Criticism of Natural Law in Russian Philosophy of Law: Are the Arguments Wealthy?
An attempt was made to reasoned criticism of the position of researchers who postulate the destructive role of the ideologem of natural law in modern society and characterize natural law as an «illusory object». Such a position is designated as the «negativist concept of natural law.» The contradictory arguments of supporters of this concept were revealed. The justification of the term «legal possibility» is given and the inconsistency of ideas about the invariable essence of natural law is characterized. It has been demonstrated that natural law contains not only positive, but also negative social potential, which society seeks to neutralize through social norms. It has been shown that the essence of developing natural law is determined by the objective natural and natural-historical conditions of human life. Therefore, the emerging theory of natural law is a complex symbiosis of knowledge about the laws of nature and knowledge about the objective laws of social development in the part that describes the objectively forming boundaries of free human activity.