Sociocultural Foundations of the Criminal Law Paradigm

Abstract

The paper raises the question of the possibility of applying a paradigmatic approach to social knowledge in a way similar to natural science. And if such an approach is applicable, then the problem lies in allocation of paradigms, in particular, in relation to criminal law. Scientific knowledge, of which criminal law knowledge is a part, should be considered in unity with the ideological foundations of society. As far as the worldview changes, so do the socio-cultural foundations of scientific knowledge. The ideological basis determines the necessary connection between natural science and social cognition. The position is substantiated, according to which the paradigm in the social sciences should not depend on discoveries, as in natural science, but on changes occurring in the very structure of human thinking. The division of paradigms into classical and non-classical is taken as a basis, which corresponds to scientific attitudes, namely, realism and constructivism. This methodology allowed us to associate ontological types of legal understanding with realism, which are based on metaphysical entities (God, reason, cosmos, nature), and with constructivism — a modern postmodern type of legal understanding that does not appeal to ontology. Considering the key concept of a crime through the prism of the designated paradigms (classical and non-classical), the author shows how, along with the evolution of attitudes towards a person, the view of the goals and objectives of criminal law changes, how the classical paradigm (the paradigm of responsibility) changes to the non-classical paradigm (the paradigm of security). Both of these paradigms determine the vector of development of criminal law and criminal policy formed as the result of development of the concept of man and society.