Zakharova O.V. Public morality as an object of administrative and legal protection. The article deals with essence and content of public morality as an object of administrative and legal protection. The state of observance of the principles of social morality and the characteristic problems that are being hampered in modern conditions of development of the national humanitarian policy are revealed. The necessity of the state's response to the protection of public morality is proved, due to the

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... orsening of social, political, economic, organizational-legal, value-orientation, social-deformational problems that have manifested themselves in the moral and ethical sphere during the last decades in society. The solution of these problems is seen through the use of a wide range of administrative and legal means, which is connected with the public and legal nature of the protection of public morals, which appears as a kind of reflection of the state's attitude to moral and ethical issues, and it is manifested in that: it is the moral standards that became the basis and the basis for the development and consolidation by the legislative authorities of the relevant administrative law; adherence to ethical and moral standards is an important duty of public administration actors; norms of administrative law contain means to ensure the implementation of moral and ethical norms and sanctions for violation of certain moral rules. In the theory of administrative law, public morality is extremely important, disclosed through the system of state-recognized, formally established legal as well as ethical and individual social norms arising from the social relations of citizens and the state and its institutions and is protected by administrative and legal means. Understanding the essence and content of the categories "society", "morality", as well as "right" in their combination and interdependence determines the role of the state and its responsibility for the proper maintenance of public morality, which is one of the important objects of administrative and legal protection. The general and specific features of the moral and ethical sphere as an object of administrative and legal protection are determined.