Law and morality: problems of interaction in the context of modern realities

Abstract

Introduction. The article investigates the conceptual problems of interaction of law and morality in the context of modern value and ideological realities. Expanding the space of freedom in a democratic legal development, the rapid nature of scientific and technological progress, comprehensive informatization of all spheres and spheres of public life, increasing social inequality and other crisis realities of today objectively require clarifi cation and rethinking issues of interaction and interconnection of different social regulators, in particular, law and moral, the rules of which regulate the greatest number of social relations. The aim of the article. The purpose of this article is to identify the main problems of interaction of law and morality in the context of the socio-cultural realities of today. Results. In our opinion, problems of interaction of law and morality in modern realities are due to the transformation of understanding of the essence and nature of social norms in general and, in particular, its moral component, which increasingly loses its transcendent, absolute origins, thus becoming more democratic, individualistic, capable of endless meaningful experiments. and the perception of many alternatives. Among the specifi c features of the moral life of modern democratic society in the scientifi c literature are rightly noted such features as moral pluralism, development of professional and corporate codes of ethics (institutionalization of morality), the division of morality by ethnicity, orientation of moral requirements to a certain external standard, which opposes the traditional moral call for unlimited human self-improvement in a Christian or religious context, as well as a utilitarian approach that involves decision-making based on the so-called logic of lesser evil. In the context of these aspects, it can be argued that not morality as a special socionormative phenomenon converges with law, but its understanding and interpretation within modern discourse is fully consistent with the legal sphere of public life, whose mission is to serve purely utilitarian needs and interests of society and citizens, their material well-being. At the same time, morality as an objective socio-normative phenomenon that constitutes the highest value-teleological priorities of spiritual improvement of the individual, on the contrary, is increasingly moving away from the content of modern law, which has lost the status of a stable and solid basis for enduring moral values in public life. The loss of clear criteria for distinguishing between good and evil, morally permissible and inadmissible actions of people, measuring human happiness only by the degree of possession of a person’s material goods, etc., has led not only to the fact that law can solve only some practical problems of local nature, but also to the fact that today the law actually plays the role of one of the important factors of moral regression of society. The latter is manifested, in particular, in the strengthening of the global trend of legal regulation of such morally shameful phenomena as euthanasia, same-sex marriage, prostitution, and so on. At the same time, the logic of providing legal guarantees for such phenomena is based, as a rule, on a purely economic calculation and the need to ensure the fullest possible freedom of individual choice. Conclusions. Modern realities of legal systems, based only on the idea of ensuring and protecting human rights and freedoms, determine the equivalence of all lifestyles, each individual choice, because there are no general universal grounds for determining which way of life brings more benefi ts and happiness, and which is less. This normative approach, due to which traditional moral values have undergone signifi cant revision and even destruction, deprives the individual of life of relationships with the relevant social whole, denies or at least negates the importance of fi nding the ideal of moral development of the individual, the goals of his spiritual activity. Thus, the modern legal system, the development of which is infl uenced by the fundamental importance of liberal values of public life and the inversion of its moral component, must solve many additional problems in the process of its impact on the moral aspect of social relations, in particular, when deciding on the admissibility of prostitution, euthanasia, genetic engineering, artifi cial intelligence, etc. Key words: law, morality, human rights, ideology, legal norm, social regulation.