime" and others, that reflected the perception of the justice system by the public conscience.
The legal representation of the concept of the law of that time was presented in scientific legal discourse. In the summary of lectures on public law of Professor A. Alekseev for 1897, we read: "The definition of the law. By law, we mean the mandatory appointment of a rule of law. In this definition we find two elements that constitute essential features of the law: 1) each law is a prescription of the supreme authority to which all subjects are obliged to obey, 2) the law is a legal norm.
These two signs - the prescription of the supreme authority and the legal norm - are exhausted by the concept of the law " (Alekseev, 1897, 251).
As we see, the legal meaning of the concept of law in the XX century in the national legal system was aimed at regulating social relations. At the same time, its regulatory zone combines "cognitive signs that indicate what should and should not be done with the subject or the phenomenon of conceptualization in the sphere covered by the concept (cognitive signs verbalized through" must "," not needed "," impossible "and t "In particular," it is necessary to protect, it is necessary to observe, to punish violators, it is impossible to violate " (Sternin, 2015, 332). This allows us to talk about the existence of a common system of conceptual features that create the field of the concept of law in such dimensions: "right-lawlessness"; "power - arbitrariness - lack of rights"; "power is people"; "the state is people"; "truth is truth is a lie"; "debt is a crime"; "norm is lawlessness."
The analysis, made on the material of the dictionaries of this period, helps to determine the evolution of the dominant
values of the concept of law for Ukrainian society in the XX - XXI centuries.
In the dictionary of the Russian language S. Ozhegov we find such knowledge about the concept:
1. "Relations and interdependence of some phenomena of objective reality".
2. "The decision of state power".
3. "The generally accepted rule recognized as binding" (Ozhegov, 1978, 192).
As we see, definitions that are relevant in the XX century, have a vector orientation in three areas: philosophical, political and legal, where they were developed further.
At the same time, social philosophy and sociology focused on studying the social mechanism of the law in legal reality (Maksimov, 2002), and the legal science mainly concerned the analysis of the problems of the legal regulation mechanism and the essence of law in this context (Skorobogatov & Krasnov, 2013).
In the 21 st century, the definitions of the law are oriented to the same spheres, but with a clearer differentiation and scientific concretization of the concept. The foregoing reflects the Large Dictionary of Modern Ukrainian Language edited by V. Busel:
1. "The general binding rule established by the highest state body has the highest legal force".
2. "The generally accepted, established rule of common life, the norm of conduct".
3. "The basic rules in any field of human activity, arising from the very essence of the case".
4. "Objectively existing, constant and necessary interrelation between objects, phenomena or processes, arising from their internal nature, essence, regularities".
5. "The totality of dogmas (basic provisions) of any religion, dogma" (Busel, 2009, 396-397).
Moreover, V. Busel vocabulary covers a rather wide information spectrum of the concept of law and is represented in such verbalization: God's law, the law of value, the law of supply and demand in the name of law, the law "dry," the laws of Manu, the lawfulness of meanness, the law of large numbers, law conservation of energy, to have a law, to enter into law.
However, today dictionaries do not have time to fix the information potential of the concept law. The most operatively updated meaning of the concept is presented in scientific, in particular legal, discourse and is represented in the mass media.
Scientifically justified delineation of the essence of the conceptual law, according to I. Palashevskaya, is reduced to such components:
the thematic side of the concept is a conceptual diagram reflecting the most generalized images of different norms of law and morality;
the conceptual side of the concept is codified - a norm established and supported by state power and traditions;
the value aspect of the concept is the attitude towards the norm and state power (Palashevskaya, 2001).
From the point of view of the materials presented on the concept of law, we draw attention to:
the dependence of the concept semantic load on the sphere of functioning;
Volume 26, Number 2, 2018
147
leading values оf society.At the same time, the negative perception of the law in society in connection with its use for mercenary purposes, noted in previous periods, is used up to the present time, is used in the media: "laws on lawlessness", "law of the jungle and corruption", "thief in law, "" circumvent the law, "and so on.
Meanwhile, the concept of law begins to transform. The transformation of the concept is primarily reflected in its names: the law on decommunization ("On condemning the communist and national socialist (nazi) totalitarian regimes in Ukraine and prohibiting the propagation of their symbols"), the law on lustration ("On the purification of power"), the anti-corruption law "On Prevention of Corruption"), the law "Stop Mask Show" ("On Amending Certain Legislative Acts to Ensure Compliance with the Rights of Participants in Criminal Proceedings") and other persons in law enforcement agencies when exercising The law of Magnitsky ("Russia and Moldova Jackson-Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012"), the Law of Savchenko ("On Amending the Criminal Code of Ukraine on improving the period of early detention in court") are interesting. We draw attention to the fact that nominations associated with specific names or concepts, unlike full names, are perceived in a more productive way in society. This verbalization of the concept is more clearly manifested in the figurative reference points of reality and rapid access for non-professional consciousness.
The European integration of Ukraine assumes adaptation of the Ukrainian legislation to the legislation of the European Union. The European Union today is a symbol of development, a symbol of everything new and modern, including in terms of law. The East is a symbol of tradition and conservatism Bringing Ukraine's legal system closer to the European one, it is necessary to take into account the differences in knowledge that basic concepts bear. After all, in American and European law other ideas about the concept of law are laid. If in Europe constitutional values were considered equality and solidarity, then Americans valued above all freedom. They are also firmly convinced that the state power should play an official role in relation to civil society. Western consciousness perceives the law as the organizing and guiding principle through which freedom is established. For the European society, the law is the guarantor of freedom. Law-obedience is realized and mentally fixed in all age categories of the American society. Therefore, the key concept for American life is the rule of law, which creates a favorable atmosphere for everyone's equality before the law.
Approach to the perception of the European concept of legality by the Ukrainian society through the recognition of the priority of European values in relation to law enforcement actions is associated with changes in the traditions of understanding the law.
Conclusions
Analysis of the concept of law allowed to identify the main national cultural traditions, values, beliefs, on the one hand, and legal guidelines, their perception of society and action, on the other hand. Different vectors of the concept
are revealed in the Ukrainian, American and European societies. The priority of European values, reflected in the concept of the law and the need to transform the national legal system in the European format, is noted.
References
Alekseev, A. (1897). Russian state law: a summary of lectures of the ordinary professor of the Imperial Moscow University. Moscow, Printing house of the Society for the Distribution of Useful Books. [In Russian].
Алексеев, А. (1897). Русское государственное право: конспект лекций ординарного профессора императорского московского университета. Москва, Типография Общества распространения полезных книг.
Busel, V. (2009). Great explanatory dictionary of modern Ukrainian language. Kiev, Irpen: VTF «Perun». [In Ukrainian].
Бусел, В. (2009). Великий тлумачний словник сучасної української мови. Київ, Ірпінь : ВТФ «Перун».
Chmyr, O. (2005). Lexical law in the Old Slavonic and Old Russian languages: semantic motivation, ways of conceptualization (PhD in Philological sciences). Kyiv: Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.
Чмир, О. (2005). Лексика права у старословʼянській та давньоруській мовах: семантична мотивованість, шляхи концептуалізації (кандидат філологічних наук). Київ: Київський національний університет імені Тараса Шевченка.
Dal, V. (1991). Explanatory dictionary of the living Great Russian language. Moscow: Russian language. [In Russian].
Даль, В. (1991). Толковый словарь живого великорусского языка. Русский язык: Москва.
Fasmer, M. (1986). Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language. Moscow: Progress. [In Russian].
Фасмер, М. (1986). Этимологический словарь русского языка. Москва: Прогресс.
Maksimov, S. (2002). Legal reality: the experience of philosophical reflection. - Kharkov: Pravo. [In Russian].
Максимов, С. (2002). Правовая реальность: опыт философского осмысления. – Харьков: Право.
Ozhegov, S. (1978). Dictionary of the Russian language. Moscow: Russian language. [In Russian].
Ожегов, С. (1978). Словарь русского языка. Москва: Русский язык.
Oliynyk, I. (1997). Ukrainian-Russian and Russian-Ukrainian phraseological glossary. Kharkov: Prapor. [In Ukrainian].
Олійник, І. (1997). Українсько-російський і російсько-український фразеологічний тлумачний словник. Прапор: Харків.
Palashevskaya, I. (2005). Law: An anthology of concepts. 1. Volgograd: The Paradigm, 92- 110. [In Russian].
Палашевская, И (2005). Закон: Антология концептов. 1.
Волгоград: Парадигма, 92- 110.
Palashevskaya, I. (2001).The concept of "law" in English and Russian linguocultures (PhD in Philological sciences). Volgograd:Volgograd State University. [In Russian].
Палашевская, И (2001). Концепт «закон» в английской и русской лингвокультурах (кандидат филологических наук). Волгоград: Волгоградский государственный университет. Ryndiuk, V. (2016). Law: to question semantic and terminological
determination: Scientific herald. Series Law Sciences. 3, (1).
Kherson: Kherson State University, 50-54. [In Ukrainian].
Риндюк, В. (2016). Закон: до питання семантичного та термінологічного визначення: Науковий вісник. Серія
Юридичні науки. 3, (1). Херсон: Херсонський державний
університет, 50-54.
Volume 26, Number 2, 2018
148
Скоробогатов, А., & Краснов, А. (2013). Современные концепции правопонимания: учебное пособие. Казань: Институт экономики, управления и права.
Snicar, V. (2017). Concept LAW in English and Ukrainian linguocultures: Res Humanitariae XXI, 21, 143–167. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.15181/rh.v21i0.1527 [In Russian]. Сницар В. Концепт LAW / ЗАКОН в английской и украинской
лингвокультурах: Res Humanitariae XXI, 21, 143–167. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.15181/rh.v21i0.1527
Stepanov, Yu. (1997). Constants. Dictionary of Russian culture. Moscow: School "Languages of Russian Culture." [In Russian]. Степанов, Ю. (1997). Константы. Словарь русской культуры.
Москва: Школа «Языки русской культуры».
Sternin, I. (2015). Theoretical and Applied Problems of Linguistics: Selected Works. Moscow-Berlin: Direct MEDIA. [In Russian]. Стернин, И. (2015). Теоретические и прикладные проблемы
языкознания: избранные работы. Москва–Берлин: Direct MEDIA.
Varynska, A., & Varynskyi, V. (2011). Аssociative-semantic
components of the concept law: Functional linguistics. Science
Magazine; 2, 78-80. [In Ukrainian].
Варинська, А., & Варинський, В. (2011). Асоціативно-семантичні
складові концепту «закон»: Функциональная лингвистика.
