The Theory of the Common Good and Utilitarianism in the History of the Doctrines of Law and the State

In the light of the ruling of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, the obligations of the modern generation to the future are being legalized before our eyes. Such obligations are discussed within the framework of the theory of the common good and utilitarianism. The article provides an overview of the history of the theory of the common good and utilitarianism, a comparative analysis of two legal doctrines, their role in the history of the state and law of Russia since the end of the XVIII century, and shows their place in the teachings of law and the state. Using the methods of historical reconstruction and intellectual history, the author concludes that from the second half of the nineteenth century utilitarianism began to approach the theory of the common good to the point of confusion. The criticism of the common good has been associated with the historical form of this doctrine: with an absolute monarchy, with a police state. The legal construction of the common good today serves to legitimize state power and the mechanism of legal regulation, as an element of constitutional duty, a method of balancing private and public interests. The legal principles of common benefit and exclusion of common harm are characteristic of both the theory of the common good and utilitarianism. The criticism of utilitarianism, in turn, is caused by the archaic parts of the theory: the denial of human rights, the values of the rule of law, the trivialization of justice. Modern concepts of political and legal theory (utilitarianism, liberalism, positivism, etc.) are weakened in order to achieve a complex and compromise balance of competing principles - the common good, justice, liberty, equality.