Pavel Novgorodtsev and the Concept of Legal Consciousness in Russian Philosophy of Law

Abstract

This article explores the main contributions of Pavel Novgorodtsev (1866–1924) to Russian philosophy of law, focusing on his central idea that the rule of law depends on a neo-idealist conception of legal consciousness based on natural law and fundamentally on human dignity, or respect for the intrinsic and absolute worth of the human person. The article examines Novgorodtsev’s critique of the historical school of jurisprudence, which was the subject of his first book, as well as his understanding of natural law as a moral ideal, of personhood as the highest moral purpose of and justification for law, and of law as the basic condition of society and therefore of human perfectibility or progress. It shows that his concept of “individualism” had both a methodological meaning and a more broadly philosophical meaning coinciding with the meaning of personalism (the defense of the absolute worth of personhood). Novgorodtsev based his own personalist metaphysics on an idealist theory of human nature. He held that the “absolute ideal,” one of his main philosophical concepts, entailed the metaphysical reality of the Absolute. The second half of the article details the ways Novgorodtsev applied his theory of natural law and his conception of legal consciousness to the modern state, especially in his 1909 book, The Crisis of Modern Legal Consciousness, which presents a rich intellectual history of the concept of the Rechtstaat or правовое государство. The article concludes that Novgorodtsev’s neo-idealist conception of legal consciousness deeply shaped the thought of other philosophers associated with the Moscow school of Russian legal philosophy.