Sloboda, integritet i pravo

Abstract

Consideration of this theme needs a number of previous clarifications. First of all, are liberty as value and as virtue one and the same? Value is the belief that something is good because it is true, right, useful, desirable. There is a dark side though: "no value", which is undesirable or unacceptable. Therefore, the question of what value is cannot be answered with reliability, for it has to do with human judgment which is human's personal, i.e. subjective. In contrast to value, virtue denotes the recognized moral excellence of a person. The majority of intellectual people agree that virtue is the ability of the mind to act in compliance with the highest possible divine and human rules. That action rests on the possession of liberty and personal integrity. The other, the dark side of virtue is vice. Already from this distinction it ensues clearly that virtue is a narrower and more strictly determined kind of value, for not every value is a virtue. To be endowed with virtues means to be highly valued in a positive, not a negative, sense. Evil, too, is valuable, but it is not considered a desirable value, much less a virtue. The task of the law is to prevent the violation of human liberty and personal integrity.