Traditional spiritual and moral values in the context of digital transformation of society: Aspects of legal theory

Abstract

Among the main directions of the legal policy of the state can be noted, on the one hand, the support of traditional spiritual and moral values, and on the other — the digital transformation of society. Traditional values are a condition for state sovereignty of the Russian Federation in the information space, and their protection and defense are a guarantee of information security of the Russian Federation. From the point of view of the communicative theory of law, traditional values should be considered in the process of legal communication, which involves the perception (interpretation) of message (text) that includes inter alia the emotional-value aspect. As values, the traditional values are a necessary condition for functioning of legal system. From the formal legal point of view, when the concepts of traditional spiritual and moral values are included in legal texts, what is implied is the possibility of referring to them in “complicated cases” of legal interpretation and developing models of legal argumentation. From the perspective of analytical jurisprudence, traditional spiritual and moral values can act as a legally significant criterion for determining the meaning of a word in a legal text in a “situation of penumbra” — in what aspect a particular disputed object of legal relations has a value nature, and in what it is expressed. Traditional spiritual and moral values set the boundaries for the choice of legal decisions related to the digital transformation of society. For example, the wellknown notion that it is impossible to make legally significant decisions using artificial intelligence systems with the complete exclusion of a person from such a decision-making system would seem to contradict traditional spiritual and moral values, which center on the person in its moral dimension. This approach could be extended to other pervasive digital technologies as well.