Subjective characteristics of positive legal responsibility

The aim of the paper is to identify subjective characteristics of positive legal responsibility that has acquired a new role and significance due to the establishment of a law-based state, where positive responsibility and socially active and lawful behavior are of major importance. The paper contains the analysis of different types of mental attitudes that correlate with lawful behavior types. The authors dispute with the legal scientists who identify subjective characteristics of legal responsibility only with one of the psychological components: volition, conscience, motives, and an emotional background. Different combinations of intellectual, volitional and motivational components inherent to different types of lawful behavior are substantiated. A positive mental attitude is characterized as an antipode of guilt, the data of a survey among two categories of subjects - ordinary citizens and legal scientists - are analyzed; the subjective content of legal responsibility and legal relations, in which it is realized, are characterized by certain features. Firstly, it is the absence of fault (a negative characteristic) and the presence of a positive mental attitude; secondly, the subject's motives, purpose, emotional state. Such a differentiation of these characteristics is rather conditional as a positive mental attitude is an integral element that includes the above mentioned components. The content of the intellectual element includes comprehension of the legal norms requirements and the general principles of law, whereas the volitional element implies the subject's ability to control this process and his actions.

Keywords

Authors

References