The question of whether the concept of legal interests should include moral interests has long been debated in the academic community. With in-depth academic discussions on whether criminal law legislation should be expanded and how criminal law intervenes in cutting-edge technological fields such as metaverse, it has become more relevant to explore whether spiritual legal interests should be protected by criminal law. A historical review reveals that spiritual legal interests began to emerge under the influence of Enlightenment thought, and became established under the influence of neo-Kantian legal philosophy. Influenced by the concept of material legal interests after the Second World War, the recognition of spiritual legal interests has gradually receded, and legal interests have trended toward materialization. However, no matter in the early development of spiritual interests or the late transmutation, they are always an important part of the concept of legal interests. Even the firm supporters of material legal interests have not denied the existence of spiritual interests. Given that legal interests constitute the core of criminal law theory, a moderate spiritualization tendency of legal interests should be tolerated in criminal law legislation. The existence of spiritual legal interests has justification basis: from a social foundation perspective, insisting on the concept of pure material legal interests is difficult to cope with the challenges of the risk society, which leads to loopholes in the scope of protection of criminal law; from a legal rationale perspective, the provisions of the constitution and the criminal law require the protection of spiritual legal interests; from a criminal policy perspective, modern functionalist criminal policy emphasizes early prevention and control of risks, and requires that legal interests should be continuously extended and changed in terms of quantity, scope and degree of detail. However, undue expansion of spiritual interests also carries certain dangers, such as affecting the functioning of legal guidance, creating an authoritarian style of criminal law, and leading to the proliferation of symbolic legislation. Therefore, we should neither deny the existence of spiritual legal interests, nor allow their blind expansion. To construct a restrictive path of criminal law protection of spiritual legal interests, firstly, the humanism of criminal law protection of spiritual legal interests should be adhered to, with human beings as the foundation, taking human interests as the starting point and landing point, and interests indirectly related to human interests cannot become spiritual legal interests protected by criminal law, so as to prevent the decline of the guiding function of legal interests. Secondly, the constitutional review of the criminal law protection of spiritual legal interests should be strengthened to ensure that the purpose and means of the criminal law protection of spiritual legal interests are justified, and at the same time, the criminal law protection of spiritual legal interests should be weighed in terms of legal interests, so as to prevent the rise of authoritarianism of the criminal law. Lastly, in light of the current legislative status of criminal law protection for spiritual legal interests, the degree of correlation between spiritual legal interests and vital human survival interests as well as the national moral bottom line should be examined, so as to prevent excessive symbolic legislation.