La synthèse philosophico-juridique de V.S. Soloviev : élaboration et mise en œuvre d’un cadre théorique

Vladimir S. Soloviev (1853-1900) was a prerevolutionary Russian philosopher, poet and dissident.  Like that of many of his contemporaries in prerevolutionary Russia, Soloviev’s thought was constantly prompted by the impending future remaking of the Russian state.  Against this backdrop, a consideration of the foundations of the legal system may have been inevitable.  It was nonetheless with Soloviev that law in Russian thought ceases to be a specialty subject matter in the area of administration, disconnected from wider societal issues, and becomes inextricably linked to social and moral philosophy.  Within Soloviev’s larger systematic philosophical project, the concept of all-unity is pervasive, both in its epistemological and social dimensions.  An equally fundamental cornerstone of Soloviev’s thought is the concept of Godmanhood, through which the source of human dignity is ultimately expressed.  Soloviev’s legal philosophy, for the most part contained in a treatise entitled The Justification of the Good: An Essay on Moral Philosophy (1897), is primarily concerned with the interplay between law and morality.  While the object and scope of law can be directly deduced from moral principles, law cannot exactly coincide with morality given its limited, finite and compulsory nature.  For Soloviev, law should enforce a minimum level of good in providing the basic conditions (e.g. rule of law, right to a dignified existence, freedom of conscience) for the free development of human faculties, without directly transposing into itself the complete fullness of the good.   Soloviev’s primary motivation lies in the underlying theological premise that the good can never be fully subsumed except as a conscious act of personal freedom.  In tandem, Soloviev emphasizes the progressive role of the state in liberally furthering human development.  As such, Soloviev provides certain innovative pathways in working out the practical and theoretical relationship between law and religion.  Unlike a compromise between objects, that is to say an intercultural type of arrangement lying somewhere between cultural fragmentation (ideological multiculturalism) and anti-religious assimilation (militant secularism), Soloviev presents us with the need for a temporal reconciliation, in the context of a much wider historical perspective, where secularism is not an ontologically crystallized finality as such, but part of the means with which the human destiny in the process of being actualized can be facilitated.  Soloviev’s legal philosophical framework can be fruitfully placed in dialogue with contemporary authors such as Stephen L. Carter, Charles Taylor, John Witte Jr., Ronald Dworkin and Jürgen Habermas.  Soloviev’s potential contribution to the place of religion in contemporary Russian society is also noted, with particular emphasis on critically reassessing the enduring legacy of the Byzantine notion of Church-State symphony.  Finally, a theory of federalism inspired by Soloviev is developed based on comparatively applying theoretical advances in the field of global legal history to the constitutional evolution of Canada and Israel.

Keyphrases: Soloviev, religion, law, philosophy, secularism, Russia, Israel, federalism, unwritten constitutionalism