Legal consequentialism: history and significance for the present (discussion on I.V. Kolosov’s monograph “History of legal consequentialism: the effectiveness of law”)

Abstract

The article analyzes the content of the monograph by I.V. Kolosov, which shows the history of the emergence and development of legal consequentialism as a complex of legal theories that evaluate the correctness of the actions of the legislator and the law enforcer depending on the result. The author’s contribution to the study of historical and theoretical ideas about consequentialism in law is emphasized, starting from the use of the principle of utility in ancient Indian and ancient Chinese monuments of legal thought, in ancient philosophy, etc., including the legal thought of the early modern period, classical utilitarianism, near-conventional ideas of Russian Philosophy of Law of the late 18th - early 20th century, as well as various versions of modern Western consequentialism. Directions for further study of this issue are outlined, related to the comprehension of the utilitarian orientation of the Bolshevik ideology and the understanding of Soviet law conditioned by it as a means of achieving goals external to the legal system; with the substantiation of the position on the debatable issues of legal theory, referred to as “economic analysis of law” (Law and Economics); with an assessment of the possibility and limits of using the ideas of consequentialism in Russian judicial practice; with the disclosure of the heuristic potential, significant for law, of the interpretation of utilitarianism developed in modern Russian philosophy as an ideological factor in Russian modernization.