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81EVOLUTION OF LEGAL CONSCIOUSNESS FROM ANTIQUITY TO MODERN AGE (THESES TO THE HISTORY OF LEGAL PHILOSOPHY)
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14420/en.2014.2.3
Levon Batiyev, Candidate of Legal Sciences, Assistant Professor, Deputy Director for Science of the Institute of Socioeconomic and Humanitary Research of the Southern Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Head of Legal Research Laboratory, e-mail: lbatiev@yandex.ru
This article presents evolution and correlation of basic legal notions. Polysemy of the notion of justice (ius) is shown, including its concurrence with the notion of law (lex). Down to the Modern Age the notion ius was an expression of justness. As a freedom, and in addition a primary one with respect to law, ius is understood only starting from the 17th century. The start of differentiation of justice (law) and morals was made as early as in Aristotle's writings. A minimum of morality becomes stable with secular law (jus) already in medieval philosophy.
justice, law, public justice, justness, equality, legal order, freedom, legality and morality.
Specifics of philosophic discourse in the area of legal consciousness consists to a considerable extent in a constant reproduction, construction (interpretation), comment and setting to modern tune (modernization or «renovation») of classic texts, consolidation of various approaches or, vice versa, absolutization of some ideas articulated earlier. Formation of modern Russian paradigm of legal consciousness in that sense is not an exception.
1. Analysis of antique sources shows that the Greek philosophy lacked a notion of justice in a meaning close to a modern one. In the Plato’s system of objective idealism an analog of natural law is an «idea» (eidos). An «idea» can be characterized not only as an essence of thing, but as its law, too. It is a canon which is primary in relation to corporeal world, polis and individual, a measure of proper conduct, a law which is not invented by an individual, but is discovered by him. «Justice» (dikaion) and justness (dikaiosyne) consist in abiding by law, that is reason. In Aristotle’s ethics «justice» is also a result of application of law (of polis, and in case of necessity - of natural one) and for that reason cannot precede it. Written (private) law is preceded not by natural justice, but by natural (general) law.
2. «Justice» (public justice) found by translators in Aristotle’s texts is the result
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of a judge’s activities for restoration of the golden mean transgressed by the parties (correct balance between «profit» of a law breaker and «loss» of an injured person) on the basis of laws of a polis (for that reason it is «legalized») and natural laws (in that sense it is «natural»). «The good» («truth») is also «justice», not by force of law, but as correction of lawful (based on a polis laws) public justice on the basis of natural law, as well as all circumstances of case and personalities of the parties. In the Roman jurisprudence a similar treatment of legal consciousness is expressed in a formula: «Law is the art of the good and the just».
3. In the Roman law the notion ius (justice) was from the moment of its emergence used for designation of one of the sources (forms) of law, and with the development of jurisprudence, also as a general term denoting the aggregate of sources of law (acts, senatoconsulta, decrees of magistrates, customs etc.). The said «synonymy» of the notions justice and law was preserved in the Middle Ages and in the Modern Age.
4. Dualism of justice (ius) and law (lex) appears in the Ancient Rome in connection with plurality of sources of law and aspiration to substantiate presence of objective laws of justness and «the just» by nature or the right of nature. In the creative work of Cicero: ius is understood as а) righteous and just by nature and b) the aggregate of commands of law of nature determining the just. The rules of genuine virtue, objective rules of justness are established by natural law (lex naturale) and are called natural justice (ius naturale) or justice of nature (ius naturae). Ius naturale, therefore, unites all rules of natural law together (in the same way that ius civile unites written laws, senatoconsulta and other sources).
5. Duality (understanding of ius simultaneously as the existing and as the due) is preserved in the Middle Ages. Augustine, starting out from Cicero, determines justice (ius) as an aggregate of regulatory commands, corresponding with justness (iustitia). Aquinas defines justice (ius) according to Aristotle, as a real equality (a medium of thing or action). But that equality, in the spirit of the Roman legal consciousness, possesses an obligatory force (is of regulatory nature). Ius in «Summa Theologi^» means simultaneously just by nature as well as its law. As in the Roman jurisprudence, ius (justice) and lex (law) coexist parallelly. All kinds of justice (ius naturale, ius positivum, ius gentium) imply actualization of principle of medium, finding equality in relations between people. At that method of adjustment only for ius naturale is in the nature of things itself, and for ius positivum and ius gentium human agreements and institutions which, however cannot contradict ius naturale, have constituent significance.
All order of universe pre-exists in God's mind in the form of Eternal Law. A law according to Aquinas is a formal expression of the essence of divine world order. Law is not justice itself, but foundation of justice, its image. Justness is directed by law and consists in subordination to law. When the question is about the Eternal and natural laws, there cannot be any variant readings between law and justice. A question as to what is primary - justice (legal, just) or law, arises only in respect to human justice: natural justice comes out to be primary, but it in its turn is based on law - Eternal and divine. Here the appearance of «justice» is intended to ensure a
formal, as Aquinas calls it, aspect of justness, and to show secondary nature of any human law, its derivation from divine and natural laws and natural justice based on them.
6. Dikaiosyne is a universal ethical notion (usually translated with term «justness») - in Plato’s philosophy was understood as geometric equality (genuine and best), or «by lot» (imperfect, but necessary for preservation of social peace). The result of Aristotle’s analysis of dikaiosyne (justness) was separation within it of private justness (justice), which is directly manifested as equality (toison) in relations connected with distribution of various benefits constituting a primary subject-matter of jurisprudence. Latin equivalents are ius and its «technical» analog aequitas, which comes down to a principle of equality of all before the law and the law equal to all. In such a manner, Graeco-Roman philosophy and jurisprudence distinguish between general ethical and legal aspects of justness (justice) and assignment for justice (in the strict sense) of the field of property relations and other relations connected with them.
7. In the Modern Age justice (in concise form) is preserved by Hugo Grotius just as one of three senses of law (law is what does not contradict justice). As in Ancient Rome, it is reduced to a set of commands of nature requiring observance of treaties and provision to everyone one’s due. A sense of distributive justice is sinking. A field of justice is limited with its «directional» part, an essence of which is reduced to observing treaties, rendering to others what they already possess, performing duties imposed on us in relation with them. Thomas Hobbes reduces commutative (directional) justice to technical equality of civil circulation agents. At that he does not limit relations of counteractants with obligatory following a principle of medium: equal subjects have a right of making free use of property and performing assumed obligations.
8. In the Greek culture justice was directly connected with lawfulness - «what is lawful, is just» (formal aspect) and equality (substantial aspect). The Roman jurisprudence also proceeded from the premise that a decision differentiating the just from the unjust is a law (lex) or natural law (lexnaturale) at the heart of it is the principle of equality. That, in point of fact, makes unnecessary separation, alongside with justice, of equality as one more, self-consistent attribute of law.
From now forth justice progressively becomes a strictly legal category, sinking in the general ethical scale. It is also rigidly tied to law - natural and positive, and, eventually, comes down to legal equality which issue from natural equality. Justice (moral virtue) is treated as subordination to state laws (etatism), which can be corrected by turning to natural laws and public opinion laws (moderate liberalism).
9. A notion of justice in a subjective sense (justice as freedom or «power over oneself» and power over others), which was separated by Grotius, marked a beginning of a new stage of legal consciousness (a foundation of such understanding was laid already in the Roman law). Freedom (an attribute of personality) described in legal categories, evolves into «justice». Hobbes, and then Locke, already univocally defined justice (ius) as primordial freedom, and law (lex) as obligation, limitation of freedom. Ius in substance takes a double meaning: a) freedom in natural state is
not a legal category, prerequisite of justice in a proper sense; 6) limited freedom accomplished outright thanks to a natural and volitionally established law coming to its aid. Analogous position in that issue is taken by Spinoza who reduces freedom (justice) to an individuum’s might, and its implementability - to a balance of forces of individuum and state.
10. The foundations of differentiation of the spheres of legality and morality were laid in as early as the Classical philosophy. The great Plato’s utopia still presumed a complete unity of spheres of morals and legality. A law as a finite external formal expression of an idea (having passed through reason), already expresses a maximum of moral demands. A sphere of legality coincides with a sphere of morality. Aristotle for the first time in the framework of united ethics shows distinctions between two groups of laws, which in a later literature will be divided in moral laws and legal ones. A subject of the first ones is extreme forms of virtue and vice, a rule is a natural law, a regulation method is moral sanctions and incentives, in an absence of coercion. The second ones embrace only part of moral relations, are governed by polis law and, as one of types of natural law, are based on coercion. Human virtue is expressed in a conscious and purposeful commitment of corresponding acts. Otherwise an individuum can be considered to be law-abiding, but not virtuous (it reminds us about a later division of spheres of morality and legality). A medium in Aristotle’s ethics is not a bleak following a middle way, equally distant from vice as well as from virtue. In Aristotle’s understanding, a medium is a summit from a point of view of the highest good and perfection, because a medium is the only correct, therefore, the best variant of behavior. That is just the variant of behavior which can be prescribed by legal law.
Cicero also distinguishes a supreme morality (limit of the good) and practical morals (a «middle» responsibility). A «limit of the good» is of theoretical and unconditional nature - it fits in with a «perfect» obligation accessible to sages. A «middle» responsibility is of practical nature and is addressed to all the people. Cicero is interested in just practical morals which compose a sphere of a legal law.
A distinct limitation of purpose and task of a secular law by a moral minimum necessary for worldly life is observable as early as in Augustine’s works. A limitation of law should be overcome owing to God’s grace. Placing a priority on internal motivation of an act, Augustine in doing so formulates a principle of differentiation of spheres of legality and morality. Thomas Aquinas also distinguishes between sphere of morality and sphere of justness (legal sphere) which is represented in human laws. Out of two parts of the Divine Law, the Old Law (Old Testament) is also directed primarily at achievement of earthly objectives (temporary benefits) and preparation for a higher objective.
In Modern Age Grotius, and after him other thinkers, too, extend the line for recognition in demands of justice (law) of obligatory minimum of morality necessary for a life in society. A maximum of demands is preserved in Christian ethics. Spinoza, as distinct from his contemporaries, introducing a notion of a «natural divine law», tries to desacralize moral maximum. He frees not a person from morals, but morals from religiosity.
Etatist (Hobbes) and liberal (Locke) versions of ius naturalism differ among other things in the fact that in the first case justice and morals are derivatives from state and its laws, and in the second one - society is recognized to be autonomous in definition of virtue and vice. Rousseau does not divide society and state in the spirit of liberalism. Nevertheless, he calls morals, customs, public opinion the most important of all kinds of laws, which contradicts an idea of unity of society and state and subordination of everyone to a common will.
11. Correlation of justice and law ceases to be a major problem of science in the middle of 18th century in connection with a crisis of ius naturalism and searches of new foundations of justice. Despite natural law phraseology, Montesquieu establishes his theory on the historico-legal and sociological ground. «Justice» is used as an umbrella term for designation of body of laws. Rousseau, as contrasted with Montesquieu, demands an axiological and normative approach to politics and justice. The philosopher invokes natural justice (law) for substantiation of political justice (law) deduced from «common will». Eventually the place of nature is occupied by politically organized society, and a natural law is substituted with that established by will. Organic interpretation of state allows Rousseau to ontologize common will. Reunion of power and a people within the confines of direct democracy becomes a ground for absolutization of state. Law (expression of common will) is declared a criterion of justness (equality, mutuality of rights and obligations), its guarantor and source.
12. Identification of justice (ius) with freedom is characteristic only for a certain period of development of legal consciousness. Radical revolution in key notions of natural-law theory was made by Hobbes. The classical and medieval philosophies started with natural law, and justice was interpreted, in the first place, in a meaning close, if not identical, to justness (just), and Hobbes puts to the foreground justice (jus) in the meaning of freedom. An idea of freedom in a natural state is a logical substantiation of real freedom. Only in a civil state, owing to a positive law, freedom is really put into practice. An existence of justice (ius) is possible only owing to law, and within the limits of law. Rousseau writes about the same, but from a perspective of democratic etatism - only thanks to law which a person has established on one’s own and for oneself, one gets real freedom - as a personality and as a member of socium.
13. Solution of a question of correlation of justice and law by modern legal science in favor of justice (priority of justice, its understanding as freedom), is a reflection of a certain period of development of legal consciousness (natural-law paradigm of the Modern Age), and cannot be considered universal, based on the aggregate of political and legal doctrines of the past.
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