Epistemological Foundations Of Early Legal Utilitarianism

This article analyzes the aggregate of reality cognition methods used in certain theories in the history of ethics and legal thought that are based on the principle of utility. The objective of this article is to provide a full study of the methodology of the utilitarianism to determine the place of the methodology in the establishment of utilitarianism, and also to expand the understanding of the development of legal utilitarianism, origin of ethics and legal prerequisites for the emergence of legal utilitarianism. The article used methods such as universal reality cognition methods, general scientific methods, such as the historical method, formal and logic (dogmatic) method, analysis, synthesis and others and specific (specifically scientific) methods. The main result of the article is the justification that the emergence of utilitarianism is conditioned, inter alia, by the synthesis of the empirical and theoretical methodology. efore that, the application of purely empirical or purely theoretical methodologies for considering the state and legal phenomena through the prism of utility did not lead to the creation of a separate branch of philosophy, ethic and legal thought – utilitarianism. The main conclusion of this article is that the "moral arithmetic" created under classical utilitarianism and later developed in the contemporary utilitarianism,based on which it is possible to compute the utility of this or that action (totality of actions), contradicts such universal legal values as justice, defense, enforcement of rights and freedoms, principle of equality, and the moral values, and, therefore, cannot be supported.