Contemporary Ethics. The Significance of Ethical Teachings for Contemporary Ethics

The end of the 19th and 20th centuries became critical and tragic for all mankind: revolutions, world wars, the division of the world into 2 hostile camps. This, of course, was reflected in the development of modern ethical concepts. The most widespread were only 2 of them: the ethics of violence and the ethics of non-violence.

Contemporary ethics violence. Expressions of ideas of violence were: Karl Marx, F. Nietzsche and E. Dühring. Dühring and Nietzsche attributed to violence a decisive role in the history of mankind. They considered it justified to sacrifice during a change of power and system, they believed that a person has the right to radically change social life if it does not meet his aspirations, and those who do not want this can be forced under the threat of violence to do what they do not want. Marx and Engels, who engaged in polemics with Dühring regarding the denial of violence, nevertheless became the founders of the practice of violence, elevated it to the rank of the current law of any revolution. The destruction of people takes place when the social order changes. The ethics of violence continued to develop in the writings of Lenin, and was applied by him directly in practice - the dictatorship of the proletariat. This ethic gave birth to the bloodiest dictatorships of the 20th century - Stalinism and Hitlerism.

Contemporary ethics of nonviolence. It arose in opposition to the ethic of violence, which was widespread in the 20th century. The main ethical principle of this direction is the absence of any violence against a person, both moral and physical. Through this, a person builds relationships with nature and the people around him.

Leo Tolstoy played a significant role in the development of ethical categories of nonviolence. He believed that through violence people justify the presence of the most negative vices: evil, greed, envy, lust for power. But these qualities are destructive, first of all, for their bearer. You should change your moral values, come to God and accept the main principle of Christianity - you cannot respond with evil to violence.

The name of another exponent of the ethics of nonviolence, ML King, is associated with the opening of the Institute of Nonviolence in New York. He substantiated the basic principles of philanthropy, as well as the methods of their development in oneself. King understood that the implementation of these principles is not an easy task, but it is also the key one, ensuring a person's survival. Love should become the driving force of any person, even for his enemies. Hence, an important quality of upbringing in oneself is forgiveness.

The ideas of another humanist of the 20th century, Gandhi, also gained fame. He fought for the independence of his country exclusively in a peaceful way. Gandhi believed that the principles of non-violence are inherent only in strong people who raised them through reason. The laws of love are as effective in the world as the laws of gravity - a loving person gets a lot in return. Harmony of reason and love in a person is the real foundation of non-violence.

The pinnacle of the ethics of nonviolence was the direction of the ethics of reverence for life, developed by Albert Schweitzer. Education in the soul of love, forgiveness, respect for others is possible through the contemplation of the perfection of the device of nature and man by the Creator. Schweitzer's ethics is practical, it provides for the education of the necessary qualities that will bring harmony into a person's life.

Twentieth-century ethics can be called an intellectual response to the social catastrophes that have occurred in this century. Two world wars and regional conflicts, totalitarian regimes and terrorism prompt us to think about the very possibility of ethics in a world so openly alien to good. Of the great variety of ethical teachings created in the twentieth century, we will consider only two. Their representatives not only constructed theoretical models of morality, but also made practical normative conclusions from them.

Another very significant kind of ethical teaching that had a huge impact on the development of Western culture is ethics of existentialism (philosophy of existence). Existentialism is represented by French philosophers J.P. Sartre (1905-1980), G. Marseille (1889-1973), A. Camus (1913-1960), German philosophers M. Heidegger (1889-1976), K. Jaspers (1883-1969). Existentialism took shape in Western Europe between the two world wars. Its representatives tried to comprehend the position of a person in crisis situations and develop certain values ​​that allow him to adequately get out of the crisis situation.

The starting position of existentialism is that existence precedes essence, the reason that determines it. Man first exists, appears, acts, and only then is he determined, i.e. gets characteristics and definitions. Openness to the future, inner incompleteness and initial readiness for free self-determination from oneself is true existence, existence.

Existentialist ethics considers freedom as the basis of human moral behavior. Man is freedom... Freedom is the most fundamental characteristic of a person. Freedom in existentialism - This is, first of all, freedom of consciousness, freedom of choice of the spiritual and moral position of the individual. All causes and factors acting on a person are necessarily mediated by his free choice... A person must constantly choose one or another line of his behavior, be guided by certain values ​​and ideals. By posing the problem of freedom, the existentialists reflected the main foundation of morality. Existentialists rightly emphasize that the activities of people are directed mainly not by external circumstances, but by internal motives, that each person mentally reacts not in the same way in certain circumstances. A lot depends on each person, and one should not refer to "circumstances" in the event of a negative development of events. People have considerable freedom in determining the goals of their activities. At each concrete historical moment, there is not one, but several possibilities. In the presence of real opportunities for the development of events, it is equally important that people are free to choose the means to achieve their goals. And the ends and means, embodied in actions, already create a certain situation, which itself begins to exert influence.

Human responsibility is closely related to freedom.... Without freedom, there is no responsibility. If a person is not free, if he is constantly determined in his actions, determined by some spiritual or material factors, then, from the point of view of existentialists, he is not responsible for his actions, which means that he is not a subject of moral relations either. Moreover, an individual who does not exercise a free choice, renounced freedom, thereby loses the main quality of a person and turns into a simple material object. In other words, such an individual can no longer be considered a person in the true sense of the word, for he has lost the quality of true existence.

At the same time, real life shows that for many people, genuine existence turns out to be an unbearable burden. After all, freedom requires independence and courage from a person, it presupposes responsibility for a choice that gives one or another meaning to the future, which determines what the distant world will be like. It is these circumstances that cause those unpleasant experiences of metaphysical fear and anxiety, constant anxiety, which push a person and the sphere of "inauthentic existence."

Existentialist ethics calls for opposing all forms of collectivism. You must openly realize your loneliness and abandonment, freedom and responsibility, the meaninglessness and tragedy of your own existence, gain strength and courage to live in the most unfavorable situations of hopelessness and hopelessness.

Existentialist ethics develops in the mainstream of stoicism: the moral confusion and despair of a person, his loss of his dignity and strength of spirit is not so much the result of the collision of our reason and morality with the meaninglessness of human life and the inability to achieve prosperity in it, as the result of disappointment in these our hopes. As long as a person desires and hopes for a successful outcome of his undertakings, he will fail and fall into despair, because the course of life is not in his power. It does not depend on a person what situations he can get into, but it entirely depends on him how he will get out of them.

Among the theories of morality XX century. should pay attention to "Ethics of nonviolence". All ethics consider the rejection of violence necessary. Because violence generates retaliatory violence, it is notoriously ineffective. method of solving any problems. Nonviolence is not passivity, but special nonviolent actions (sit-ins, marches, hunger strikes, distribution of leaflets and appearances in the media to popularize their position - supporters of non-violence have developed dozens of such methods). Only morally strong and courageous people are capable of carrying out such actions; The motive for nonviolence is love for enemies and faith in their best moral qualities. Enemies should be convinced of the wrong, ineffectiveness and immorality of forceful methods and a compromise should be reached with them. The Ethics of Non-Violence considers morality not to be weakness, but as a person's strength, the ability to achieve goals.

In the XX century. was developed the ethic of reverence for life, the founder of which was the modern humanist A. Schweitzer. It equalizes the moral value of all existing forms of life. However, he admits a situation of moral choice. If a person is guided by the ethics of reverence for life, then he harms life and destroys it only under the pressure of necessity and never does it mindlessly. But where he is free to choose, a person seeks a position in which he could help life and avert from it the threat of suffering and destruction. Schweitzer rejects evil.

The article examines the historical forms of morality. The specificity of the ancient ethics of virtues is shown, it is investigated what tasks were solved in medieval ethics and in what new perspective the ethics of the modern era began to consider the morality. The disadvantages of the universalist approach to ethics are shown. Based on a comparison of the features of ethical thought in different historical epochs, the author concludes that the development of ethical codes, the convergence of morality with law do not exclude the significance of the ethics of virtues. On the contrary, virtue ethics and institutional morality are complementary components. The most important feature of solving applied issues is the development of a decision-making mechanism, which means an increase in the role of subjective motivation. The methodology used is the historical consideration of morality, the method of systems research, the principle of complementarity.

Keywords: morality, ethics, motivation, institutions, virtue, decisions, responsibility, discourse.

The article considers the historical forms of morality. It shows the specific features of ancient virtue ethics, examines which tasks were solved by the medieval ethics and what new perspective was disclosed in the Ethics of New Time. The limitations of the universalist approach in Ethics are also revealed. On the base of comparative studies of different Ethical paradigms the author concludes that the development of ethical codes and a partial unification between moral and law does not mean the lowering of virtue ethics. On the contrary, the virtue ethics and institutional moral are complementary components. The main feature of the solutions of applied tasks is the elaboration of decision-making procedure. This implies an increasing role of subjective motivation. The methodology is based on historical consideration of morality, involves the method of system research, and complementary principle.

Keywords: moral, Ethics, motivation, institutes, virtue, solutions, responsibility, discurs.

Ancient ethics mainly developed as a theory of virtues. Virtue is a moral concept that characterizes the qualities of a person that allow her to consciously follow good. In contrast to the norms and principles of morality, which characterize the transpersonal obligatory side of morality, virtue represents morality at the personal level, reflects the unique uniqueness of various social and moral qualities of a person. In this sense, it is more subjective compared to norms and principles.

Virtue is a character trait that reflects a person's ability to perform some kind of socially significant activity, the development of his ability to live together with other people and the ability to reasonably organize his own life. The term itself gets its meaning from the category of good, which in Antiquity meant any perfection, the correspondence of a thing to its purpose. This means that virtue is a conscious striving for good, a striving to realize it in one's activity and at the same time achieve perfection (including in one's profession).

Virtue presupposes a steady orientation of character. This means that moral behavior for a virtuous person becomes to a certain extent familiar, his moral choice is facilitated due to the fact that the very nature of his character shows how to act in a particular case.

In deciding to be virtuous, a person always makes for himself some kind of cultivation program. It presupposes the management of one's own affects, the rejection of some desires, considered as lower, in favor of others - higher. This means that a person consciously works to transform his own nature in accordance with some moral and social ideal, that he does not want to remain who he is, but always strives for more, for what he can in principle achieve.

But it is not some abstract person who is being improved, but a person who acts as an active being participating in the affairs of society. Therefore, in the ethics of virtues, a certain goal is attached to morality, which can be considered not only in its own moral, but also in a general social meaning. I. Kant considered the doctrine of virtues precisely in connection with the idea of ​​a person about goals.

When considering the problem of virtues, Kant poses the question as follows: since there are free actions, there must also be goals for which they are directed. But are there any goals that are at the same time a duty? If not, then ethics becomes meaningless, since any teaching about morality is a teaching about what should be done (that is, first of all, a teaching about responsibilities).

Kant names two such goals: his own perfection and someone else's happiness. Own happiness, from the point of view of Kant, cannot be a duty, since everyone strives for it by nature, but someone else's can. Personal perfection can also be a duty, because no one naturally strives for it. Perfection, from the point of view of Kant, is a culture of natural inclinations, but at the same time a culture of will based on a moral way of thinking. Therefore, it is: “1. Man's duty by his own efforts to get out of the [state] of the primitiveness of his nature, from the [state of] animality (quoad actum), and higher and higher to ascend to the human [state], only thanks to which he is able to set goals, make up for the lack of his knowledge and correct mistakes ... 2. Raise the culture of your will to the purest virtuous mindset when law also becomes the motive of his actions consistent with duty, and obey the law out of a sense of duty ... ”[Kant 1994: 428].

Virtue, therefore, is associated with duty in the sense that it requires effort (will), and is not associated with it in the sense that it is the result of a free choice of purpose. It also involves the development of natural inclinations, and, consequently, the determination of their predispositions, their abilities. Thus, the sphere of virtue is not only the sphere of action of universal imperatives, but also the ability to subordinate yourself to what you are disposed to. The latter still needs to be determined, and the universal imperatives here, in fact, cannot give anything.

A controversial issue is the question of the so-called "proper moral" emotions that can induce and accompany moral action. There were philosophers who allowed such emotions. For example, A. Shaftesbury wrote: “Not a single soul has done good deeds - so as not to do them with even greater readiness - and with great pleasure. And the deeds of love, mercy or generosity have never been performed otherwise than with an increasing joy of heart, so that the one who does them would not feel more and more love for these noble deeds ”[Shaftesbury 1975: 113]. But it’s not moral emotion itself that drives virtuous action. Their nature (in the case of admitting such emotions) is incomprehensible, since morality orients us to what is due, and if some basic emotion were an incentive in morality, it would be necessary to recognize a moral need.

By the way, D. Hume directly writes about this, comparing moral feelings with feelings generated by the process of satisfying other needs.

In his work "A Study on the Principles of Morality," Hume proceeds from the fact that everyone has some kind of universal human feeling that makes it possible to distinguish between good and evil. He calls this feeling humanity.

“The concept of morality implies some feeling common to all of humanity, which recommends the same object as deserving of general approval and makes each person or most people agree with each other, coming to the same opinion or decision about it. This concept also implies some feeling, so universal and all-encompassing that it extends to all of humanity and makes the actions and behavior of even the most distant persons the object of approval or condemnation in accordance with whether they are consistent or not consistent with the established rules of the right. These two necessary circumstances are connected only with the feeling of philanthropy, on which we insisted here ”[Hume 1996: 269].

In conclusion of the work, Hume definitely connects this feeling with a need, essentially analogous to other human needs, only with greater universality.

“Don't be any needs(emphasis mine - A.R.), which precedes self-love, this inclination could hardly ever have an effect, for in this case we would experience slight and weak pain or pleasure and know little grief or happiness to be avoided or sought. Further, is it difficult to imagine that the same could be the case with benevolence and friendship, and that, thanks to the original makeup of our character, we can wish another person happiness or good, which, thanks to this affect, becomes our own good, and then becomes an object of aspirations, based on a combination of the motives of benevolence and self-satisfaction? " [Ibid: 296].

But then morality as such would not be needed at all, because a need, if it already exists (or even if it is gradually formed), does not need an additional motive of duty. She herself arouses behavior aimed at her satisfaction. Another thing is the formation of personality traits that would allow her to participate in complex types of social activities. They, as well as the desire for these types of activities themselves, are not given to man by nature. In indicating the need to perform strenuous activities as a public service and in the formation of the necessary social qualities for this, morality can undoubtedly play a role. It really affects the process of the formation of the highest social needs of the individual and those social qualities of a person (his abilities) that are necessary to satisfy them. Emotions are included in moral action from the side of the process of satisfying all the highest social needs of a person. Indirectly, they have moral significance, since in the recognition of his merits by society, a person sees the criteria for his own achievements and confirmation of his own dignity. At the same time, the moral component of a complex action increases the tension of emotions from the very process of satisfying higher needs, because the awareness of the degree of uniqueness of the activity being performed, the complexity of the tasks being solved, undoubtedly receives an appropriate emotional coloring. The result always arouses the greater emotions, the more difficult it is to achieve it.

As for moral emotions proper, they can only accompany moral action in the sense of the consciousness of a fulfilled duty; a state of calm conscience, satisfaction from the consciousness of one's own dignity, caused by the fact that a person was able to overcome himself; or to stimulate moral action in the sense of the anticipatory role of negative emotions (to prevent a state of remorse, disrespect for oneself, etc.).

In connection with the above, the development of personality in the ethics of virtues cannot be represented as a process different from its holistic social formation, that is, it is impossible to imagine a person who is not capable of specific types of social activity, who has not achieved perfection in them, but nevertheless is highly moral in that sense that he does not deceive anyone, does not cause physical harm to others, does not encroach on someone else's property, etc.

For ancient society, virtue was unambiguously associated with the dignity of the individual, especially in heroic morality.

But then, in philosophy and religion, this idea began to be repressed. A person was required to be virtuous, but at the same time not to determine through this the measure of his dignity, since in ethics focused on submission to the absolute, to God, dignity is the same for everyone.

Hence, in Stoicism, and then in Christianity, a steady tendency was manifested to separate moral qualities proper from other social abilities of the individual. Even earlier, you can see this tendency in Plato (in his ethics of moral perfection, which was a simultaneous movement towards truth and beauty).

For ancient ethics, the division of morality and other aspects of human life, however, was not as sharp as for the ethics of modern times. The moral development of a person was constantly comprehended in terms of practical skills, compared with the development of other human abilities, and sometimes was considered as a single process with the formation of other social qualities. So, Protagoras says that the kypharists, teaching young people their art, for their part, take care of the prudence of young people, in addition, in the very process of learning there is an acquaintance with the works of good poets-songwriters, in which there are instructive instructions [Plato. Prot. 326b].

The idea of ​​the need to separate the moral qualities of the individual and his other social abilities increases as the society grows larger, the connection with the group becomes not as direct as before, and selfish motives associated with the acquisition of wealth begin to manifest themselves more and more in the motivation of activity.

Until the era of Hellenism, man was not faced with the question of why he should act for the benefit of the polis. It was part of his life, in line with his idea of ​​true good.

Only in Seneca do the so-called philistine virtues appear, which indicate the need for a person to participate in public affairs, to such an attitude towards oneself that does not allow one to relax, indulge in idleness. But in itself the problem of philistine virtues can develop only in those conditions when a person has a real choice to live one way or another.

For a huge mass of people in medieval society, the possibility of such a choice simply disappears. This society was class-based and hierarchical. The estates reflected the inevitability of fulfilling their social functions. Hierarchy implied the division of estates into higher and lower classes. The possibility of at least some choice of lifestyle, along with the struggle to establish their social status, was inherent only in the upper classes. Therefore, the knights participated in tournaments or wars, representatives of the spiritual class delved into the study of sacred books and theological discourses. Kings asserted their dignity by conquest. As for the peasants and artisans, they meekly carried their cross.

Nevertheless, medieval ethics reflected a higher appreciation of human sensibility, as compared to Antiquity, a higher appreciation of labor, including simple labor, associated with handicraft production and agriculture. From the XII-XIII centuries. labor even began to be viewed not as a punishment of the Lord, but as a means of salvation, as a test that a person must endure, demonstrating his devotion to God. Certain types of labor were associated with a significant variety of life and with different virtues. But these virtues themselves, as certain social skills, even containing signs of perfection, have ceased to be a measure of expression of personal dignity. This was even more clearly manifested in Protestantism, which equated different types of labor in moral dignity, and in fact deprived them of such dignity altogether. Perfection began to correlate only with the idea of ​​being chosen by God. What were the social preconditions for this turn?

During this period, society faced two tasks: 1) to preserve the already existing social inequality; 2) to ensure a variety of labor functions, without linking their performance with a claim for change, an increase in individual social status. This meant that the bearing of one's cross had to be taken for granted, without any hint that this was associated with the assertion of some dignity.

In the Middle Ages, the divine absolute was opposed to the huge range of moral decisions characteristic of Antiquity as a single authoritative source of moral good. In Christianity, God performs punitive functions and at the same time sets the ideal of moral perfection. He is supposed to be all-good, all-seeing, omnipresent. Christian ethics, in contrast to ancient Greek and ancient Roman, basically became the ethics of duty. It formulated other criteria for moral goodness. Qualities such as courage and military valor faded into the background. They were opposed to tolerance, mercy, charity, concern for one's neighbor. Faith, Hope, Love became the main virtues. All people began to be seen as equitable. In the classical ethics of virtues, the dignity of people looked different, depending on their achievements, the degree of development of virtues.

However, it cannot be said that in the Middle Ages there was a leveling of personality, that the goals of personal life were simplified, reduced to self-limitation of their own sensuality and a benevolent attitude towards their neighbor, that a person abandoned an independent search for moral truth and began to rely on God's mercy in everything.

In the Old Testament, you can find numerous examples of violations of traditional norms of behavior. But all this is done for reasons of the realization of some higher values ​​and receives the approval of the highest authority, that is, God. These are well-known stories connected with the appropriation of the birthright by Jacob, the use of a magical means to divide property (with his father-in-law) in his favor, Joseph, etc. Each time after such actions, biblical heroes meet with God in a dream and actually receive his approval.

The ethics of the modern era had a complex history of origin. From the very beginning, it was based on various, even contradictory principles, which received their special combination in the concepts of individual thinkers. It is based on the humanistic ideas developed in the Renaissance, the principle of personal responsibility introduced through the Protestant ideology, the liberal principle that put the individual with his desires at the center of reasoning and believes the main functions of the state in protecting the rights and freedoms of the individual.

In the XVII century. moral theories reflect the complexities of the process of the emergence of capitalist society, the uncertainty of a person in his destiny, and at the same time encourage the initiative aimed at practical achievements. In ethics, this leads to a combination of two opposite approaches: striving for personal happiness, pleasure, joy at the lowest empirical level of the subject's being and striving for gaining stoic calmness at a different, higher level of being. Higher moral being is comprehended through purely rational constructions associated with the assertion of intellectual intuition, innate knowledge. In them, the sensory aspects of the subject's being are practically completely overcome. An emotionally colored attitude to reality is viewed as meaningless, because nothing can be changed in a causally determined world. Therefore, you can only accept this world and calmly relate to your fate. So mechanics as the leading scientific idea of ​​the 17th century. used to argue moral ideas.

What has been said is well supported by Descartes's rules for practically operating morality (morality that a person can accept for himself even when the theory has not yet developed final moral concepts):

1) “obey the laws and customs of my country, adhering to the relentless religion in which, by the grace of God, I was brought up from childhood, and being guided in all other respects by the opinions of the most moderate, alien to extremes and generally accepted among the most noble people, in the circle of whom I will have live";

2) “to remain the most firm and decisive in my actions, as far as it was in my power, and, once accepting any opinion, even dubious, follow it as if it were completely correct”;

3) “always strive to conquer ourselves rather than fate, changing our desires, and not the order of the world, and generally get used to the idea that only our opinions are in our complete power and that after we have done everything possible with the objects around us , what we failed should be considered as something absolutely impossible ”[Descartes 1953: 26-28].

The first two theses indicate that a person is forced to live in conditions of a lack of knowledge about the world. He can adapt to it only practically, focusing on moderate opinions, since since the time of Aristotle it has been known that the moderate is farther from extremes and thus farther from vice, farther from wrong. Being firm in decisions gives confidence in life, so opinions should not be changed. The third rule obviously demonstrates the stoic attitude of moral consciousness, which follows from the thesis that essentially nothing can be changed in the world.

XVIII-XIX centuries associated with a relatively calm period in the development of capitalism. Moral theories are more guided here by the sensory aspects of human existence. But feelings are understood not only in the eudemonistic sense, as conditions for achieving happiness, as positive emotions that contribute to the joy of life. In a number of concepts, they begin to acquire a purely moral significance, appear as attitudes expressing a humane attitude towards another, support for his existence, which contributes to the harmonization of social life. Along with moral theories that appeal to proper moral feelings, primarily the feeling of compassion, the sensory understanding of morality also contains calls for a radical transformation of society, the creation of such a social organization in which all the sensory aspects of human existence can receive an adequate, consistent expression. This is often expressed in the well-known concept of intelligent egoism.

As a reaction to the sensual and eudemonistic understanding of morality, an approach arises in which morality appears as a rational construction derived from pure reason. Kant tries to formulate an autonomous approach to the substantiation of morality, to consider the moral motive as not associated with any pragmatic motives of being. The Kantian categorical imperative, based on the procedure of mental universalization of one's behavior as a means of its control by the autonomous moral will, is still used in various versions in the construction of ethical systems.

Nevertheless, basically all these systems appealed to the individual consciousness of the individual, to reasoning on the moral themes of a single individual.

The idea of ​​history finds expression in the ethics of modern times. In the concepts of the enlighteners, G.V.F. Hegel, K. Marx, morality is understood as relative, specific for each specific stage in the development of society, in Kantian philosophy, the historical consideration of morality, on the contrary, is subordinated to the study of those conditions under which absolute moral principles can become effective practically doable. Hegel's historical approach develops on the basis of the thesis that the autonomous moral will is powerless, cannot find the desired connection with the whole. It becomes effective only due to the fact that it relies on the institutions of the family, civil society and the state. Therefore, as a result of historical development, Hegel conceives morality as coinciding with a perfect tradition.

Historicity is already embedded in Christian moral doctrine. The idea of ​​history is expressed by the genesis described in the Bible itself. This is not just a change of events, but a change in the person himself, his acquisition of moral qualities, his preparation for accepting the divine commandments, and then rethinking them in the light of a new stage in understanding divine truth, which only a New Testament person who has already changed is able to perceive.

K. Marx and mainly his followers tried in a clever way to combine the Hegelian and Kantian approaches. Hence, on the one hand, morality turned out to be class, historically relational, on the other, it was presented as the only means of regulating behavior in a communist society, when, according to the classics of Marxism, all social circumstances distorting the purity of morals would disappear, all social antagonisms would be overcome.

Medieval morality gives us a significant scatter of ideas of different strata about the tasks of moral life, virtues. The higher nobility lived according to one morality, the clergy according to another, special moral ideas serving the purposes of expressing their mission were formulated by numerous orders of knighthood, merchants were divided into guilds, artisans - according to workshops. Even the beggars had their own morals. Compared to Antiquity, this in no way looks like a simplification.

But the morality of the XVII century. demonstrates much more uniformity. Why? The answer is, in general, clear. The development of universal ties that correspond to the material form of relationships between people in a capitalist society requires the unification of their relationships. As for those moral concepts that determined the goals of human activity, they largely lose their moral foundations. This is very well shown by W. Sombart, who notes the following historical trend: “In those days when efficient and loyal business people praised the young generation of diligence as the highest virtue of a successful entrepreneur, they had to try, as it were, to drive a firm the foundation of duties, were to try to evoke in each individual, by exhortation, a personal direction of will. And if the admonition bore fruit, then the diligent business man worked out his lesson through strong self-restraint. Modern economic man reaches his frenzy in completely different ways: he is drawn into the whirlpool of economic forces and carried away by them. He no longer cultivates virtue, but is under the influence of compulsion. The pace of business determines its own pace ”[Sombart 2009: 142]. Consequently, the task of improving a person in the sense of cultivating the so-called philistine virtues has ceased to be relevant. His "virtue" began to be determined by the pace of production, and not by his subjective volitional efforts.

However, for modern society, such an assessment is not suitable. Now human labor in production is becoming more and more creative, and creative labor does not lend itself well to external control, its rhythm is not set by external factors of the systemic organization of production, at least it is not set as rigidly as these factors can set specific work associated with performing individual production operations.

Hence, in ethics, attention to virtues again increases, including in the field of public morality, in applied and professional ethics.

Modern morality

The following are named as specific features of the moral life of modern society, about which most researchers agree:

1. Moral pluralism, development of systems of professional and corporate codes, reflection of the diversity of cultures, division of morality along ethnic lines.

2. Rapprochement of morality and law, institutionalization of morality (formalization of requirements and toughening of sanctions).

3. Orientation of ethical rules to the standard, opposing this call for unlimited improvement in the Christian sense (be perfect as your heavenly father).

4. Collective decisions and collective responsibility.

5. A utilitarian approach that presupposes making decisions based on the logic of lesser evil (which is not always perfect, since it involves the use of some groups of people or individuals as a means).

In the Russian ethics of the 1970s. morality has traditionally been viewed as a “non-institutional” regulator of personality behavior. Sometimes, however, it was noted that morality can be associated with the activities of some non-state institutions, for example, with the church, but this was considered historically transitory, not consistent with its nature. Traditional moral imperatives were directed to the consciousness of the individual. Characteristics dependent on the capabilities of the individual were associated with such distinctive features of morality as freedom of choice (voluntary acceptance of moral obligations); a virtuous way of life (conscious striving for good); readiness for self-sacrifice (the principled affirmation of the interest of society as the highest in relation to the interest of the individual); equality between people (the willingness to treat another in the same way as to oneself, hence the universality of the expression of moral requirements); the idea of ​​self-improvement (hence the conflict between the ought and the being).

The state of modern society in many respects refutes a number of the provisions noted above. Thus, in the development of professional ethics, a massive process of codification of moral norms began. Certain organizations monitor the implementation of the norms: ethics or appeal committees at universities; professional meetings of doctors, which have taken on additional functions of moral assessment; parliamentary ethics committees that assess the permissibility or inadmissibility of MPs' behavior from a moral point of view; professional organizations of business communicators or organizations of public relations workers; councils on journalistic ethics that somehow ensure that society receives truthful information about the state of affairs in individual corporations and public life in general. It is clear from this that morality becomes partly institutional. At the same time, the norms of professional ethics turn out to be addressed not to all people of the Earth or not to all beings endowed with reason, as Kant believed, but to representatives of this profession.

Along with the division of morality on a professional basis, its division arose on the basis of corporate affiliation. Many modern corporations have developed their own ethical codes, proclaimed their own moral missions, which reflect how the activities of a given corporation contribute to the growth of public good in general, how this type of business contributes to meeting the needs of people.

To this it must be added that those moral requirements that traditionally appealed to each individual person, for example, concern for one's neighbor, in modern society often become the subject of the activity of special state bodies. People who work in such bodies, in fact, perform special moral functions that serve the entire society.

All of the above really gives grounds for the assertion that morality, to a certain extent, has ceased to be what it was. R. G. Apresyan calls modern society postmodern. He notes that moral pluralism is a characteristic feature of this society.

Analyzing the existing literature, in which the problem of public morality is reflected in one way or another, R. G. Apresyan comes to the conclusion that it is necessary to distinguish between the individual ethics of improvement and public, or public, morality. In Western sources, slightly different solutions are proposed: public morality and individual morality (T. Nagel), social and individual ethics (A. Rich), institutional ethics and institutional design (R. Hardin).

The term "public morality" seems to us more accurate, since all morality is inherently public. In individual morality, a person most of all pays attention to such personal qualities that can make existence without conflict with a close circle of people, with their neighbors, as well as provide reasonable mutual assistance with those with whom one has to come into personal contact in one way or another. In public morality, a person deals with large groups of people, impersonal connections, with the performance of various public functions. The imperatives of public morality cannot be as universal as the well-known requirements of Christian ethics, because public functions are different and their fulfillment often involves a selective attitude towards different people.

The imperatives of individual morality may look like a way of resolving questions about what should be properly organized sexual relations, how to treat members of your family, how to live in order to be happy, etc. In public morality, groups of people are identified as having a certain specificity. different from other groups. Therefore, the principle “treat the other as you would like to be treated yourself” is not fully applicable here. The imperatives of public morality can be provisions such as "do not be racist", "take part in elections", if you perform any general public function, then perform your duties honestly, do not give advantages to anyone in accordance with your personal likes and dislikes and etc.

It is clear that in the performance of many public functions it turns out to be simply impossible to relate to another in the same way as to oneself. A person is, of necessity, forced to act against another. In his work Ethics for Opponents A. Appelbaum notes: “Professionals and politicians play roles that often force them to act on the basis of opposite intentions, strive to achieve incompatible goals, and destroy the plans of others. Prosecution and defense attorneys, Democrats and Republicans, secretaries of state and national security advisers, industrial enterprises and environmentalists, investigative journalists and official sources, doctors and insurance companies are often faced with one another as a result of their mission, work and agitation ". It is clear that this requires the development of special ethics, which are based on the rules of fair play, respect for the enemy, and taking into account the public interest. It is also necessary to take into account the relations of subordination that inevitably arise in the performance of public functions, which imposes special moral obligations, and in some cases gives the right to control the fate of other people.

For example, an officer can decide who to send on a deadly mission and who to keep in reserve. These decisions will be based on the logic of choosing the lesser evil in order to eliminate the greater. They also admit what traditional ethics strongly forbade, that is, saving the lives of some at the expense of others. Here, however, it is necessary to make a reservation that such decisions can be morally justified only in an emergency period that is officially recognized (officially declared war, natural disaster, global ecological catastrophe, etc.).

As modern morality again becomes pluralistic, an era is passing when philosophers tried to formulate universal imperatives, to subordinate behavior to uniform rules that do not allow any exceptions.

The very logic of these imperatives is being questioned. G. Simmel was one of the first to see this turn in modern ethics. He criticizes Kant's categorical imperative precisely because he does not take into account the individual person, his conflicting feelings, conflict situations, etc.

“The irresistible strictness of Kant's morality is associated with his logical fanaticism, which seeks to give all life a mathematically precise form. Great teachers of morality, whose source of teaching was solely the assessment of the moral, were by no means distinguished by such rigorism - neither Buddha, nor Jesus, nor Marcus Aurelius, nor Saint Francis ... , poses before itself the problems of only the most everyday and, as it were, gross events of moral life. Everything that is accessible to general concepts in moral data, he considers with unprecedented grandeur and poignancy. However, ever deeper and more subtle questions of ethics, the exacerbation of conflicts, the complexity of feelings, dark forces in us, in the moral assessment of which we are often so helpless - all this seems to be unknown to him - to him, penetrating into the deepest, subtle and refined functions mental human activities. Lack of imagination and primitiveness in posing moral problems, on the one hand, sophistication and scope of flight in theoretical ones, on the other, prove that he introduces into his philosophical thinking only that which allows penetration by logical thinking ”[Simmel 1996: 12–13].

Simmel believes that Kant and other philosophers of the Enlightenment, in principle, proceeded from the fact that all people are the same in essence. Hence, it is possible to apply universal rules to them, and the society itself must be such in which the application of these universal rules will become possible, that is, in the future - by a society of universal equality. This gave rise to revolutions that themselves were based on a false idea.

“... Estates, guild and church ties created countless manifestations of inequality between people, the injustice of which was very acutely felt; therefore, it was concluded that with the elimination of these institutions, along with which this unequal distribution of rights would disappear, there would be no more inequality in the world at all. There has been a confusion of existing meaningless differences with inequality in general, and the belief has been established that the freedom that will destroy them will lead to general and permanent equality. And this was combined with the rationalism of the 18th century, for which the subject of interest was not a special person, incomparable in his originality, but a person as such, a person in general ”[Simmel 1996: 149].

It is possible to discuss how correct such an assessment of education as a whole is, but there is no doubt that general imperatives can govern people's lives only if all motives that differ from the motives of preserving society at the level of general rules are taken out of the bounds of morality. Applied to the ethics of virtue and applied to modern society, this, I think, is wrong.

And Simmel, I think, is right when he writes about the continuity of life and those rules that follow not from general laws, but from this very continuity. “Everything that is changeable and, in its sense, the only one, fluid in the continuity of life without precise boundaries, does not obey a pre-existing law, as well as an abstract sublimation into a universal law - all this now receives an obligation over itself, for this is life itself and preserves its continuous form ”[His 2006: 60].

Despite the significant subjectivity presented in this reasoning, there is also a rational kernel. A person is prompted to action not only by an abstract universal duty, but also by his own choice, the choice of goals, life program, which corresponds to the ethics of virtues. This corresponds to the individualization of moral actions and moral evaluations in the ethics of virtues.

XIX century. - This is also a period causing a powerful surge in the utilitarian understanding of morality. Utilitarianism regards as morally positive such behavior, which leads to an increase in the amount of happiness of as many people as possible. This theory arises along with the development of capitalist society, which has abruptly increased the total amount of material goods produced, which has raised consumption to a new qualitative level. Material wealth is considered in utilitarianism as one of the basic conditions for happiness. Utilitarianism differs from traditional hedonistic theories in that it speaks about the public good, including how social institutions should work to increase it, while classical hedonism mainly considered the path to happiness in terms of lifestyle preferences.

One important criticism of utilitarianism is that the happiness of the majority can be more effectively secured at the expense of the minority. Even if we take into account all the restrictions that have been formulated in connection with this objection, for example, that along with the utilitarian principle, other rules must be fulfilled, that all proposed norms of behavior must undergo a universalization procedure in the sense that everyone must agree with them. accept (utilitarianism of the rule), this remark is not completely removed. Not all social life can fit into the rules. In addition, when they are accepted, everyone does not expect to be in such a critical situation when it is his interests that will need to be sacrificed.

In modern ethical discussions, the utilitarian approach is often seen as acceptable for solving problems of public morality. in contrast to traditional ethics, which are often characterized as the ethics of individual improvement. The utilitarian approach provides for solving issues in the interests of the majority and assumes that such decisions, in principle, allow for some kind of minimal evil.

Of course, the task of, for example, politics is precisely to help increase the public good. At the same time, the interests of all cannot be taken into account to the same extent. For example, the modernization of the economy often requires the destruction of the traditional way of life of some social groups. However, in the future, this turns out to be justified for the members of these groups themselves, although they, most likely, will not support such a policy.

However, the utilitarian theory cannot be applied to all aspects of the organization of life in the public sphere. Most people have an understanding that some basic human rights must be understood in an absolute sense, as values ​​that are not directly related to the question of the public good. They must be respected even when it does not lead to an increase in public goods.

However, despite some obvious principles that follow from common sense, our moral intuitions, the long-term practice of the existence of society in the sense of the survival of those groups that adhered to these principles, in theoretical terms, the question always remains relevant when exactly we can adhere to utilitarian principles, and when not.

The big question of modern ethics is whether morality itself is not destroyed if behavior focuses on a certain standard, expressed in, say, a professional code of conduct.

Investigating the problem of modern morality, A.A. Huseynov notes that it has undergone significant changes in comparison with traditional morality. The essence of these changes is formulated in a short thesis that the relations between morality and civilization seem to change places. If earlier civilization was criticized from the point of view of morality, now, on the contrary, civilization acts as a critic. Indeed, changes in the understanding of what is moral and what is not, what is permissible in our behavior, and what is considered reprehensible, are happening with incredible speed. Many researchers of morality pay attention to this. In this case, the question arises: is there anything stable in morality at all, what kind of moral concept can we accept to confirm the truth of our moral judgments?

A.A. Guseinov notes that the specificity of modern morality has become the expansion of the morally neutral zone, the desire to free oneself from ideological grounds and, in many respects, from the complex associated with developed motivation, the search for individual solutions. Instead, institutional ethics is being developed, that is, the ethics of rules developed for certain social systems. “Each of ... social practices turns out to be the more effective, the less it depends on personal connections and, which seems especially paradoxical, on individual moral motivation” [Huseynov 2002: 119]. This does not mean that morality as such loses its meaning. Simply “morality moves from the level of motives of behavior to the level of consciously set and collectively developed general frameworks and rules according to which the corresponding activity proceeds” [Huseynov 2002: 121]. This process also expresses the development of institutional ethics that characterizes post-traditional society. A. A. Guseinov does not say that institutional morality completely supplants the ethics of virtues associated with developed individual motivation and focus on individual improvement. He only draws attention to the fact that the ratio of the two components present in morality and earlier components noticeably changes in the sense of the role they play in modern society. “The ethics of virtues, associated mainly with the motives of behavior, retains an important (perhaps even increasing) importance in the field of personal relationships and in all situations that have a pronounced personal, individualized character, that is, speaking generally, in the zones of personal presence. In systemic (socially functional, professionally rigid) behavior, it is complemented by institutional ethics ”[Ibid: 123].

It can be agreed that the changes noted are associated with a change in the share of moral components allocated by A. A. Guseinov. The expansion of the significance of the public life of society and the complication of the very nature of public relations undoubtedly leads to the need for codification of morality and the creation of special institutions that monitor the implementation of codes in a formal sense.

However, I do not think that the sphere of the morally neutral in modern society is expanding. For example, even in the economy, traditionally considered as a sphere far from morality, where the desire to assert private interest dominates (this is how A. Smith considered economic relations), the morality of modern society is gaining ground more and more.

In his research on trust issues, F. Fukuyama showed that large corporations historically arose precisely in societies with a high level of trust, that is, in the United States, Japan and Germany. Later they were joined by South Korea, where large corporations arose largely due to state intervention in the economy, but were also associated with the peculiarities of national identity. However, not only the development of large corporations, in which the trust of people, which manifests itself in production ties between individual links, leads to a decrease in the costs of legalizing contractual relations, but the development of network structures that respond to the information society is also based on trust. “It is no coincidence that it was the Americans, with their inclination towards social behavior, who were the first to create a modern corporation in the late 19th - early 20th centuries, and the Japanese to create a network organization in the 20th century” [Fukuyama 2006: 55]. How, then, can you deny the role of morality in economics?

Numerous professional and corporate codes do not eliminate individual motivation. If this were the case, man would simply act like a moral machine. Many norms of corporate ethics are formulated in the form of positive and recommendatory requirements. But then their implementation necessarily requires the activity of the individual.

Take, for example, the following group of norms of the PR-activity code formulated by A. Page: “Perform your duty as a public relations specialist as if the well-being of your entire company depends on it. Corporate relations are a management function. No corporate strategy can be implemented without considering its possible impact on the public. The public relations professional is the creator of company policy, able to carry out a wide range of activities related to corporate communications ”[cit. from: Scott et al. 2001: 204].

It is clear that norms formulated in this form require professionalism, and professionalism cannot be achieved without subjective motivation, without virtue, which just shows a person's path to a certain standard of excellence.

In the public sphere, we are constantly faced with situations when a person is responsible not only for the fact that he did something bad, morally condemnable, but also for the fact that he did not fulfill what is stipulated by his professional duties. Therefore, the requirements of professional competence, official compliance become the most important requirements of public morality.

Thus, the development of institutional ethics does not limit the necessity of existence and does not narrow the scope of virtue ethics. In my opinion, the ethics of virtues itself penetrates into institutional morality. Their interaction is carried out according to the principle of complementarity, not mutual exclusion. I believe that the significance of the ethics of virtues in modern society is expanding precisely in connection with the increase in the variety of moral relations, their extension to such relationships of people that were previously considered morally neutral. This makes many researchers (E. Enscom, F. Foote, A. McIntyre) talk about the need to revive the ethics of virtues.

In business communications, such personal qualities as the ability to work with other people, to understand their characteristics and even the emotional states of the moment, acquire a fundamental importance. This turns out to be important both for relationships with colleagues and for communication between professionals belonging to different organizations.

Investigating the issue of the manifestation of human emotional abilities in business communications, D. Goleman, referring to P. Drucker, notes: “At the end of the 20th century, one third of the American workforce was made up of knowledge processors, that is, people whose activity is to increase the value of information, whether then market analysts, theorists or computer programmers. Peter Drucker, the renowned business connoisseur who coined the term “knowledge processor,” points out that the experience of such workers is limited to a narrow specialization and that their productivity depends on how well their efforts, as part of the organizational team, are coordinated with the work of others: theorists do not have relations with publishers, and computer programmers do not distribute software. Although people have always worked together, Drucker notes, by processing knowledge, teams, rather than an individual, become a work unit ”[Goleman 2009: 253].

Despite the fact that in modern ethics, of course, obedience to the standard acquires importance and the institutionalization of morality takes place, informal relations do not lose their importance. They necessarily accompany network interactions, because network communication presupposes the free association of people, the free choice of who you want to communicate with, the search for like-minded people, including in solving business problems.

“Informal networks are especially important for solving unexpected problems. A formal organization is created to easily deal with anticipated difficulties, according to a report on one study of such networks. “But when unforeseen problems arise, an unofficial organization steps in. Its intricate web of social connections is formed in each case of communication between colleagues and over time becomes stronger, turning into surprisingly strong networks ”[Ibid: 257–258].

Without such strong networks, it is difficult to imagine the development of science and business, because despite the fact that business organizations strive to preserve their know-how, they are still interested in learning about new fundamental discoveries of science, about the possibilities of new technologies. The modern world, by the way, suffers from the fact that many in it seek to hide knowledge. In the first half of the XX century. more fundamental practical discoveries were made than in the first half of the 21st century. But if anything can resist the tendency to conceal knowledge in the modern world, it is informal ties.

“... There are at least three types of communication networks - who talks to whom, expert networks that unite those people who are asked for advice, and trust networks” [Ibid: 258]. Expert networks are of fundamental importance for the development of business, science, and decision-making in politics. Experts are professionals in their field who constantly communicate with each other and, by virtue of this, own the level of development of modern science or are specialists in specific areas of economics, regional studies, ethnography, etc. It is not so important how they will carry out their work, for money or not, it is important that there are such people. And they would not exist if they evaluated every step they took only from the point of view of the possibility of making a profit, if they never communicated with their colleagues just like that, without a second thought about some kind of benefit. Otherwise, they would simply not be communicated with and they would be excluded from the informal community that is being formed in this area of ​​knowledge or other areas of culture. Hence, there is inevitably an ethical attitude, and it is precisely an attitude that belongs to the realm of virtue ethics.

A standard is a requirement for professional qualifications, a requirement for a degree of personal excellence corresponding to this standard. But the path to such perfection itself has its own characteristics for each person, it is associated with the efforts of his will, with overcoming everything that distracts him from the corresponding professional development, and morality can in no way be removed from this process. In a number of cases, the subordination of one's behavior to the standard also requires special motivation aimed at limiting excessive manifestations of one's own individuality, especially when this leads to arrogance, borders on violation of job descriptions, traffic rules, etc.

Modern ethics is undoubtedly faced with a rather difficult situation in which many traditional moral values ​​have been revised. Traditions that had previously seen much of the foundation of moral principles have often been destroyed. They have lost their significance due to the global processes developing in society and the rapid pace of changes in production, its reorientation towards mass consumption. As a result of this, a situation arose in which opposing moral principles appeared as equally justified, equally deducible from reason. This, according to A. McIntyre, led to the fact that rational arguments in morality began to be mainly used to prove those theses that the person who cited them previously already had. The category of the good, traditional for ethics, turned out to be, as it were, taken out of the bounds of morality, and the latter began to develop mainly as an ethics of rules, moreover, such that can be accepted, despite the different life ideas of each individual person. This made the topic of human rights extremely popular, led to new attempts to construct ethics as a theory of justice. One of such attempts is presented in the well-known book by J. Rawls "The Theory of Justice".

Another important step, representing a reaction to the modern situation, was an attempt to understand morality in a constructive way, to present it as an endless discourse in its continuation (communication and communicating, taken in an indissoluble unity), aimed at developing solutions acceptable to all its participants. This is being developed in the writings of KO Apel, Y. Habermas, R. Aleksi, and others. The fundamental position of discourse ethics is the rejection of the strategy of encouragement and punishment as a means of controlling some people by others. Instead, it is proposed to search for agreement, justification and approval in public life of such principles that all parties interested in communication are ready to accept. The same applies to the strategy of making political decisions. A distinctive feature of discourse ethics is also the assertion that the foundations of morality cannot be inferred from the reasoning of an individual individual. The interests of others need not be guessed at. They are openly presented and discussed in discourse together with a rational justification of the necessary forms of communication and other acceptable for all conditions of social life.

In modern ethics, the difference between different principles is certainly revealed, for example, such as the principles of liberalism and communitarianism.

Liberalism proceeds from the idea of ​​protecting human rights, leaving it with the right to determine the path to one's own happiness, taking this problem out of the bounds of theoretical ethics. From a liberal point of view, there is no reason to say that one lifestyle is more happy than another. When defining basic human rights, they proceed from obvious values: to live better than to die, to live in abundance is better than in poverty, each person strives for recognition of his merits from others, the desire for self-affirmation is natural for a person, etc.

The communitarian point of view, opposite to liberalism, proceeds from the fact that a person's life without ties with a certain community is impossible. On this basis, the ideas of the ancient ethics of virtues are being revived in modern society.

Classical liberal concepts consider the functions of the state in a very limited way, reducing them mainly to protecting human rights, protecting his property, taking questions about life preferences, normative programs, and happiness outside the framework of morality. In them, accordingly, the task of searching for the ideal of moral development of the individual is denied; in fact, the problem of the goals of a person's spiritual activity is not considered. If all this is recognized as a significant fact of life, then it is not considered as an area of ​​influence of morality on human behavior. On the contrary, communitarian ethics says that the highest moral manifestations cannot be understood without a person's connection with the life of a certain community.

The position of liberalism is attractive because it allows the adoption of common moral rules, without seeking to unify the cultural life of different peoples, allowing all the diversity of individual differences. However, with the ultimate expansion of the concept of human rights, theoretical thought encounters some barriers. For example, if there is no reason to prefer one way of life to another, if a person chooses how to build his own life, his right to be recognized, to assert his dignity in the eyes of other people is essentially devoid of meaning. It is clear that achievements are always evaluated by a certain community that has specific goals of activity, confirmed by accepted values. But then communitarian, not liberal principles work, and they turn out to be embedded in the very values ​​of liberalism. The liberal point of view is faced with problems in solving such moral issues as the question of the permissibility of prostitution, suicide, euthanasia, abortion, because if a person is the master of his body, logically he can do anything with it.

In my opinion, in order to resolve the noted contradictions, modern ethics needs to expand the basis of its reasoning. She can no longer rely on the ideas of a separate individual about his moral life, on those operations that he can perform with his mind. It requires integration with all the baggage of human knowledge, with the natural sciences, modern ideas about the brain, the process of forming human consciousness.

Here you can reason as follows. It is generally accepted that human consciousness is formed gradually, in the process of its development in childhood. In the course of this formation, a person learns a language that is fixed in the culture of a given society. He uses a variety of cultural symbols that constitute his personality. It is no coincidence that P. Florensky said that culture is an environment that nourishes a person. But then the consciousness of the individual cannot be recognized exclusively as his personal property? Accordingly, the human body, which is a unique bearer of socially conditioned consciousness, cannot be recognized as personal property. Thus, liberal approaches to this problem may well be adjusted from the standpoint of communitarianism.

Modern society also needs to take a fresh look at the problem of human dignity. Only on the basis of ideas about personal dignity can a degree of trust that meets modern production be ensured, because creative work, as already mentioned, does not lend itself well to external control. The system of traditional morality, still operating in some societies (for example, the work ethic based on Confucianism in Japan), is gradually losing its significance in connection with the development of a person's individuality, the destruction of his ties with local communities. This can only be opposed by a sense of personal dignity and a desire for recognition at the human level of communication (real, virtual, or even only ideally placed in a possibility).

But this requires a new understanding of the problem of solidarity. By and large, solidarity is a way of uniting different strata of society into a whole and uniting these strata themselves with the whole. This does not mean that society should be solidary in the sense that some should live at the expense of others, that someone can count on constant help from society. But this means that society must represent a single organism that is able to assess the contribution of its members to the common good, not only in terms of their remuneration, but primarily in terms of the criteria for determining and affirming their dignity.

In conclusion, we can say that the diversity of positions presented in modern ethics is not its drawback, but only means that when deciding on the issue of moral motivation, moral obligations, it is necessary to combine various principles. How to do this is a matter of social practice. This is already mainly the sphere of politics, the sphere of social management. As for ethics, its task is to show the advantages and disadvantages of reasoning built on the basis of one or another principle, to determine the possible scope of its application and the necessary restrictions when transferred to some other area.

Literature

Goleman D. Emotional Intelligence. M.: ACT: ACT Moscow; Vladimir: VKT, 2009.

Guseinov A.A. Philosophy, morality, politics. M.: Akademkniga, 2002.

Descartes R. Discussions about the method. M.: AN SSSR, 1953.

Simmel G. Kant / G. Simmel // Selected works: in 2 volumes.Vol. 1.M .: Jurist, 1996.

Simmel G. Individual law. To the interpretation of the principle of ethics / G. Simmel // Selected works. Kiev: Nika-Center, 2006.

Sombart W. Bourgeois: Studies on the History of the Spiritual Development of the Modern Economic Man. M., 2009.

Kant I. Metaphysics of morals / I. Kant // Collected. cit .: in 8 volumes.Vol. 6.M., 1994.

Scott K., Center A., ​​Broome G. Public Relations. Theory and practice. M.: Williams, 2001.

Fukuyama F. Trust. M.: AST: AST Moscow: Guardian, 2006.

Shaftesbury A. Moralists / A. Shaftesbury // Aesthetic Experiments. M., 1975.

Hume. D. Research on the principles of morality / D. Hume // Works: in 2 volumes.Vol. 2.M .: Thought, 1996.

Appelbaum A. Ethics for Adversaries. The Morality of Roles in Public and Professionals Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.

Ethics(from other Greek "ethos") - the science of morality, explores the process of motivating behavior, critically examines the general orientations of life, substantiates the necessity and the most expedient form of the rules of joint dormitory of people, which they are ready to accept by their mutual consent and execute on the basis of voluntary intention. The latter distinguishes morality and the science of morality from law based on the force of coercive influence, although the ethical justification of the law itself is also not excluded.

Origin of the term

Antique ethics

Ancient ethics mainly developed as a theory of virtues. Virtue in the most general definition it shows what a thing should be in order for it to correspond to its purpose. The development of this thesis initially followed the path of clarifying the question of what a person should be in order to gain maximum happiness, which is better: to be an ascetic or a hedonist, to indulge in calm contemplation of things, or, conversely, to actively relate to the world, trying to adapt it to human needs. Then, in the concepts of Plato and Aristotle, virtues are associated not only with personal life preferences, but also with civil service, with the perfect implementation of a social function. The post-antique teachings (Epicureanism, Stoicism) reflected the developing contradictions between the individual and society, they formulated a call for equanimity of the spirit, which was often combined with passivity, withdrawal from active being. Nevertheless, in these teachings, the meaning of human individuality was more deeply understood, the idea of ​​the divine mind as a source of perfect forms that determine the main goals of the existence of all things was overcome.

Ethics in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

In the Middle Ages, the huge range of moral decisions characteristic of antiquity was opposed by a single authoritative source of moral of good - almighty God. He is also supposed to be all-good, all-seeing, omnipresent. In Christianity, God performs punitive functions and at the same time hurts the ideal of moral perfection. Christian ethics, unlike Greek and Roman, basically became ethics debt . It formulated other criteria for moral goodness. Such qualities as courage, military prowess, faded into the background. As a duty, love for God and neighbor was introduced (as an extension of the principle of divine love), all people began to be considered as equitable, regardless of their success in earthly life.

Medieval ethics reflected a higher appreciation of human sensibility compared to antiquity, a higher appreciation of labor, including simple work associated with handicraft production and agriculture, as well as the historical view of man on his own development.

In the Christian idea of ​​the Resurrection from the dead, not only the preservation of the posthumous existence of the soul is affirmed, but also the restoration of the transformed body freed from sin is supposed. This is due precisely to the awareness of the meaning of the sensory sides of a person's being. At the same time, the sensory manifestations of human life are interpreted in Christianity from the point of view of the need for their rational control. In the very idea of ​​original sin, one can see a new understanding of a person's tasks regarding his own development, his improvement, including a special attitude to his sensuality. Now this is no longer the typical for antiquity "finishing" of the first nature, but its complete alteration: the rejection of one, sinful nature and the formation of another - transformed, placed under the control of the human mind. An extremely important achievement in moving along this path was the formation of the idea of ​​displacement evil at the level of motives, that is, the repression of sinful thoughts themselves. Understanding conscience as the voice of God in man, forbidding unworthy actions. In this vein, the idea of ​​non-violence, which has become extremely relevant in the modern world, is developing. Non-resistance to evil by violence means the desire to reduce evil, by eliminating the motive of his violent action from the person using violence.

Ethics in modern times

The ethics of the modern era had a complex history of origin. From the very beginning, it was based on various, even contradictory principles, which received their special combination in the concepts of individual thinkers. It is based on the humanistic ideas developed in the Renaissance, the principle of personal responsibility introduced through Protestant ideology, the liberal principle that put the individual with his desires at the center of reasoning, and assumes the main functions of the state in protecting the rights and freedoms of the individual.

In the XVII century. moral theories reflect the complexities of the process of the emergence of capitalist society, the uncertainty of a person in his destiny, and at the same time encourage the initiative aimed at practical achievements. In ethics, this leads to a combination of two opposite approaches: striving for personal happiness, pleasure, joy at the lowest empirical level of the subject's being, and striving for gaining stoic calmness at another - the highest level of being. Higher moral being is comprehended through purely rational constructions associated with the assertion of intellectual intuition, innate knowledge. In them, the sensory aspects of the subject's being are practically completely overcome.

XVIII - XIX centuries associated with a relatively calm period in the development of capitalism. Moral theories are more guided here by the sensory aspects of human existence. But feelings are understood not only in the eudemonistic sense, as conditions for achieving happiness, as positive emotions that contribute to the joy of life. In a number of concepts, they begin to acquire a purely moral significance, appear precisely as moral feelings aimed at a humane attitude towards another, which contributes to the harmonization of social life. As a reaction to the sensual and eudemonistic understanding of morality, an approach arises in which morality appears as a rational construction derived from pure reason. Kant tries to formulate an autonomous approach to the substantiation of morality, to consider the moral motive as not associated with any pragmatic motives of being. The Kantian categorical imperative, based on the procedure of mental universalization of one's behavior as a means of its control by the autonomous moral will, is still used in various versions in the construction of ethical systems.

The idea of ​​history finds expression in the ethics of modern times. In the concepts of the enlighteners, Hegel, Marx, morality is understood as relative, specific for each specific stage in the development of society; in Kantian philosophy, the historical consideration of morality, on the contrary, is subordinated to the study of those conditions under which absolute moral principles can become, effective, practically feasible. Hegel's historical approach develops on the basis of the thesis that the autonomous moral will is powerless, cannot find the desired connection with the whole. It becomes effective only due to the fact that it relies on the institutions of the family, civil society and the state. Therefore, as a result of historical development, Hegel conceives morality as coinciding with a perfect tradition. XIX century. it is also a period that gives a powerful surge to the utilitarian understanding of morality (Bentham, Mil).

Marx, and mainly his followers, tried in a clever way to combine the Hegelian and Kantian approaches. Hence, on the one hand, morality turned out to be class, historically relational, on the other hand, it became the only means of regulating behavior in a communist society, when, according to the thought of the classics of Marxism, all social circumstances distorting the purity of morals would disappear, all social antagonisms would be overcome.

Contemporary ethics

Modern ethics is faced with a rather difficult situation in which many traditional moral values ​​have been revised. Traditions that had previously seen much of the foundation of moral principles have often been destroyed. They have lost their significance due to global processes developing in society and the rapid pace of changes in production, its reorientation towards mass consumption. As a result of this, a situation arose in which opposing moral principles appeared as equally justified, equally deducible from reason. This, according to A. Makintair, led to the fact that rational arguments in morality began to be mainly used to prove those theses that the person who cited them previously already had.

On the one hand, this led to an anti-normative turn in ethics, expressed in the desire to proclaim an individual person a full-fledged and self-sufficient subject of moral requirements, to impose on him the entire burden of responsibility for independently made decisions. The anti-normative tendency is represented in the ideas of F. Nietzsche, in existentialism, in postmodern philosophy. On the other hand, a desire arose to limit the scope of ethics to a rather narrow range of issues related to the formulation of such rules of behavior that can be accepted by people with different life orientations, with different understanding of the goals of human existence, the ideals of self-improvement. As a result, the traditional category of good for ethics was, as it were, taken out of the bounds of morality, and the latter began to develop mainly as an ethics of rules. In line with this trend, the topic of human rights is further developed, new attempts are made to build ethics as a theory. justice... One of such attempts is presented in the book by J. Rawls "The Theory of Justice".

New scientific discoveries and new technologies have given a powerful surge in the development of applied ethics. In the XX century. many new professional codes of ethics have been developed, business ethics, bioethics, the ethics of a lawyer, a media worker, etc. have been developed. Scientists, doctors, philosophers began to discuss such problems as organ transplantation, euthanasia, the creation of transgenic animals, and human cloning. Man, to a much greater extent than before, felt his responsibility for the development of all life on earth and began to discuss these problems not only from the point of view of his own interests of survival, but also from the point of view of recognizing the intrinsic value of the fact of life, the fact of existence as such.

An important step, representing a reaction to the current situation in the development of society, was an attempt to understand morality in a constructive sense, to present it as an endless discourse aimed at developing decisions acceptable to all its participants. This is being developed in the works of KO Apel, Y. Habermas, R. Aleksi and others. The ethics of discourse is directed against anti-normativity, it tries to develop common guidelines that can unite people in the fight against global threats facing humanity.

An undeniable achievement of modern ethics was the identification of the weaknesses of the utilitarian theory, the formulation of the thesis that some basic human rights should be understood precisely in the absolute sense as values ​​that are not directly related to the issue of the public good. They must be respected even when it does not lead to an increase in public goods.

In modern ethics, the difference between different principles is certainly revealed, for example, such as the principles of liberalism and communitarianism, approaches of particularism and universalism, the idea of ​​duty and virtue. This is not her drawback, but only means that when deciding on the issue of moral motivation, moral obligations, it is necessary to combine various principles. How to do this is a matter of social practice. This is already mainly the sphere of politics, the sphere of social management. As for ethics, its task is to show the advantages and disadvantages of reasoning built on the basis of one or another principle, to determine the possible scope of its application and the necessary restrictions when transferred to some other area.

Recommended reading

Aristotle. Nicomachean ethics // Works. in 4 volumes. T. 4. M .: Mysl 1984;

A.A. Guseinov Irrlitz G. A Brief History of Ethics. M .: Thought, 1987; Hegel G. Philosophy of Law. M .: Thought, 1990;

Drobnitsky O.G. The concept of morality: a historical and critical essay. Moscow: Nauka, 1974;

Kant I. Foundations of the metaphysics of morals. // Kant I. Sobr. op. in 8 volumes.Vol.4. M., CHORO, 1994;

Kropotkin P.A. Ethics. M .: Politizdat, 1991;

Makintair A. After Virtue: Studies in the Theory of Morality. M .: Academic Project;

Yekaterinburg: Business book, 2000;

Moore J. Principles of ethics M .: Progress, 1984;

Rawls J. Theory of justice. Novosibirsk: Novosibirsk University Press, 1995;

V.S. Soloviev Justifying Good. Moral philosophy // Works. in 2 volumes. T. 1. M .: Mysl, 1988;

Spinoza B. Ethics // Works. 2 t.Vol. 1. M .: Sotsekgiz, 1957;

Habermas J. Moral consciousness and communicative action. SPb .: Nauka, 2000;

Schweitzer A. Reverence for Life. Per. from German - M.: Progress, 1992;

Hume D. Treatise on human nature. Book three. About morality. Op. in 2 volumes.Vol. 1.M .: Mysl, 1965.

There are boundaries of morality that no one is allowed to cross. This is especially true for the health and personal tragedies of a person. But, alas, in our world with its market relations, the anticipation of money destroys all moral foundations. A terrible proof of this was the pictures of the helpless Oleg Tabakov in the hospital that have spread all over the Internet. This act of a would-be journalist was sharply criticized by musician Alexander Rosenbaum and other artists.

As you know, a few days ago, the people's favorite Oleg Pavlovich was hospitalized. Friends of the 82-year-old actor and doctors say that the condition is serious. An operation was performed, after which the artistic director of the Moscow Art Theater. Chekhov was placed in intensive care. One of the Russian TV channels decided to secretly check the artist's health. What came of this, the editors will tell "So simple!"... And we will also tell you about cyber ethics, which you just need to know about in our digital world.

Contemporary ethics

The journalist made his way into the intensive care unit to the bed of the helpless Oleg Pavlovich Tabakov... He photographed both the artist, wrapped in wires of devices, and the indicators of his vital functions, and then he let it all out on the Internet. When this horror caught the eye of Alexander Rosenbaum, the musician could not contain his indignation. And also asked the correspondent of "Komsomolskaya Pravda" to contact him to express his point of view on such filming.

“I was on tour when this footage was sent to me. I immediately called TV presenter Elena Malysheva and said that it was a disaster. What is going on in our life and with our conscience? It's just beyond good and evil! For many years we have fought to ensure that patients can be visited in intensive care. Allowed. This is good.

But some person walked in with a phone and took pictures of everything: the actor himself, and even a monitor on which the parameters of Oleg Pavlovich's vital functions are visible. Blaming health workers is wrong. Bad people, to put it mildly, those who exposed these frames, posted them on the Internet, and gave them on television.

When Princess Diana had a fatal accident, no media published pictures of her torn to pieces. But there were many photographers there. The fact that Tabakov was shown in this form is, from the point of view of humanity, simply a crime. We need to do something so that this does not happen in nature.

Let me remind you once again - we should not blame the medical institutions here, which, according to the law, open doors for the patient's family. And we must blame those who publish such photos. A great man, a popular favorite in a grave condition, and in this form, at such a time ... This is beyond human understanding. "

We fully agree that such escapades of journalists are inhuman. After all, this is the personal tragedy of the artist and his family, and not the property of the public. And in general, there is such a thing as cyberethics - a philosophical area of ​​ethics that studies human behavior on the Internet and on information portals to develop certain rules for using them. In many countries, it is given great importance and is monitored by specialized bodies.

Cyber ​​ethics examines whether it is legal to broadcast personal information about other people on the Internet, such as your current location, whether users need to be protected from false information, who owns digital data (music, movies, books, web pages) and what users have the right to do with it, and also whether Internet access is a fundamental right of everyone.

The availability, censorship and filtering of information raise many ethical issues related to cyber ethics. These issues continue to challenge our understanding of confidentiality and secrecy, and affect our participation in society. At the heart of cyberethics is the Code of Fair Use of Information. These requirements were introduced by the US Department of Health and Human Services back in 1973.