Love your neighbor as yourself! Tolstoy versus Petrazycki on the social significance of law and morality
Journal Title: Krytyka Prawa. Niezależne studia nad prawem - Year 2014, Vol 6, Issue 1
Abstract
The article is a polemic between Leo Tolstoy, a famous Russian writer and moralist of the nineteenth century, and Leon Petrażycki, a lawyer and a philosopher of law of that period, the then professor at the University of St. Petersburg, later a lecturer at the University of Warsaw – on the social significance of law and morality. Tolstoy's and Petrażycki's roads crossed due to a young man named Krutik, a law student at the University of St. Petersburg. Krutik wrote a letter to Tolstoy, whom he considered a moral authority, asking to dispel his doubts caused by reading the works of Petrażycki. Indeed, Tolstoy affirmed that the only appropriate regulator of human life is morality. In contrast, Petrażycki proclaimed that the raison d'être has both morality and law, but if one compares their social significance, the higher value should be given to the law. Krutik had a dilemma, which thinker to agree.Analysis of Tolstoy's and Petrażycki's views made in this article leads to the conclusion that in fact they were arguing about how to implement the idea of love, somewhat differently interpreted by them. While Tolstoy categorically rules out the possibility of realizing it on legal grounds, Petrażycki was firmly convinced that the law can absolutely be its carrier.
Authors and Affiliations
Katarzyna Tynkiewicz
Keywords
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