On the meaning of the subjective obligation of the debtor in the legal structure of a civil obligation

The concept of an obligation changed with the development of society and the state: from a primitive perception of an obligation as a personal connection between a creditor and a debtor, when the power of the former extended to the personality of the debtor, to the perception of an obligation as a simple legal connection consisting of a subjective obligation and a corresponding subjective right. Despite the fact that the essence of an obligation is quite correctly reflected in positive law, it is not necessary to insist that the legislator managed to include all of its essential features in the definitive norm of an obligation. The purpose of this work is to understand the essence of an obligation through the prism of studying the legal connection between the subjective obligation of the debtor and the subjective right of the creditor. To achieve this, it was necessary to study the development of domestic scientific thought on the obligation, taking into account the state of the legislation in force in the relevant period of time. The methodological basis of the study was formed by the general scientific dialectical method of cognition, universal scientific methods (systemic, functional, methods of analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, abstraction), as well as special legal methods (historical and legal method, formal-logical method of interpreting law, method of legal modeling) used both at the empirical and theoretical levels. The analysis of civilistic thought on the essence of obligation in the context of two centuries of its development made it possible to identify two main approaches to the construction of a civil-law obligation: (1) the concept of "obligation as a right to someone else's action"; (2) the concept of "obligation as a debt". In the course of the study, it was established that the dogmatic approach to the perception of obligation through the concept of "obligation as a debt", when the fulfillment of the obligation by the debtor comes to the fore, reflects the deep meaning of the specifics of the redistribution of material goods between specific persons. The authors have proven that one of the key features of such redistribution is the debtor's awareness that any debt requires its repayment (the presence of a moral obligation). This makes any obligation potentially enforceable. As a result, the authors came to the key conclusion that an obligation is a simple legal connection - a connection between a subjective obligation and the corresponding subjective right. Such a legal connection, characterizing only one specific obligation, is unique, which allows us to single out the desired obligation from the entire set of legal relations existing between subjects of civil law. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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