Responsible citizenship in the conceptual and categorical framework of the philosophy of law

Olga Kyvliuk, Olha Zadorozhna, Iryna Mordous

Urgency of the research on this topic is due to the lack of definition of the concept of responsible citizenship within contemporary conceptual theories of the philosophy of law. The essence and content crisis of positive law in its empirical plane and the partial neglect of the significance of the social-value needs of human freedom, justice, and equality in the context of natural law, strengthen the scientific debate among philosophers, lawyers, sociologists, legislators, politicians, economists, educators on the need to substantiate the conceptual and categorical apparatus of the phenomenon of responsible citizenship within the ontology of law.

Target setting. The formation and development of responsible citizenship are not confined to organizational and managerial, legal, political-economic, and state-directed processes in the context of the legal reality of positive law, but require the consolidation of certain substantive positions of the dialectical dichotomy of natural and positive law. The concept and phenomenon of responsible citizenship in the context of the formation of a socio-legally responsible society requires a theoretical grounding in conceptual and substantive conceptualization within the framework of social philosophy and philosophy of law.

Actual scientific researches and issues analysis. In our study we relied on the works of domestic scientists: philosophers - N. Brovko, E. Manujlov, Y. Kalynovskyi, psychologists - S. Baranova, A. Furman, educators - S. Babushko, V. Prymak, M. Yeshchenko, etc.; and foreign scholars: Will Kymlicka, Fazel Ebrihiam Freeks, Tomoaki Miyazaki, Marie Jolliff Bryant, Clint Le Bruyns etc.

The research objective. Define and theorise the conceptual and categorical foundations of 'responsible citizenship' in the field of philosophy of law.

The statement of basic material. The article examines the concept of responsible citizenship in the field of philosophy of law through the prism of modern conceptual interpretations, the principle of historicism, the hermeneutic approach, and the empirical legal and socio-political orientation of society. Responsible citizenship can be described as an interdisciplinary, integrated, interactive phenomenon, which on the one hand is a factor of law or legal practice and on the other hand, is a complex of established ideas, feelings, national traditions, perceptions, views, etc., of individuals on legal, socio-political, economic, cultural, state phenomena and processes.

Conclusions. Responsible citizenship is not only a certain norm of legal behaviour, communication, and coexistence of state and citizen, but also an awareness of its significance, the need for its production, and the readiness of the subject to manage and self-control. For that reason, the responsible citizenship phenomenon cannot be considered only within positive legal awareness, for it is shaped by legal awareness in terms of the natural law of its moral idealism, but still in the context of the duality of existing legal conceptions.

Keywords: responsible citizenship, philosophy of law, positive law, natural law, legal awareness. 

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