MORALITY AND LAW IN THE TRADITIONAL AND MODERN SOCIETY

Abstract

It is impossible to follow and, therefore, comprehend, the evolution of human beings from the basic forms of human life organization up to the contemporary established social life within the state system, based on law, without a thorough consideration of issues of emergence and development of moral standards. Establishment of moral standards was based on traditional values that constituted the structure of the primitive forms of human civilization. Therefore, it is inevitable to take into consideration the fact that the ethical standards set up in this manner and which mostly were not, at the same time, legal standards, do not have a modern form or content. On the contrary, it is more likely that the initial form of the moral order was a complex reflection of comprehension of human being as a part of collectivity, that is, a tribal community. However, the movement and formulation of moral standards is an essential precondition for formation of judiciary, as well as establishing a functional social community. To witness it all, there are first written codes in which legal standards have a moral trait and are purposed to protect a class-established social order.

The modern society is based on moral principles affirmed by a system of established human rights, as well as insisting on their inherent characters. Legal order is only a means of realization of moral order which primarily treats a human being as an individual and later on as a part of a wider collective. Thus established moral order was a firm basis for creating a modern legal order, primarily aimed at protecting individual, and therefore, collective interests. On the other hand, an international legal order with a far more supranational content and character is being developed on an international level, whereas ad hoc judicial institutions to protect individual and collective rights are also being established.

Based on the text above, authors will point to the relation between morality and law in both traditional and modern societies. A more complex comprehension of law moralization and morality jurisdiction is essential to be looked at via the existing theoretical understandings. According to the planned scope of this paper, the emphasis will be put on the leading theoretical understandings that dominated in the explanation of creation, development and mutual relation between moral and legal standards.