MORAL AND ETHICAL DIMENSION OF THE UKRAINIAN LEGAL TRADITION OF THE COSSACK ERA

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to highlight the issue of moral and ethical foundations of the Ukrainian legal tradition of the Cossack era. Legal reforms which are necessary for modern Ukraine cannot take place without reference to the national legal tradition, its value and meaning content, and above all, moral and ethical content, since morality is a universal regulator of social relations and one of the most important factors of spiritual and cultural formation of a person. Therefore, the study of the national legal tradition in terms of its moral and ethical content is an urgent scientific issue today. Research methodology: the work applies a comprehensive principle and uses a number of approaches and methods: philosophical, in particular, legal naturalistic, axiological, existential, hermeneutical – to study law and morality as spiritual and cultural phenomena; special legal – historical and legal to explain the peculiarities of the development of law in the Cossack era; general scientific methods – analysis, synthesis, objectivity, theoretical modelling, etc. Scientific novelty. The Cossack State, in comparison with Muscovy, actually developed law and its semantic dimension in various forms on a jus naturalistic basis, while Muscovites focused on a single form, which was a law with arbitrary content. Cossack law was created as a cultural phenomenon – based on the way of life of the people, their mentality, commitment to truth and justice, human dignity, and the common good – values that never lost sight of the community, moral principles and meanings, religious values and precepts. Conclusions. The customary law of the Cossack era, being filled with folk morality, was a legalized morality. Similarly, the common law of the Cossacks, which was one of the best examples of European law, like the customary law, was natural, created jointly, collectively, out of common sense, conscience and the law of justice. The inseparability of law and moral and ethical values and meanings is evidenced by the well-known normative act of that time, the Constitution of Pylyp Orlyk. The philosophical and legal views of KMA professors are also evidence of the symbiosis of law and morality.