Liability and Guilt: A Linguistic, Psychological and Socio-Legal

Analysis

Hussein Idrisov

and Selima Akhmedova

Kadyrov Chechen State University, Grozny, Russian Federation

Chechen State Pedagogical University, Grozny, Russian Federation

Keywords: Freedom of Choice, Guilt, Guilt Feeling, Liability, Theories of Deviance, Crime.

Abstract: The article provides an analysis of the categories of guilt and liability, taking into account the approaches

formed in linguistics, sociology, psychology and jurisprudence. It is noted that the concepts of guilt and

liability, as phenomena filled with a specific historical character, are poly-scientific categories and are the

subject of research in many sciences: psychology, jurisprudence, history of philosophy, sociology. The article

examines the main theories of deviance: the economic theory of deviance, the theory of heterogeneity and

variability of the normative value system of society, the theory of social destabilization and the theory of

stigmatization. In addition, within the framework of the studied phenomena from a legal point of view,

statistical data on the crime rate in the Russian Federation for different periods are provided.

1 INTRODUCTION

Categories of guilt and liability are, first of all,

psychological concepts, but at the same time they are

not in the least degree of historical-legal and socio-

legal nature, and maybe even to a greater extent. At

different eras of the genesis of society and the state,

the understanding of liability and one of its elements

– guilt – was ambiguous and sometimes even

contradictory. At the dawn of human society, attitude

to responsibility, its understanding and

implementation were reduced to the elementary

primitive level according to the principle of talion -

an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, when in most

cases the punishment for an act was death of the one

who caused harm, regardless of whether he was guilty

or not for the act which caused damage.

Subsequently, as society and state institutions

developed, the genesis of responsibility in the

historical perspective was embodied in the modern

stage in the formulation of responsibility from the

perspective of the principle of guilt.

Guilt and liability as polyscientific categories

imply their study from the positions of different

sciences, such as: psychology, jurisprudence, history

of philosophy, sociology, etc. After all, ultimately, a

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person as a "carrier" of guilt is a mental being, in

terms of his essential mental activity, and a social

being, in terms of the need for interpersonal

interaction between people in society. It is impossible

not to take into account such moments in the legal

analysis of the studied categories.

An important element in the process of

personality formation is the legal consciousness.

Legal consciousness as an element of personality

structure, formed, among other things, through

psychological and pedagogical education is an

important component in the implementation of the

individual’s behavior. Lack of legal consciousness or

its insufficient degree is associated with the risk of

implementation of the behavior by the subject that is

considered unethical, anti-social, and, ultimately,

unlawful. Unlawful behavior presupposes as its

natural result the reaction to this state of affairs on the

part of society and the state. In other words, unlawful

behavior is characterized through such legal

categories as guilt and liability of the individual.

Guilt is not liability and liability is not only guilt,

although these are interrelated scientific categories,

they are not identical.

How does one understand guilt, how does one

define it? What emotions and feelings are associated

Idrisov, H. and Akhmedova, S.

Liability and Guilt: A Linguistic, Psychological and Socio-Legal Analysis.

DOI: 10.5220/0011600500003577

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Actual Issues of Linguistics, Linguodidactics and Intercultural Communication (TLLIC 2022), pages 5-9

ISBN: 978-989-758-655-2

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

with the undergoing of guilt by an individual? As a

rule, guilt is characterized as a reaction to the result

of deviant behavior. It is natural that the researcher-

lawyer is interested in guilt as a legal category.

However, it should be noted that a general judgment

about guilt can be formed only with a comprehensive

analysis of this category from the perspective of not

only legal science, but also the sciences we have

outlined above.

2 RESEARCH METHODS

In the process of the study of these phenomena, first

of all, let's turn to the etymological analysis of the

concept of guilt. In the explanatory dictionary of the

Russian linguist V. Dal guilt is defined as follows:

"Guilt – a fault, misdemeanor, transgression, as well

as any unauthorized, reprehensible act" (Dal, 1955).

As can be seen, guilt is assessed by V. Dal from an

objective position. That is, guilt acts as a result of an

impermissible behavior, action. This is also

evidenced by the attribution of guilt to a

"reprehensible deed". In other words, a person is

condemned by another person, the authorities, society

as a whole.

Another Russian linguist S.I. Ozhegov in the

Dictionary of the Russian Language defines guilt

almost in the same way, namely as "a transgression, a

crime; the cause, the source of something

(unfavorable)" (Ozhegov, 1986). It is easy to see that

here we are talking about an unlawful action. Thus,

the scope of the concept of "guilt" is almost

completely identified with the concepts of

"misdemeanor and crime". This means that the

presence of guilt indicates the presence of an

unlawful action (misdemeanor or crime) and vice

versa.

Also, V. Dal's Dictionary states that guilt is a duty,

an obligation, a debt. "Sometimes a pecuniary

penalty, blame, penalty is called a fault <...>" (Dal,

1955). That is, if a person was at someone's

command, was obliged, and also had a debt, it was

said about him that he was guilty.

We proceed from the fact that the psychological

interpretation of guilt and responsibility implies their

characterization from the position of such

psychological state of a person, its internal discomfort

state, arising in situations when a person undergoes

guilt, due to the negative assessment of his actions,

due to his violation of the established imperatives.

Such a state acts as a regulator of relations on an

internal and interpersonal level. At the same time, as

O. Vasilyeva and E. Korotkova state "guilt, designed

to play in the life of society the role of a social

regulator contributing to its integration, in practice

has acquired disjunctive functions". They explain this

phenomenon by the fact that "unconscious, irrational

forms of guilt prevail in the psychical reality, making

communication difficult and reducing a person's

ability to social adaptation" (Vasilyeva, Korotkova,

2004).

In terms of law, guilt is a personal attitude

(mental, volitional, etc.) of the offender to the results

of his action (inaction), which has legal

consequences, and liability is the obligation of an

individual established by the state to suffer personal

and (or) property deprivations, depending on the

degree of public danger of the offense.

In the analysis of liability and guilt such

categories as will, volition and interest are no less

important, because in guilt there is an active volitional

moment, which explains clearly the fact that an action

(wrongful) generates guilt, and action, in turn, is

impossible without the active will and volition of an

individual. It seems to us that the will, volition and

interest are not simply interconnected, but more, they

are interdependent and correlate with the categories

of guilt and liability. In addition, the will, being,

above all, a psychological category, nevertheless has

a certain legal meaning. The concepts of "will" and

"interest" are used by the legislator in the wording of

a number of articles of codified normative legal acts

of Russia (Criminal Code of the Russian Federation

of 06/13/1996 N 63-FZ; Code of the Russian

Federation on Administrative Offenses of December

30, 2001 N 195-FZ (as amended on January 28,

2022); Civil Code of the Russian Federation (parts

one, two, three, four)). We proceed from the fact that

the will of an individual in the legal understanding is

an internal mental process, the need, realized by a

subject, based on a free choice, to achieve (solve) a

specific set goal, potentially implying legal

consequences for the subject himself. From the point

of view of legal science, not only the will as a measure

of a person's legal status is important, but perhaps

even primarily the expression of will as an act of

expressing a person's will outside. Thus, expression

of will are those actions that demonstrate the will of

the subject outside, so to speak, outside his

consciousness - in the material world, and these

actions have an actual legally significant nature. The

category of interest from the legal point of view is the

final desired result (goal) of the process of

implementation of the subject's will through his

expression of will, which has legal consequences for

the subject himself.

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In the Russian system of law, legal responsibility is

divided into the following types:

1) criminal;

2) administrative;

3) disciplinary;

4) civil-legal.

Each type of liability is regulated by the relevant

body of law – code (Criminal Code of the Russian

Federation of 06/13/1996 N 63-FZ; Code of the

Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses of

December 30, 2001 N 195-FZ (as amended on

January 28, 2022); Civil Code of the Russian

Federation (parts one, two, three, four); Labor Code

of the Russian Federation of December 30, 2001 N

197-FZ).

Category of legal responsibility is mediated by the

categories of offense, one of the elements of which is

also guilt. In turn, given the complex nature of the

concept of offense, it is formulated by some scientists

as a complex phenomenon, which includes a number

of factors: economic, psychological, legal,

informational, social and biological (Malein, 1985).

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Understanding the guilt of individual subjects of

constitutional and legal responsibility should proceed

from its unified interpretation in all branches of law

and is defined by the author as the mental attitude of

a person to the deed. At the same time, analyzes its

categories such as essence, content, form, volume and

degree.

D.S. Rymarev also considers the features of

determining the guilt of collective subjects of

constitutional legal responsibility for electoral

delicts (Rymarev, 2017).

In the framework of this study, the author tends to

determine the guilt of election commissions and

election associations based on an objective legal

concept. At the same time, he especially emphasizes

that such categories as intent, negligence, are

unsuitable for establishing their guilt, since there is no

need to talk about any mental attitude of the collective

subject to the electoral delict, since electoral

associations and electoral commissions represent a

certain organized associations of citizens with a

special legal personality, the latter of which are

endowed with certain state or other public powers

(Rymarev, 2017). “If an individual is able to make a

choice, he bears responsibility for it” (Dubinin,

Karpets, Kudryavtsev, 1989). Guilt is manifested in

such situations, when an individual had an

opportunity to choose among several variants of

behavior, but, nevertheless, an illegal variant was

chosen, that, naturally, presupposes liability of the

offender.

In this regard, an objective approach dominates in

the legal literature, when guilt, regardless of the

nature of the subject of responsibility, is a failure by

a person to take all measures that depend on him to

fulfill constitutional duties. This understanding of

guilt does not take into account the differences

between individual and collective subjects and in

many respects approaches the concept of "illegality".

In addition, it should be pointed out that a person's

choice of lawful, or conversely, unlawful options for

behavior is assumed to be a priori completely

conscious and voluntary.

Basic Theories of Personality Deviancy

As part of the application by the courts of the norms

of the electoral legislation governing the grounds for

canceling the registration of a candidate (list of

candidates), as a rule, the guilt of a person in

committing an electoral delict is considered

established if there is involvement of the person in the

relevant unlawful act, while the form of guilt

(intention and negligence) , with rare exceptions, is

not investigated. But establishing the involvement of

a person and his guilt are not the same thing. One

should agree with the opinion expressed in the

literature that guilt is the mental attitude of the

offender to the unlawful act and its consequences, and

involvement is participation in the commission of the

offense. Therefore, the person involved may not

always be guilty. At the same time, it is necessary to

make a reservation that in relation to collective

subjects (electoral associations) the concept of guilt is

different (Rymarev, 2017). Undoubtedly, at any time,

any society consists of different strata, social

categories. There are, roughly speaking, three main

strata: the poor, the middle class, and the rich. When

the proportion of poor people prevails in society, it is

typical to talk about systemic problems (starting with

economic and ending with spiritual and moral) in the

state. The presence of middle class in the structure of

population at the level of about 30% (this data varies

upward or downward) is an indicator of normal

development of both society and state. The presence

of middle class in the structure of society is important

from the point of view that those resources (first of

all, financial), which the middle class has at its

disposal provide "decent" quality of life, in

connection with what, this stratum of society is more

social, financial and economic resistant to various

kinds of shocks, including economic crises, occurring

in the modern world. In contrast, the minimal or

almost complete absence of the middle class in

Liability and Guilt: A Linguistic, Psychological and Socio-Legal Analysis

society is a factor of high social tension between the

other two classes - the poor and the rich (Shipunova,

2004).

The existing amorphous definition of guilt

requires a radical revision. In the construction of the

concept of guilt, instead of the terms “consciousness”,

“understanding”, one should include the concept of

“personal involvement in the illegal essence of the

act” - the relation of the entire personal sphere

(consciousness and subconsciousness) to the

committed act (Rymarev, 2017). The forms of guilt

must be correlated with the structure of the unlawful

act. The intentional form of guilt is guilt characterized

by the criminal purpose, methods and result of the

unlawful act. A careless form of guilt is a guilt

characterized by a criminal method and the result of

an unlawful act.

The following definition of guilt can be

recognized as legally and psychologically correct:

guilt is the personal involvement of a capable person

in a socially harmful, unlawful act committed by him

and its consequences (Rymarev, 2017).

The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation

provides for exemption from criminal liability in

connection with the active repentance of the accused

(Article 75). However, the law does not clearly

regulate the concept of “active repentance”, only its

general features are indicated: surrender, contributing

to the disclosure of a crime, compensation for damage

caused.

As practice shows, in the majority of cases under

investigation, when applying Art. 75 of the Criminal

Code of the Russian Federation, facilitating the

disclosure of a crime by the accused (suspected) is

reduced mainly to giving truthful testimony. In

criminal cases, as a rule, there is no information on

proving the authenticity of active repentance, the

reasons and motives for active repentance are not

clarified; the accused (suspect) is not asked to admit

his guilt. Meanwhile, without clarification of all these

circumstances, the implementation of this article is

impossible. From a psychological point of view,

active repentance is impossible without an admission

of guilt by a person. Recognition of guilt means the

mental attitude of a person to what he has done,

awareness of the wrongfulness of what he has

committed.

Chechen society, which throughout its history has

undergone various cataclysms and negative

conditions, is a vivid example of the State's

application of measures of collective responsibility.

From the Caucasian War (from the 1830s to the

second half of the 19th century) up to the tragic events

of the 1990s (the first and second Chechen wars),

Chechen society (nation, people) was constantly

(except for those few periods when there were no

wars, famine and devastation) on the brink of

survival, sometimes facing the question of its further

physical existence as an ethnos. Of course, in such a

state of affairs it was common for individuals to take

the path of deviant behavior, and it is still a big

question how they were guided in doing so. But these

isolated incidents should not be a reason for the

collective responsibility of an entire people. Chechen

history is replete with cases of such responsibility: the

burning of entire villages (from Chechen equivalent

"evl") during the Caucasian War, the so-called "mass

dispossession" and exile in Siberia during the

Stalinist repression, and the deportation of Chechens

and Ingush to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan during the

Second World War, when some 50,000 Vainakhs

were serving their country at the frontlines of this

war. This unjust attitude of the authorities during that

period also contributed to the deviant behavior of

certain members of the population.

The Chechen nation has literally "passed through"

the theory of stigmatization in recent times because

of the tragic events of the 1990s (the first and second

Chechen wars). The new generation of people who

have grown up on the ruins of a ruined but unbroken

nation continues to reap the fruits of this "label"

attitude towards an entire nation. For example, if we

take statistical data on the level of crime in one of the

regions of Russia - the North Caucasian Federal

District, in particular, in Stavropol Krai, as the

administrative center of this federal region, they did

not contradict the indicators of the dynamics of crime

mentioned above in the whole of Russia. So, if we

turn to statistics figures, "in 1993 in Stavropol Krai

36 623 crimes were registered, in 1999 - 48 214, i.e.

the growth in percentage ratio to the crime level of

1993 was 131.6%; if in 1994 the number of crimes

per 10 thousand population was 131.4, in 1999 -

179.7" (Vanichkin, 2004).

Beginning in 2014 and continuing through 2018,

there has been a downward trend in the crime rate in

Russia. Thus, according to data from the official

website of the Unified Interagency Information and

Statistical System (EMISS) in Russia in 2014 for

every 100 thousand people the crime rate was 1500,

2, and as of 2018 this figure was 1355, 8 (a decrease

of 9.6%). If we take the statistics for the region of the

North Caucasus Federal District, we get the following

data: in 2014, the crime rate was 726.7 for every 100

thousand people, and for the period of 2018 this

indicator was already 712.4, that is, we record a

relatively small decrease in the crime rate in the

territory of the North Caucasus Federal District by

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1.9%. And finally, if we turn to the data on the

administrative and geographical center of the North

Caucasian Federal District – Stavropol Region, they

look as follows: if in 2014 the crime rate per 100

thousand people was 1197.9, then in 2018 this

indicator was 1153.4, that is, we record a decrease by

3.7 % (Official statistics on the crime rate in the

Russian Federation).

These statistics show that the crime rate changes

in a wave-like manner depending on the domestic and

foreign situation: in the years of various cataclysms

(financial crisis, political crisis, local conflicts, etc.)

the crime rate tends to rise and, vice versa, in the years

of "calm" the number of crimes registered annually

also decreases (note: in these statistical calculations

the so-called "latent crime" is not taken into account,

because there are no reliable data on the number of

crimes registered in Russia). Taking into account the

difficult economic situation (both in the domestic and

foreign arena), the still ongoing global crisis

(including the crisis of the Russian economy under

the pressure of international sanctions), taking into

account the ongoing pandemic coronavirus, we can

predict that the crime rate in Russia, at least in the

near future, will tend to grow back.

4 CONCLUSIONS

The analysis of the categories of responsibility and

guilt allows us to draw a number of conclusions of the

following nature. In a situation where there is a fact

of illegal behavior (act, deed), it is typical to talk

about the implementation of liability measures. In

other words, the reason for the implementation of

measures of legal responsibility is the behavior of the

subject, which is deviant, despite the fact that he had

an alternative, a choice of behavior. Any choice

presupposes further action, that is, active volitional

actions of the subject aimed at achieving the goal

(interest). Volitional actions are mediated by the

internal attitudes of the individual, his life principles,

interests, desires and necessity. Thus, the prerequisite

for behavior that fits into the legal field is his internal,

moral constitution, his inner self, which has been

formed to the extent that it is a regulator of mental,

and on the basis of mental, also practical, activity of

the individual. For the practical activity of a person is

the result of reflection of his mental processes.

And finally, the model of human behavior in

society always assumes the possibility of choice.

Meanwhile, such an alternative should be mediated

by the factor of free will (consciousness, will and

interest), that is, the choice should occur consciously

and voluntarily. And if, under all these factors and

conditions, a person allows and implements a variant

that violates rights, a model of behavior, it is

characteristic to talk about the deviant behavior of the

subject, guilt and the application of liability measures

to him, including legal ones.

REFERENCES

Vasilyeva, O., Korotkova, E., 2004. Features of

experiencing guilt in modern society. 12 (1). рр. 48–72.

Criminal Code of the Russian Federation of 06/13/1996 N

63-FZ.

Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses

of December 30, 2001 N 195-FZ (as amended on

January 28, 2022).

Civil Code of the Russian Federation (parts one, two, three,

four).

Labor Code of the Russian Federation of December 30,

2001 N 197-FZ.

Malein, N. S., 2019. Offense: Concept, reasons,

responsibility. р. 192

Dubinina, N. P., Karpets, I. I., Kudryavtseva, V. N., 2020.

Genetics, behavior, responsibility: on the nature of

antisocial acts and ways to prevent them. р. 301.

Shipunova, T. V., 2019. The problem of synthesizing

theories of deviance. рр. 103-113.

Vanichkin, D. E., 2019. Criminological characteristics and

crime prevention in the region. p. 179.

Dal, V., 1995. Explanatory dictionary of the Great Russian

language. 4 volumes.

Ozhegov, S.I., 1986. Dictionary of the Russian language.

Rymarev, D.S., 2017. Guilt as a necessary condition for the

constitutional and legal responsibility of election

participants, р.176.

Official statistics on the crime rate in the Russian

Federation, https://www.fedstat.ru/indicator/58923.

Liability and Guilt: A Linguistic, Psychological and Socio-Legal Analysis