What is human morality? Morality - what is it? Problems of morality in the modern world

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Morality is the desire of a person to evaluate conscious actions, the state of a person on the basis of a set of conscious norms of behavior inherent in a particular individual. The conscience is the spokesman for the ideas of a morally developed person. These are the deep laws of a decent human life. Morality is an individual's idea of ​​evil and good, the ability to correctly assess the situation and determine the typical style of behavior in it. Each individual has his own standards of morality. It forms a certain code of relations with a person and the environment as a whole, based on mutual understanding and humanism.

What is morality

Morality is an integral characteristic of a person, which is the cognitive basis for the formation of a morally healthy person: socially oriented, adequately assessing the situation, having an established set of values. In today's society, in general use, there is a definition of morality as a synonym for the concept of morality. The etymological features of this concept show the origin from the word "nature" - character. For the first time, the semantic definition of the concept of morality was published in 1789 - "The Dictionary of the Russian Academy".

The concept of morality combines a certain set of qualities of the personality of the subject. Primarily it is honesty, kindness, compassion, decency, diligence, generosity, reliability. Analyzing morality as a personal property, it should be mentioned that everyone is able to bring their own qualities to this concept. In people with different types of professions, morality also forms a different set of qualities. A soldier must necessarily be brave, a fair judge, a teacher. Based on the formed moral qualities, the directions of the subject's behavior in society are formed. The subjective attitude of the individual plays a significant role in assessing the situation in a moral way. Someone perceives civil marriage as absolutely natural, for others it is like a sin. Based on religious studies, it should be recognized that the concept of morality has retained very little of its true meaning. The ideas of modern man about morality are distorted and emasculated.

Morality is a purely individual quality that allows a person to consciously control their own mental and emotional state, personifying a spiritually and socially formed personality. A moral person is able to determine the golden measure between the self-centered part of his self and sacrifice. Such a subject is able to form a socially oriented, value-defined civil and worldview.

A moral person, choosing the direction of his actions, acts solely according to his conscience, relying on the formed personal values ​​and concepts. For some, the concept of morality is the equivalent of a “ticket to heaven” after death, but in life it is something that does not really affect the success of the subject and does not bring any benefit. For this type of people, moral behavior is a way to cleanse the soul of sins, as if to cover up their own wrong deeds. Man is a being unhindered in his choice, has his own course of life. At the same time, society has its own influence, is able to set its own ideals and values.

In fact, morality, as a property necessary for the subject, is extremely important for society as well. This is, as it were, a guarantee of the preservation of humanity as a species, otherwise, without the norms and principles of moral behavior, humanity will eradicate itself. Arbitrariness and gradual - the consequences of the disappearance of morality as a set of trailers and values ​​of society as such. Most likely, the death of a certain nation or ethnic group, if it is headed by an immoral government. Accordingly, the level of life comfort of people depends on the developed morality. Protected and prosperous is that society, observance of values ​​and moral principles, in which respect and altruism, above all.

So, morality is internalized principles and values, based on which a person directs his behavior, performs actions. Morality, being a form of social knowledge and relations, regulates human actions through principles and norms. Directly, these norms are based on the point of view about the impeccable, about the categories of good, justice and evil. Based on humanistic values, morality allows the subject to be human.

Rules of morality

In everyday use of expressions, morality and have the same meaning and common origins. At the same time, everyone should determine the existence of certain rules that easily outline the essence of each of the concepts. So moral rules, in turn, allow the individual to develop his own mental and moral state. To some extent, these are the "Laws of the Absolute" that exist in absolutely all religions, worldviews and societies. Consequently, moral rules are universal, and their non-fulfillment entails consequences for the subject who does not comply with them.

There are, for example, 10 commandments received as a result of direct communication between Moses and God. This is part of the rules of morality, the observance of which is argued by religion. In fact, scientists do not deny the presence of a hundred times more rules, they come down to one denominator: the harmonious existence of mankind.

Since ancient times, many peoples have had the concept of a certain "Golden Rule", which carries the basis of morality. Its interpretation has dozens of formulations, while the essence remains unchanged. Following this “golden rule”, an individual should behave towards others in the same way as he relates to himself. This rule forms the concept of a person that all people are equal in terms of their freedom of action, as well as the desire to develop. Following this rule, the subject reveals its deep philosophical interpretation, which says that the individual must learn in advance to realize the consequences of his own actions in relation to the “other individual”, projecting these consequences onto himself. That is, the subject, who mentally tries on the consequences of his own act, will think about whether it is worth acting in this direction. The golden rule teaches a person to develop his inner instinct, teaches compassion, empathy and helps to develop mentally.

Although this moral rule was formulated in antiquity by famous teachers and thinkers, it has not lost its relevance in the modern world. “What you do not want for yourself, do not do to another” - this is the rule in the original interpretation. The emergence of such an interpretation is attributed to the origins of the first millennium BC. It was then that a humanistic upheaval took place in the ancient world. But as a moral rule, it received its status of "golden" in the eighteenth century. This prescription emphasizes the global moral principle according to the relationship to another person within various interaction situations. Since its presence in any existing religion has been proven, it can be noted as the foundation of human morality. This is the most important truth of the humanistic behavior of a moral person.

The problem of morality

Considering modern society, it is easy to notice that moral development is characterized by decline. In the twentieth century, the world experienced a sudden fall of all the laws and values ​​of the morality of society. Moral problems began to appear in society, which negatively influenced the formation and development of humane humanity. This fall has reached even greater development in the twenty-first century. Throughout the existence of man, many problems of morality have been noted, which in one way or another had a negative impact on the individual. Guided by spiritual guidelines in different eras, people put something of their own into the concept of morality. They were able to do things that in modern society terrify absolutely every sane person. For example, the Egyptian pharaohs, who, fearing to lose their kingdom, committed unthinkable crimes, killing all newborn boys. Moral norms are rooted in religious laws, following which shows the essence of the human personality. Honor, dignity, faith, love for the motherland, for a person, fidelity - the qualities that served as a direction in human life, to which some of the laws of God reached at least to some extent. Consequently, throughout its development, it was common for society to deviate from religious precepts, which instilled in the emergence of moral problems.

The development of moral problems in the twentieth century is a consequence of the world wars. The era of the decline of morals has been stretching since the First World War, during this crazy time, a person's life has depreciated. The conditions in which people had to survive erased all moral restrictions, personal relationships depreciated exactly, like human life at the front. The involvement of mankind in inhuman bloodshed dealt a crushing blow to morality.

One of the periods when moral problems appeared was the communist period. During this period, it was planned to destroy all religions, respectively, and the moral standards laid down in it. Even if in the Soviet Union the development of the rules of morality was much higher, this position could not be held for a long time. Along with the destruction of the Soviet world, there was also a decline in the morality of society.

For the current period, one of the main problems of morality is the fall of the institution of the family. Which entails a demographic catastrophe, an increase in divorces, the birth of countless children in unmarried. Views on the family, motherhood and fatherhood, on the upbringing of a healthy child have a regressive character. Of certain importance is the development of corruption in all areas, theft, deceit. Now everything is bought, exactly as it is sold: diplomas, victories in sports, even human honor. This is just the consequences of the decline of morality.

moral education

The education of morality is a process of purposeful influence on a personality, which implies an impact on the consciousness of the behavior and feelings of the subject. During the period of such education, the moral qualities of the subject are formed, allowing the individual to act within the framework of public morality.

The education of morality is a process that does not involve interruptions, but only close interaction between the student and the educator. To educate a child's moral qualities should be by example. It is quite difficult to form a moral personality, it is a painstaking process in which not only teachers and parents take part, but also a public institution as a whole. At the same time, the age characteristics of the individual, his readiness for analysis, and information processing are always provided. The result of the education of morality is the development of a holistically moral personality, which will develop together with its feelings, conscience, habits and values. Such education is considered a difficult and multifaceted process that generalizes pedagogical education and the influence of society. Moral education involves the formation of feelings of morality, a conscious connection with society, a culture of behavior, consideration of moral ideals and concepts, principles and behavioral norms.

Moral education takes place during the period of study, during the period of education in the family, in public organizations, and directly includes individuals. The continuous process of educating morality begins with the birth of the subject and lasts throughout his life.

Definition

There are many definitions of the term, but they all come down to a consensus. Moral It is the ability to take responsibility for one's thoughts and actions.

Morality is a value, the internal state of a person, his attitude to life, which allows him to take any actions based on conscience.

Values ​​form principles. Principles shape nature. Nature builds character.

In ancient Greece, prudence, courage, and justice were distinguished. Over time, the priorities have changed somewhat, but a general list of values ​​that determine morality is determined, these are:

  • Honesty;
  • loyalty;
  • duty;
  • Love;
  • respect.

In ordinary life, it is difficult for us to find a person with such qualities, but the pursuit of personal perfection is necessary. These are impeccable values ​​that act as absolute ethical ideals. Fair people, strong in spirit, with the ability for all-encompassing love, have always been respected, often acting as spiritual teachers.

A moral person under no circumstances (including death) will not change his concepts of honor, conscience, goodness. They are important for him in themselves, they are at the heart of his life priorities, not because he is waiting for the approval of others, or receives material benefits for them. No. These are moral qualities that are natural for a developed personality and form the basis of human spirituality.

The relationship between morality and human spirituality

To most clearly understand what morality is, let's define spirituality.

The most general definition of spirituality is. Spirituality is the highest level of self-development, at which the highest human values ​​become the regulator of life. Thus, spirituality is closely interconnected with morality. Morality is an indicator of the degree of spirituality of a person and society as a whole.

For the last 200 years there has been a discussion among the humanities on the topic of spirituality. Some argue that this is a person’s internal movement towards the “spiritual Self”, others associate spirituality with intangible values ​​that a person strives for, overcoming experiences, intrapersonal struggle.

Religions associate spirituality with the higher forces of the divine nature, which manifests itself in human actions. However, all philosophers and theologians agree on one thing - spirituality is transcendent. It cannot be touched, weighed, measured. This is something that is not subject to empirical knowledge, but is accepted a priori.

Spirituality- this is the brightest thing that can be found in a person: the best qualities of character, sincere feelings (love, gratitude, disinterestedness, tolerance), talents, generosity, responsibility.

Spiritual beauty is manifested in actions, in manners, emotions, words. However, hundreds of such people have been recruited since the time when a person began to realize himself as a Human and learned to use the brain not only for getting food and reproduction, but also for thinking.

Morality indicates the vector of direction, gives the conditions for upward movement, under which a person can grow and develop at the highest speed.

Is spirituality an achievable outcome?

The concept of good and evil in the modern world has been fairly transformed, although 70 years ago everything was transparent. “The little son came to his father, and the baby asked: What is good and what is bad?” V.V. Mayakovsky in a children's poem clearly sets out the priorities that should underlie a moral, spiritual society.

Today there are no clear ideas of what Good (good) and Evil (bad) are, any act can be explained by playing with concepts in the most beneficial way. The original values ​​have been transformed: kind means weak; honest means narrow-minded; polite means mannered, disinterested - definitely a fool.

Due to the dissonance in the foundations, the spirituality of society is falling, which is expressed in the personal deformation of a person, in the substitution of some values ​​for others, the growth of violence, suffering. The concepts of “family”, “love”, “mutual understanding” are leaving.

Each institution of the state comes forward with its own "truth", as a result, the original foundations of morality are destroyed. Children do not have a single concept of what to strive for. The direction, the moral ideal, which underlies the self-development of a person, and, consequently, the development of society, has been lost.

It is difficult to say whether unified spirituality is achievable. There are spiritual leaders, but as for the state, the question is open. The state is built on material components: power, money, dominance, lies, deceit. It is impossible to educate everyone to be ideal, and although the struggle for the souls of people is carried out at all levels of the state (family, school, church, media), massive positive successes are not observed.

So is there any hope for building a moral, spiritual society? I would like to believe that there is, if everyone starts building it in their souls.

"Don't do to others what you don't want for yourself." This is the golden rule of morality.

What first of all draws attention to itself in this formulation? Demanding or imperative, imperiousness of this rule. Moreover, this exactingness is characteristic of all moral norms, it is impossible to imagine a prescription that would begin "it would be nice" or "let's try."

The next thing that draws attention is that this requirement is universal, it is not localized either situationally or in time. The moral norm is always timeless, always universal.

Another significant feature of the golden rule is its universal significance. There are no exceptions for him. The addressee of the demand is every person, regardless of his social or financial status, regardless of his present or past merits.

Moreover, another significant factor is the fulfillment of this or that prescription is a purely voluntary, personal matter. A good deed done under duress ceases to be good, loses its moral content. A moral person is one who does a proper deed for fear of losing self-respect and the respect of other people.

Another property of the golden rule. Scientists call it "antinomy", that is, inconsistency. On the one hand, the norms of morality require from a person personal disinterest, a kind of disinterestedness in their implementation. On the other hand, compliance with these norms contributes to a better adaptation of a person in society, that is, it brings certain benefits.

Briefly about the golden rule:

1. Imperative. Moral norms are always formulated in the imperative mood.

2. Versatility. Invariable in any sphere of human existence. Not localized either situationally or in time.

3. Validity. They apply to all people without exception. For morality, selectivity and "double morality" are unacceptable.

4. Antinomy. Inconsistency. It is necessary to do good, because it is profitable and expedient, but it must be disinterested.

5. Non-institutional. Morality, unlike other forms of public consciousness, is not socially structured, its norms are not fixed in special documents, are not provided with coercive measures with the help of a special apparatus, and are not controlled by officials in special institutions. The norms of morality are supported by the power of public opinion or the personal conviction of a person, that is, they are unofficial. Their violation is not punished, but leads to the application of moral sanctions. Moreover, this moral discussion can be expressed as one person, as a group, and society as a whole.

    Functions of morality and tasks of ethics.

Being a phenomenon of social and spiritual life, morality performs a number of significant and diverse functions. The main ones are:

1. Regulatory function . It lies in the fact that morality, with the help of a value approach to human activity, harmonizes and optimizes relations between people, and this is carried out on the basis of common ideals, common principles, common attitudes.

2. cognitive function . It lies in the fact that, entering into completely diverse moral relations, a person gets acquainted with the whole variety of cultural experience accumulated by mankind, in connection with which he receives special moral knowledge.

3. educational function. Moral knowledge is one of the main conditions for the formation of personality, its familiarization with the highest values. Outside the moral field, a person cannot be either a full-fledged scientist, or a full-fledged artist, or a full-fledged lawyer. Morality gives any activity a universal human meaning.

4. Evaluation function (or, as scientists also call it, value-oriented). Based on moral ideas, a person constantly compares the real with the ideal, the existing with the proper. This is what allows him to correct his behavior, to determine the vector of his spiritual development.

The functions of morality partially coincide with the tasks of ethics as a moral theory.

But there are separate goals and objectives that are peculiar to ethics as a science.

1) First, it is an empirical-descriptive function. Its essence (its essence) consists in collecting information about the diverse phenomena of the moral world.

2) Theoretical function. Its essence lies in the systematization of the accumulated material and the construction on the basis of this material of appropriate theoretical (adequate, corresponding to moral assessments) models of behavior.

3) Normative function. Development of requirements, their construction.

4) To him, we are on the basis of a systematic material is engaged in the development of tools, then this is within the framework of the methodological function.

5) Predictive function. When all of the above is done, you can predict.

    Freedom of choice in the system of moral categories.

Moral freedom - not just a choice of behavior options, but the transformation of moral requirements into internal needs and beliefs of a person.

Moral freedom is manifested in the ability to:

1) make a conscious moral choice of actions and deeds;

2) give them a moral assessment

3) anticipate their consequences

4) exercise reasonable control over their behavior, feelings, passions, desires. Moral freedom is the ability of the subject to acquire power over his actions.

Freedom has two aspects: negative and positive. Negative freedom is “freedom from”, freedom that denies, destroying dependence “from” - from the forces of nature. Under these conditions, a person faces a choice, either to get rid of this freedom with the help of a new dependence, a new submission, or to grow up with positive freedom. Positive freedom is “freedom for”, which makes it possible for the full realization of intellectual and emotional abilities, requiring this realization from the individual, freedom based on the uniqueness and individuality of each person.

Conscience sometimes referred to as the other side of debt. Conscience is a self-evaluating feeling, experience, one of the oldest intimate-personal regulators of people's behavior.

Conscience - a category of ethics that characterizes a person's ability to exercise moral self-control, internal self-assessment from the standpoint of the compliance of his behavior with the requirements of morality, independently formulate moral tasks for himself and demand from himself their fulfillment. Conscience is a person's subjective awareness of his duty and responsibility to society, other people, acting as a duty and responsibility to himself. A sense of conscience protects a person from bad, vicious, stimulates nobility, responsibility - people often appeal to their own conscience and to the conscience of others, evaluate themselves and others, using the concepts of "clear conscience", "bad conscience", "asleep conscience", "conscientious man”, “unscrupulous”, “remorse”, etc. The role of conscience is especially important when a person is faced with a moral choice, and external control by public opinion is either excluded or difficult. Conscience is the ability of a person to critically evaluate their actions, thoughts, desires, to realize and experience inconsistency with the proper as their own perfection. It is a moral regulator.

    Deontology as a branch of ethical science.

Professional deontology is a doctrine of the duty and obligations of a representative of the profession to society and the state, to his profession, to his colleagues and to the people who are ultimately directed by the activity.

Deontology - a section of ethics, which deals with the problems of duty and in general due (everything that expresses the requirements of morality in the form of prescriptions). Moral consciousness as a specific form of social consciousness reflects the objective social necessity, the needs of people, society, historical development - in a special subjective form - in the form of an idea of ​​what should be (about what “should be”), establishing how much the actual existence corresponds to this idea. Moral consciousness evaluates life phenomena from the point of view of how justified they are by virtue of their moral dignity. Moral requirements, ideas about what actions people should perform, are formed from ideas about what should be done. In relation to a person, these requirements act as his duties; the latter, in a generalized form of rules that apply equally to everyone, are formulated in moral norms, commandments. All these ethical categories are the subject of study of a special section of ethics - deontology.

    Modern ethics.

New scientific discoveries and new technologies have given a powerful surge development of applied ethics . In the XX century. many new professional codes of morality have been developed, business ethics, bioethics, ethics of a lawyer, 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 survival interests, but also from the point of view of recognizing the intrinsic value of the fact of life, the fact of existence as such (Schweitzer, moral realism).

Professional ethics acts as the ethics of rules and works at the level of creating deontological principles of behavior for those who belong to this profession. It constitutes a significant area of ​​applied ethics. But there are other areas as well. This is corporate ethics, in which codes and organizations that enforce them are created for members of certain corporations. The field of applied ethics also includes what is associated with public threats of a global nature. To prevent these threats, humanitarian expertise is being carried out, mechanisms for democratic procedures for making important public decisions are being worked out.

Another characteristic feature of modern morality is the incredible expansion of the public sphere , i.e. spheres where the interests of large groups of people are represented, where actions are evaluated from the point of view of the perfection of the performance of certain social functions. In this area, we are confronted with the activities of politicians, leaders of political parties, economic managers, with the mechanism for making global decisions. It turned out that traditional ethics are largely inapplicable to this area, because it is clear that, say, a lawyer cannot treat the prosecutor as if he were himself. During the trial, they act as opponents.

Therefore, theorists raise the question of developing a new ethics related to the adoption of fair rules of a certain game, a new understanding of justice, including the inclusion in this concept of issues of international justice, attitudes towards future generations, attitudes towards animals, attitudes towards people with disabilities from birth, etc. .

    Characteristic features of pre-ethics.

Representatives: Homer, Hesiod, 7 Wise Men. Homer acted as a chanter of heroic morality. We have come down to 2 works of Homer - "Iliad", "Odessa", in which collective morality was reflected (this is the morality of a closed social group, moral requirements do not apply to representatives of other social groups).

Homer ("Antipsychologism") - does not describe the motivation of his characters, indicating only their actions. Another feature of fatum is fate. From here, Homer concludes that the position of a person in society is a foregone conclusion, public duty is higher than private interests. Since the Gods also live according to fate, there are 5 variations in the ratio of the divine and human will: 1) God. and chel-kai coincide (both chel and God desire the same); 2) The will of God is indicated, but there is no human will; 3) a person is indicated, but there is no God; 4) Wills contradict each other and the divine suppresses the human; 5) Wills contradict and this leads to a struggle in which the person often wins.

Hesiod ("Works and Days", "Theology") - a representative of the demos, a chanter of simple life values. The work of labors and days is devoted to how important it is to work, the hallmark is tragedy. His morality is called the morality of farmers - for a person, the interests of his family and friends should be stronger than the interests of society.

7 wise men - this is a collective image and at different times they were different people. People came for advice and wisdom was in short and capacious phrases.

During this period there was no clear concept of "ethics", the requirements of ethics were allegorical and unsystematic.

    Characteristic features of ancient ethics.

The classical stage in the development of ancient ethics began with the activity Democritus (5th - 4th centuries BC), who was the first to express philosophical and ethical ideas in a system of special concepts. His main merit is an attempt to formulate a criterion by which good and evil can be distinguished. As such a criterion, he singled out pleasure - not in the everyday sense of the word - but pleasure as a philosophical term. By pleasure, Democritus understood the calm state of the soul after a perfect deed. Need, in his opinion, makes a person work, transforms him from a wild state. "Work made man." Democritus paid great attention to the process of education. Education, according to Democritus, is impossible without coercion. It is impossible to learn writing and counting if you do not master writing and arithmetic. Coercion can be external (physical and moral) or internal.

Sophists believed that morality is relative, optional, everyone has their own morality. Socrates, who put forward the principle of moral rationalism, disagreed with this position - morality comes from knowledge and reason.

Plato proceeds from the fact that in the universe there are 2 worlds in parallel (ideas and things). He also proceeded from the idea of ​​metampsychosis - the transmigration of souls. Morality is innate.

Epicurus (ancient Greek philosopher) - a singer of pleasure, the creator of the concept of hedonism. Epicurus was the first to formulate a position on the reasonableness, rationality of human needs. He divided all needs into three groups:

Natural and necessary (sleep, food, etc.);

Natural, but not necessary (eat well, sleep well, dress nicely, etc.);

Unnatural and unnecessary (thirst for wealth, love of fame, desire for monuments and honors during life, etc.)

In the process of upbringing, each person must go through a system of limiting needs, then he will know that very little is needed for a full-fledged, worthy existence, and it is quite achievable by one's own work. Then, if a person loses the opportunity to satisfy the last 2 groups of needs, this will not be a tragedy for him. This position of Epicurus was adopted by all the elite schools (Smolny Institute, etc.) - cold dousing, simple clothes, etc.

    Characteristic features of medieval ethics.

essence medieval ethics is that it has become religious. Its historical destinies for many centuries turned out to be associated with Christianity. The moral concept of Christianity is closed to the idea of ​​God, who created the world, the whole world develops from it, he is its direct ruler. All other creatures exist thanks to and for God. The highest goal is to serve God. Man is like God, but no more. He is inherently sinful. The sinfulness of man is insurmountable by his own strength. This is achieved by the direct and immediate participation of God. The coming of Christ is the expression of this divine intervention to show the way to salvation. The first, highest and, in essence, the only commandment of the ethics of Christ is the commandment of love for God, which requires the whole person, all his thoughts and deeds.

We will consider the characteristic features of medieval ethics on the example of its two most characteristic representatives: Augustine of the Blessed and Thomas Aquinas. Augustine the Blessed He believed that God is the beginning, the center and the goal of everything, he is the father of bliss and goodness. Divine commandments must be accepted not because they are true and humane, but because they are divine, the divinity of their origin is a guarantee of their truth and humanity. Since everything is created by God, then weight is good, evil does not exist. Evil is a property of angels and people who have abandoned God and focused on their own being. “Rejoice in God, but do not use him, use earthly goods, but do not rejoice in them,” such is the main ethical motive of Augustine. According to Augustine, all people are sinful. However, some of them God marks with his mercy. In addition, on the day of the Last Judgment, when God calls everyone to pronounce the final verdict, he will doom some to eternal torment, and others to eternal bliss, some to hell, others to heaven. The criterion on which God is based when making his decisions is the mystery of God. Somewhat different views are inherent in Thomas Aquinas, who borrows the content of ethics from Aristotle, but gives it a religious form, rethinks it through the prism of Christianity. A person, in his opinion, is such a stage of perfection when he can deviate from his goodness, his activity will be associated in this case with evil. All this becomes an obstacle on the path to bliss. Only partial imperfect bliss is characteristic of a person, and even it turns out to be unstable, undermined by illnesses and other misfortunes. In its pure form, bliss is possible only in the afterlife. Thomas Aquinas tries to give a rational answer to questions that are essentially unreasonable. He talks about what angels eat, whether the bodies of an ogre who ate human meat and his victims can be resurrected at the same time, etc., tried to give unambiguous answers to all private questions of marriage, child rearing, etc. If ancient ethics proceeded from the conviction that the moral perfection of a person is accessible to him, that morality is the totality of the virtues of man, then the moral requirements of medieval ethics act as the commandments of God.

    Characteristic features of the ethics of the New Time.

Emmanuel Kant is the philosopher of the time. He believed that moral standards should be observed because of their existence. The categorical imperative must form the basis of behavior. A person should act morally, based on a sense of duty, and not seeking any pleasure.

Ludwig Wingenstein - Austrian scientist, founder of the ethics of silence. He believed that social language inevitably distorts people's thoughts. The expression of thoughts is possible through art.

Sigmund Freud - singled out 3 beginnings in the structure: Ego, super ego, me. He reduced the role of the individual to maneuvering between living instincts and moral requirements.

    Evaluative function of morality.

Morality considers the world, phenomena and processes from the standpoint of their humanistic potential - the extent to which they contribute to the unification of people, their development. Accordingly, she classifies everything as positive or negative, good or evil. The moral evaluative attitude to reality is its comprehension in terms of good and evil, as well as other concepts adjacent to them or derived from them (“justice” and “injustice”, “honor” and “disgrace”, “nobility” and “baseness” and etc.). With ϶ᴛᴏm, the specific form of expressing a moral assessment can be different: praise, agreement, censure, criticism, expressed in value judgments; expression of approval or disapproval. A moral assessment of reality puts a person in an active, active attitude towards it. Assessing the world, we are already changing something in it, namely, changing our attitude to the world, our position.

    Evaluative function of morality.

Morality considers the world, phenomena and processes from the standpoint of their humanistic potential - the extent to which they contribute to the unification of people, their development. Accordingly, she classifies everything as positive or negative, good or evil. The moral evaluative attitude to reality is its comprehension in terms of good and evil, as well as other concepts adjacent to them or derived from them (“justice” and “injustice”, “honor” and “disgrace”, “nobility” and “baseness” and etc.). With ϶ᴛᴏm, the specific form of expressing a moral assessment can be different: praise, agreement, censure, criticism, expressed in value judgments; expression of approval or disapproval. A moral assessment of reality puts a person in an active, active attitude towards it. Assessing the world, we are already changing something in it, namely, changing our attitude to the world, our position.

    The difference between the regulatory function of morality and the regulatory function of law.

Regulatory function is considered the leading function of morality. Morality directs and corrects the practical activity of a person in terms of taking into account the interests of other people, society. At the same time, the active influence of morality on social relations is carried out through individual behavior.

With the same type of morality and law in a certain society, there are important differences between these social regulators. Law and morality differ: 1) by the object of regulation; 2) according to the method of regulation; 3) by means of ensuring the implementation of the relevant norms (the nature of the sanctions).

Law regulates only socially significant behavior. It should not, for example, invade a person's privacy. Moreover, it is intended to create guarantees against such an intrusion. The object of moral regulation is both socially significant behavior and personal life, interpersonal relationships (friendship, love, mutual assistance, etc.).

The method of legal regulation is a legal act created by state power, actually developing legal relations on the basis and within the limits of legal norms. Morality regulates the behavior of subjects by public opinion, generally accepted customs, individual consciousness.

is a system of rules for the behavior of an individual based on values ​​that are significant for the individual.

In Russian, this word appeared in 1789. It was recorded in the Dictionary of the Russian Academy.

Morality and Morality

The term morality is most often found in literature and speech in the sense of morality, less often in the sense of ethics.

In many philosophical systems, morality and morality are different concepts from each other. Thus, in a narrow sense, morality is the internal rules of a person to act in accordance with his beliefs and rules, while morality is a requirement for human behavior from the outside in addition to the law.

One way or another, the concept of morality is used as a synonym for morality. That is, morality and morality are values, principles and norms that determine human behavior. Ethics is the principles on which a person relies, and it is also the science of these principles, that is, ethics is the science of morality (morality).

The Golden Rule of Morality

It should be noted that there are rules of morality that are common to all. And here I want to recall one legend.

“Once upon a time, a teacher and a student stood on the banks of a great river. The student asked the teacher:
- Tell the teacher, you know a lot about the world, say that everyone should live together, help each other, not be lazy, improve, be polite, deal with their shortcomings, engage in physical development, temper their body and much, much more. - Tell me, is it possible to designate all your teachings with one single word?

And the old wise teacher, smiling, quietly answered his student:

- You can, this word is MUTUALITY - "do not do to another what you do not want for yourself."

According to this legend, the most important rule of morality was formulated, which received
Title: The Golden Rule of Morality. It sounds like this: "Treat people the way you want to be treated."

Summing up, we can say that morality is a system of rules, principles of human behavior, which is based on his beliefs. It is important that this is always a voluntary choice of the individual. And it will depend on the choice made whether the act will be immoral or, on the contrary, moral.