Legal Culture in Modern Society: Spiritual and Moral Principles

Modern society is experiencing deep transformation processes that concern not only the socio-economic, but also the spiritual and moral foundations of existence. In these conditions, the issue of legal culture is acquiring new dimensions, in particular in the aspect of its spiritual and moral content. Legal culture appears not only as a system of knowledge about law, legal skills and legal behavior, but also as an ontologically deep phenomenon, closely related to spirituality, morality and cultural identity of the individual. That is why the analysis of legal culture through the prism of the sources of virtues, moral guidelines and Christian existence is relevant. The methodological basis of the study is an interdisciplinary approach that combines philosophical and legal analysis, cultural vision, theological understanding and hermeneutics interpretation of moral categories. This approach allows for a deeper investigation of how spiritual and moral principles shape the structure of legal culture, as well as how legal culture itself influences the ethical consciousness and higher value orientations of the individual. The concept of legal culture in this study refers not only to the totality of legal knowledge and skills, but also to the ability to act in accordance with an internal moral norm that corresponds to the law, and in its highest manifestation - to divine truth. Morality is considered as a system of norms that is formed under the influence of spiritual civilization, canonical traditions and the ontological understanding of man. Specific spiritual qualities are expressed in virtues that are realized through a volitional act and direct the legal behavior of a person. The core of the entire study is spiritual and moral principles as a complex of fundamental orientations that form the inner world of a person, his ability to distinguish good from evil, to choose the path of truth, justice, love and service. They are based on spiritual sources: faith, conscience, Holy Scripture, canonical tradition, prayer experience, contemplative existence, Christian teaching on virtues; on moral categories: goodness, duty, honor, dignity, mercy, sacrifice, truth, moral choice; on values derived from the ontology of man: from his creation in the image of God, his calling to holiness, to moral growth and to freedom that does not destroy, but harmonizes. Keywords: moral norms, hermeneutics of morality, canonicity, spiritual civilization, sources of morality, virtues, Christian existence, legal culture, legal consciousness.