THE IDEA OF NATURAL LAW AS A DRIVING FORCE FOR SOCIAL PROGRESS BY UKRAINIAN ENLIGHTENERS

Abstract

In this article the following aspect is studied comprehension of the idea of natural law which was the basis of liberal democracy in the European countries by the representatives of the Ukrainian Enlightenment, which was the basis of liberal democracy in European countries. The thoughts on the natural law of the professors of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, its graduate Y. Kozelskyi, S. Desnitskyi, P. Lodiy, which did not find any support either in the society at that time or from the authorities, although they were related to the idea of social progress, have been analysed. Ukrainian thinkers interpreted the state as a community of free people, the movement of the continuously progressive development of which is the natural law. Their works propagated the ideas of freedom, equality, democracy, the source and basis of which was the natural law, as the ability given to a man by God to choose the best ways for individual and social development by his own mind. The task of the given scientific research is to attempt a more detailed philosophical analysis of the naturally legal issues among the representatives of the Ukrainian Enlightenment, which nowadays is little studied just as a problem of the history of Ukrainian philosophy of law. However, the specialists of law partially turned to it. Consequently, this article tries to fill the gaps in this very interesting and relevant theme. As a result, it has been determined that the meaningful outline of the phenomenon of natural law should be carried out through the reception of historical and philosophical paradigmatic principles, which appear as a semantic and conceptual manifestation of cultural-historical traditions and individual-authorial innovations. As well as the interpretation of the phenomenon of natural-legal thinking through the perception of natural law as a phenomenon of the virtues of justice, the guarantee of peace and harmony in society. Nowadays, the idea of natural law is relevant in Ukraine in the context of judicial reform, as well as of the development of a democratic state.