Lev Klebanov

The relevance of the study is determined by the existential and ethical-legal imperative to re-evaluate the concept of death in a context where traditional philosophical understandings of the end of existence as a biological phenomenon are being augmented by new categories. The aim of the research is to examine death, tracing how philosophical and ethical concepts have been transformed into legal and regulatory mechanisms (legal aspects). The methodology of this study is based on the method of materialistic dialectics, which facilitates a comprehensive examination of the phenomenon within the dynamics of its development, including its evolution and acquisition of new qualitative and quantitative characteristics. General scientific methods applied include analysis and synthesis, induction, deduction, and structural-functional methods, while specific scientific methods encompass the formal and logical, comparative legal, and comparative historical approaches. The paper traces the evolution of legal norms regulating relations death-related relationships, from the religious and philosophical doctrines of Antiquity and the Middle Ages to the secular legal positivism of the modern era. The conclusion affirms that philosophical thanatology serves as a necessary methodological foundation for law, ensuring that legal categories (legal thanatology) appropriately protect human interests within the multidimensional space of existence.

The research emphasizes the demand for the philosophy of criminal law as such, as well as reveals the ways of application of philosophical knowledge by criminal law specialists. As it is known, philosophical teaching helps to understand the essence of specific phenomena or events with the help of appropriate tools, forming a complete picture of existence and its components. Such a doctrine is necessary today for those who produce exclusively scientific and legal knowledge in any objective form and those engaged in lawmaking and law-enforcement activities. Science has always demanded philosophical thought of criminal law, and their close relationship is traced in the most significant works of prominent philosophers since ancient times. The authors emphasize the unique value of philosophical teachings of the ancient period for modern criminal law, which, even nowadays, is based mainly on the postulates of the philosophers of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The conceptual foundations of these philosophical views have demonstrated their significance over the millennia, and this study highlights the need for their scientific rethinking and the use of the latter’s results in legislative and law enforcement activities. Rethinking the philosophical works of the Antique period by modern lawyers will allow us to clearly build a hierarchy of values protected in the modern world, confirm the principles of the rule of law, and rationally assess the role of criminal punishment and other criminal legal institutions.