The Prognostic Aspect of Social and Legal Thinking

The problem of social and legal thinking has a prognostic dimension, which is determined by threats from the future, the number and intensity of which is noticeably increasing. The threats may be overlooked and ignored, or established but incorrectly understood and identified. The aim of the research is to identify such threats, to characterize negative shifts in social and legal thinking when responding to them, to determine and establish the constructive content of the image, style and type of this thinking. The methodological basis of the research is a dialectical method, systems analysis, generalization of sociological polls and the use of a hermeneutic approach in their interpretation. The socio-psychological state of society in recent years is largely determined by the fear of the future. Sociological survey materials clearly show this “future shock”, and fear of the future is often motivated by threats of a criminal nature. There has been a shift towards the irrational in assessments of the future. Contrary to the opinion that esoteric knowledge is neutral or even useful, occult thinking is not only anti-humanistic, it also generates socially dangerous phantoms. In modern conditions, these are raising the question of “extra” billions of people, projects of transhumanism and the creation of cyborgs. Another negative trend in social and legal thinking is clearly traced; it is expressed in the fundamental limitation of measures of criminal law in relation to “white-collar” criminals. Prominent lawyers consistently substantiate the policy of weakening criminal repression in relation to economic and, therefore, corruption crimes. Not all scholars agree with this; this is why there are two types of social and legal thinking in modern Russia: servile (subjective, serving the interests of the ruling class) and independent (objective, based on the postulates of a social legal state). The phenomena of active and passive futurophobia should be identified in social and legal thinking. An example of the former is the overestimation of the threat of losing power in the legal consciousness of the bureaucracy (decisionmakers), and an example of the latter is the devaluation of the future in the legal consciousness of law enforcement officers, which is explained by the increased tension of the current work. It is important to anticipate the consequences of legal decisions at any level because they affect people's fate. The authors come to the following conclusions. (1) The predictability of social and legal thinking is one of the main criteria for its competence and professionalism. (2) A society in which the social and legal thinking of decisionmakers is characterized by unpredictability develops in the direction of totalitarianism. (3) The answer to the challenge of transhumanism on the part of Russian legal science should be unambiguous - experiments to create a person with predetermined properties should be criminalized as socially dangerous and threatening the existence of humankind.

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