Law, Morality, and Personhood in the Philosophical–Legal Understandings of Boris Chicherin and Vladimir Solovyov: On the Philosophical Foundations of Russian Liberalism

ABSTRACT The polemics between Boris Chicherin and Vladimir Solovyov are perhaps the most remarkable event in the intellectual history of Russian liberalism. These polemics elicited keen interest in the whole of society, not just among liberal circles. The arguments between the two thinkers occurred during the period when Russian liberalism was ascendant while at the same time transforming into social liberalism. The doctrinal basis of liberalism was stretched to the limit and began to lose its identity as a result. The arguments between the two thinkers reflected these circumstances to some extent. They were conducted on a very wide range of topics, including morality and its nature, personhood and its freedom and connection with society, law and the state, and the meaning of historical development. This article analyzes Solovyov’s notion of personal–social reality and his understanding of law as the bare minimum of ethics. The author approaches to Chicherin in terms of his ideas about the nature of personhood and its place in legal theory, as well as his doctrine of the relationship between law and morality, which he developed within his understanding of autonomous ethics.