Legal Values as the Enforcement of Virtue Cover Image

Pravne vrijednosti kao prinuda na vrlinu
Legal Values as the Enforcement of Virtue

Author(s): Mirjana Nadaždin-Defterdarević
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence
Published by: Правни факултет Универзитета у Источном Сарајеву
Keywords: Needs;Interests(subjective and objective);Value attitudes (value principles and value judgements);Values;Evaluation;Goals and norms;
Summary/Abstract: Evaluation is present in all the aspects of human life, and so it is in law. There, it is not simply aimed to evaluate phenomena positively or negatively from the viewpoint of value principles. The aim of evaluation in the legal domain is to take stand in preparation for a certain behavior, and that is why, when it comes to law, evaluation is expected and justified. A legal phenomenon „cleansed“ of values and goals would be maimed in its human essence, and the legal science limited to such maimed phenomenon would be a formal and incomplete realization of the real object of legal experience. The value aspect of law, therefore, should be an object of the legal science and an element of law. Of the existing values in a society, the most important ones are those of the ruling social class. They are imposing and dominant because they are adopted by all the other subdued social groups, whether of their free will or by force.Specific legal values – justice, peace, security, lawfulness, are never stand-alone, they rely on specific and generic social values and are used to structure and organize them.Legal values are used to establish a political rule and regulate social relationships, therefore they belong in the realms of political and social ideology, or the thinking used by different social groups to justify maintaining or changing the existing social condition in accordance with their special interests.The life cycle of law is an uninterrupted course ranging from direct and concrete evaluations in everyday life, to abstract norms defined by legislators, and back to concrete experiences and specific forms of their practical realization.