Introductory lecture. Subject of ethics

ethics science spiritual

The concept of “ethics” comes from the ancient Greek ethos (ethos). At first, ethos was understood as a place of common residence, a house, a dwelling, an animal’s lair, a bird’s nest. Then they began to mainly designate the stable nature of a phenomenon, character, custom, character. Understanding the word “ethos” as the character of a person, Aristotle introduced the adjective “ethical” in order to designate a special class of human qualities, which he called ethical virtues. Ethical virtues, therefore, are properties of human character, his temperament, and spiritual qualities.

For a more accurate translation of the Aristotelian term “ethical” from Greek into Latin, Cicero introduced the term “moralis” (moral). He formed it from the word "mos" (mores - plural), which was used to denote character, temperament, fashion, cut of clothing, custom. In Russian, such a word became, in particular, “morality”.

Thus, in their original meaning, “ethics”, “morality”, “morality” are three different words, although they were one term and are used as synonyms in everyday speech.

Over time, the situation has changed. In the process of development of philosophy, as the uniqueness of ethics as a field of knowledge was revealed, a tradition of distinguishing between these concepts developed.

Thus, by ethics, first of all, we mean the corresponding area of ​​theoretical knowledge, science, and by morality (or ethics) the subject studied by it, a special form of social consciousness or human activity. Although researchers have made various attempts to differentiate the terms “morality” and “morality”. For example, Hegel understood morality as the subjective aspect of actions, and morality as the actions themselves, their objective essence.

Ethics arose more than two and a half thousand years ago, when, as a result of the social division of labor, cognitive theoretical activity was separated from direct practical moral consciousness. Ethics as a philosophical discipline is a deeply theoretical teaching that explains the nature of morality, the complex and contradictory world of moral relations, and the highest aspirations of man.

The peculiarities of ethics within the framework of philosophy are that ethics constitutes a normative and practical part of the system of philosophical knowledge. The essential uniqueness of ethics lies in its normativity. Aristotle, and after him many other philosophers, viewed ethics as a practical philosophy, the ultimate goal of which is the production not of knowledge, but of values. It sets the value basis for human activity.

Ethics seeks to clarify the general foundations of the moral world order, the entire diversity of manifestations of morality: what is goodness, humanity, truth in life, what is the purpose of a person, what makes a person’s life meaningful, happy, etc. Ethics studies the source of origin of moral values, the general nature of morality, its specificity and role in human life.

Ethics as a theory of morality establishes a logical connection between moral assessments; it reveals the laws in accordance with which judgments are developed that are designed to guide people’s actions. Ethics does not develop specific recommendations on how to act in a particular case; it formulates only general abstract principles on which specific assessments and recommendations can be built.

As a theory of morality, ethics deals with the study of the basic categories in which moral assessments and criteria for distinguishing between good and evil can be described. Within the framework of ethics, a system of concepts is constructed and studied in which both the moral laws themselves and the logic of their application to the assessment of human behavior in specific situations can be expressed.

From the characterization of ethics as a moral theory with a normative and practical orientation, two most important functions of ethics follow: cognitive and normative.

The cognitive function of ethics is that ethics studies human behavior in relation to value guidelines, evaluates his motives in the categories of good and evil, justice and injustice, etc. In this sense, we can say that ethics studies moral life from the point of view of its compliance with moral standards. The task of ethics is to help a person understand in each specific historical period what the true good is, and to find his own path to achieving this good.

The normative function of ethics is connected with its solution of one of the most important tasks: resolving moral situations that require a new understanding of morality, overcoming the value gap of social consciousness; thereby with the opportunity to offer society a new moral perspective that is common to all. To achieve this, ethics in one or another historical period must remove the halo of absoluteness from certain moral norms, values ​​and ideals, show their relative nature, and then raise others to the absolute.

Ethics is a philosophical science whose object of study is morality. Ethics does not create norms, principles and rules of behavior, assessments and ideals, but studies, theoretically generalizes, systematizes and seeks to substantiate common norms, values ​​and ideals. To do this, it must reveal the source of origin of moral norms, values ​​and ideals, the general nature of morality and its role in human life and society, and identify the patterns of its functioning. In crisis conditions of social development, ethics ensures a change in moral normative value systems.

The main provisions of the concept of Dynamic psychiatry:

a) a person is organically characterized by initially constructive aggression;

b) that a person must be understood as a being who lives in groups and contributes to these groups - a person at any age is fundamentally capable of changing and developing, illness must be understood as a limitation, and not as the disappearance of the ability to develop, illness and symptoms also mean a call for help to the environment surrounding the patient in order to regain his ability to develop;

c) that a person’s self-identity (thus his health) always includes the pursuit of the above goals, imply ethics, which is in the traditions of humanism.

Psychodynamic humane-structural therapy is guided by the image of a socially active person “homo politicus”, who is in relationship with other people, with nature, with the cosmos and has religiosity in the etymological sense of re-ligio. (re-creation – recreation of self-identity*).

Dynamic psychiatry rejects polarizing thinking and its consequences, violence, and advocates the introduction of group dynamics to humanize institutions and policies. She tries to connect with the roots of history and spirituality. Therapy always has a spiritual aspect, the development of identity and thus the recovery of the patient cannot be imagined without the ethical integrity of the therapist. Like social psychiatry, Dynamic Psychiatry defines itself as a humanistic science of treatment that promotes communication between people and, thereby, peace.

ETHICS

Ethics; Ethik) is a system of moral principles and requirements.

Jung believed that an individual's moral law expresses a psychic fact that may or may not have been subject to reflection and "judgment" by his own unconscious judgments. The development of consciousness requires consideration of things, including religious contemplation, both from a generally significant and from a personal point of view. According to Jung, this is the area of ​​ethics.

ETHICS

1. The doctrine of morality as one of the forms of social consciousness - about its essence, role, laws of development. One of the forms of ideology. 2. A set, a system of norms of moral behavior for an individual, social or professional group.

Ethics

A belief about acceptable or correct behavior in achieving a specific personal or academic goal. The study of ethics has traditionally been a branch of philosophy rather than science, but with the increasing responsibilities of scientific research it is clear that the morality of an undertaking must be considered as well as practical considerations. In experiments involving humans, ethics is especially important. Most psychologists share relativistic views on ethical responsibility, believing that the ends justify the means. The publication of clear ethical principles (for example, in publications of the British Psychological Association) provides certain guidelines and allows experimental research to be carried out in such a way that it does not violate the interests of the participants and is morally justified from the point of view of the experimenter. The psychologist must recognize the importance of informed consent and not mislead participants unless absolutely necessary. Simply following the rules is not always enough for the ethical correctness of research. From the perspective of many social psychologists, the experimental scientist must have broad responsibilities in a social context, not just responsibility for the well-being of research participants. The use of animals in experiments has led to particularly heated discussions in this area (see Animal Experiments).

ETHICS

A branch of philosophy that studies what is considered acceptable in human behavior, what is good or bad, right or wrong in human behavior pursuing certain goals and objectives. There is a tendency to use this term to designate theoretical treatises, studies of the ideal; When considering actual human behavior in social and cultural settings (especially regarding issues of creating and internalizing ethical norms), many authors use the term morality and related terms. For a more detailed discussion, see the article morality and the following.

ETHICS

A reading of this work clearly shows that the practice of hypnosis raises ethical issues, and these issues are very different for traditional and new hypnosis. It should not be forgotten that many people consider hypnosis immoral and dangerous.

Henri Ey (1963, preface) puts forward the moral problem of “hacking the personality, enslaving the patient through his relationship to the master-hypnotist.” If such expressions may now cause laughter, then the problem of invasion itself is a pitfall that we must learn to avoid. The wild practice of suggestion, which is not alien to any form of hypnosis, raises legal problems, even if it is well intentioned.

The practice of hypnosis in a clinical setting does not provide reliable recipes. As Orne (1972) notes, the therapist using hypnosis must, like other therapists, act in concert with the patient's healthy wishes and aspirations, but there is a clear danger for an inept therapist to align himself with the destructive aspects of the patient's personality and reinforce his destructive behavior.

Taking all this into account, it becomes clear that hypnosis should be the property of qualified professionals: doctors, psychologists and some representatives of paramedical practice, within the strict ethical framework of the profession in which they are officially recognized. Respectable hypnotic societies record ethical principles in their charters.

ETHICS

from Greek ethike, from ethos - custom, character, character) is a philosophical science that studies morality. The term was introduced by Aristotle. From the Stoics comes the traditional division of philosophy into logic, physics and ethics, which was often understood as the science of human nature, that is, it coincided with anthropology. Spinoza's “Ethics” is the doctrine of substance and its modes. E. is the science of what should be in the system of I. Kant, who developed the ideas of the so-called. autonomous E. as based on internal self-evident moral principles, contrasting it with heteronomous E., proceeding from some. conditions, interests and goals external to morality. In the 20th century M. Scheler and N. Hartmann, in contrast to the Kantian “formal” E. of debt, developed the “material” (substantive) E. of values. Central to ethics has been and remains the problem of good and evil, moral conflict, moral choice.

Ethics

Greek ethos – custom; character) – 1. philosophical doctrine about morality, the causes and conditions for the emergence of moral norms, essence, as well as its conceptual and imperative forms. The subject of normative ethics is the moral ideal, values ​​and requirements, features of their functioning; social ethics - morality from the perspective of social life; individual ethics - the moral life of individuals; 2. a system of norms of moral behavior of an individual, a social group, for example, medical ethics. The most striking and involuntarily arousing admiration is the fact that the doctor’s ethics, which apparently arose in pre-literate antiquity, is still the highest achievement of the human mind, in contrast to countless variants of narrowly professional corporate ethics; 3. biomedical ethics is an interdisciplinary field of research, which has as its subject the value aspects of the activities of the medical community, ethical problems of the relationship between doctor and patient, issues of social policy in the field of health care, as well as organ transplantation, the use of new technologies of childbirth, cloning, genetic engineering, and the use of blastomeres ( stem cells) for medicinal purposes, etc.; 4. general cultural factors of the social environment.

Man is a social being, therefore, willy-nilly, he has to constantly communicate with other people. And given the fact that all people are different, certain rules were formed to regulate our relationships. These rules are nothing more than centuries-old concepts of good and evil, right and wrong actions, justice and injustice of actions. And every person spontaneously or consciously tries to adhere to them. Depending on what concepts are included in moral norms and ethical rules, and whether they are taken into account at all, each of us can make it difficult or easier to communicate with our own kind. And, therefore, the speed of achieving your goals, the quality of communication and life will depend on this. Therefore, every citizen needs to know at least the basics of ethics. The rules of good manners have never harmed anyone.

What is ethics

The word “ethics” was first used by Aristotle. Translated from Greek, it means “concerning morality” or “expressing certain moral beliefs.” Ethics is the doctrine of the rules of communication between people, the norms of human behavior, as well as the responsibilities of everyone towards other people. And most of us, even those who have not specifically studied the code of etiquette, are aware on a subconscious level of the main rule of interpersonal relationships: “Treat others the way you would like to be treated.” One of the main aspects of ethics is morality. What is morality? This is nothing more than a system of values ​​recognized by man. This is the most important way to regulate relationships in different areas of our lives: in everyday life, family, work, science, etc. In addition to moral foundations, ethics also studies the rules of ethics - etiquette.

Etiquette - a system of signs

Our actions carry some information: when we meet, we can pat a friend on the shoulder, nod our head, kiss, hug someone by the shoulders, or throw ourselves into a hug. A pat on the shoulder indicates familiarity; when a man stands up, if a woman enters the room, this indicates his respect for her. The postures taken by a person, the movement of the head - all this also has etiquette significance. In phraseological units one can also observe forms of etiquette: hitting with the forehead, bowing one’s head, kneeling, turning one’s back, throwing down a glove, putting one’s hand on one’s heart, stroking the head, bowing, a beautiful gesture, etc.

Etiquette is not only a historical, but also a geographical phenomenon: not all signs of etiquette that are perceived positively in the West will be approved in the East. And some gestures that are acceptable today were categorically condemned in the old days.

Rules of good manners

Every person should know what ethics is and what rules it includes. Below we will present the basic concepts of good manners.

The communication that we allow ourselves at home with loved ones is not always acceptable in society. And remembering the statement that you will not have a second chance to make a first impression, we try to adhere to generally accepted rules of behavior in society when meeting strangers. Here are some of them:

• in a company or at an official meeting, it is necessary to introduce strangers to each other;
• try to remember the names of the people introduced to you;
• when a man and a woman meet, a representative of the fairer sex is never introduced first, the exception being the situation if the man is the president or the meeting is of a purely business nature;
• the younger ones are presented as the older ones;
• when presenting, you must stand up if you are sitting;
• after an acquaintance, the conversation starts with someone older in position or age, with the exception of the case when an awkward pause occurs;
• finding yourself with strangers at the same table, before you start eating, you need to get to know your neighbors;
• When shaking hands, look into the face of the person you are greeting;
• the palm should be extended strictly vertically, edge down - this means “communication as equals”;
• remember that any non-verbal gesture means no less than the spoken word;
• When shaking hands on the street, be sure to take off your gloves, with the exception of women;
• When meeting, the first question after greeting should be “How are you?” or “How are you?”;
• during a conversation, do not raise questions that may be unpleasant to the interlocutor;
• do not discuss anything that concerns opinions and tastes;
• don't praise yourself;
• watch the tone of the conversation, remember that neither work, nor family relationships, nor your mood give you the right to be impolite with others;
• It is not customary to whisper in a company;
• if, when saying goodbye, you know that you will meet soon, you should say: “Goodbye!”, “See you!”;
• when saying goodbye forever or for a long time, say: “Goodbye!”;
• at an official event you must say: “Allow me to say goodbye!”, “Let me say goodbye!”.

Teaching children secular ethics

In order for a child to grow into a worthy member of society, he must know what ethics is. The child must not only be told about the rules of behavior in society, at the table, at school, but also demonstrate and confirm these rules by his own example. No matter how much you tell your child that it is necessary to give up your seat to older people in public transport, without setting an example for him, you will never teach him to do this. Not every child is taught the basics of secular ethics at home. Therefore, the school is trying to fill this gap. Recently, the school curriculum has included the subject “Fundamentals of Secular Ethics.” During the lessons, children are taught about the rules and norms of behavior in various places, taught culinary etiquette, proper table setting and much more. Teachers also talk about moral principles and discuss what is good and bad. This item is extremely necessary for the child. After all, knowing how to behave correctly in society will make life easier and more interesting for him.

What's happened

There is such a thing as a code of professional ethics. These are the rules governing professional activities. Each profession has its own code. So, doctors have a rule of non-disclosure of medical confidentiality, lawyers, businessmen - everyone adheres to a code of ethics. Every self-respecting company has its own corporate code. Such enterprises value their reputation more than their finances.

Conclusion

A man without etiquette is a savage, a barbarian. It is the rules of morality that give a person the right to consider himself the crown of creation. By teaching your child what ethics is from an early age, you increase his chances of growing up to be a full-fledged member of society.

lat. - disposition, custom) is a branch of philosophical knowledge that studies the nature of morality and morality, the laws of their historical development and role in public life. Ethics examines the norms of human life from the standpoint of good and evil. Morality can be based on different ideas: religious moral sanction, eudaimonism as a selfish pursuit of happiness, class interests, etc. There is Christian ethics based on the moral ideals of the Bible, on the recognition of the Sermon on the Mount and the three holy virtues - faith, hope and love, ideas sin and redemption. There is also professional ethics, in particular pedagogical. Ethics plays a huge role in human life. This is a kind of system of protection against complete self-will and normative norms for conflict-free interaction.

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ETHICS

lat ethica, from the Greek etmke tech-ne - science and art of morality), the doctrine of morality, morality The term “E” was introduced by Aristotle, who placed E between the doctrine of the soul (psychology) and the doctrine of the state (politics ) Center part of E he considered the doctrine of virtues as morals. personality traits, his system already contained many “eternal questions” about the nature and source of morality, about free will and the foundations of morality. actions, the highest good, justice, etc.

Throughout its history, E has acted simultaneously as a practical (moral) philosophy, the doctrine of a correct and worthy life, and as knowledge about morality (about its nature, origin, etc.) Thus, E has performed two socially significant functions - moral-educational and cognitive-educational. Relative independence, the discrepancy between these functions served as the reason for the gradual separation within E of two interconnected parts - normative E and theoretical. E, oriented, respectively, to the study of life and to the knowledge of morality. In the 2nd half of 20, the demarcation of these parts of E led to their actual registration in different disciplines. This differentiation is largely due to didacticism. requirements related to the organization of teaching E in educational institutions (schools, colleges, universities, etc.) The inclusion of E in educational programs is a trend characteristic of all developed countries. An E course can be introduced with the aim of having a positive impact on morals. consciousness of the students, on their value orientations, in this case the content of the course consists mainly of normative components of ethics. teachings, if the accentuated goal is to increase the worldview culture of students, to gain them knowledge about society, the mechanisms of its regulation (which include morality), etc., then the emphasis is on scientific. -explain aspects of E Although expected educational or cognitive. the result of teaching this subject depends on the method and contains factors, the initial choice of normative or theoretical. E as the basis of the educational course is of decisive importance. For example, planned by the teacher of morals. -educated the effect of the course E developed by him is often not achieved due to the fact that students are presented mainly with descriptive and explanatory (theoretical) material. Such a mistake is usually a consequence of the “enlightenment” illusion deeply rooted in the pedagogical environment that any knowledge (and especially knowledge about morality) in itself is beneficial for the individual, morally elevates it, etc. To avoid such mistakes in teaching E, it is necessary to clearly distinguish between its normative and theoretical. issues

Normative ethics is a system of moralistic reasoning aimed at maintaining the foundation of morals in society. values ​​It is designed to formulate answers to questions about good and evil, about the correct behavior of a person in everyday life situations. Normative and ethical. the doctrine proclaims and defends a certain moral position, expressing it in the form of morals. ideals, principles, rules and norms of behavior In contrast to naked moralizing, which is characterized by edification, suggestion, reference to authorities and role models, normative E appeals to reason, its methods are proof, argument, argument. If moralizing is like ped. While the technique is appropriate in relation to an undeveloped (childish or uncultured) consciousness, normative E. is addressed to a critically thinking person who is capable of questioning any postulates. Reasonable arguments in favor of certain moral provisions contribute to the transformation of a social imperative (moral norm) external to the individual into an internal one. impulse (sense of duty, moral motivation of behavior). Regulatory and ethical reflection and evidence form one of the means of forming morals. beliefs.

Being a philosopher discipline, normative ethics is not directly concerned with proving specific, private moral assessments and prescriptions. Development and justification of morals. imperatives in relation to individual or typical situations that people encounter in their personal and society. life, is the field of activity of preachers, literary moralists, teachers, creators of prof. ethical codes (“medical E.”, “Business E.”, etc.), i.e. in general, educators in the broad sense of this concept. All this activity represents concretization and practicality. the use of certain general ethics. principles; Thus, the teacher ultimately relies on one or another philosophical normative and ethical. position.

The peculiarity of normative ethics as a moral philosophy is that it provides a rational basis for fundamental values, which serve as a guide for the practicing educator. Ch. task of philosophy justifications of morality - to give them a supra-individual status and affirm the unconditionality of moral requirements. A moral philosopher, as a rule, does not speak on his own behalf, not on behalf of a candidate. social institution (in these cases, its judgments would bear the stamp of arbitrariness, optionality), but as a conductor of some higher idea. Moral imperatives and assessments acquire such an indisputable status by giving them either a sacred-supernatural (mystical, divine) or natural-objective meaning. In the first case, the categorical principles and norms of morality are ensured by the absolute authority of God, in the second - by belonging to the objective world order, with the inevitably operating laws of which a person is forced to reckon. These two ways of justifying morality determine the general directions of normative and ethical. thoughts, within which there are numerous. branches.

In religion teachings, the leading motive for the authoritarian justification of morality is the understanding of God as the personification of Good, and the norms of morality as deities, commandments, due to which these norms in the mind of the believer receive a positive and unconditionally binding meaning. Often God acts as an omniscient guardian of his commandments, inevitably rewarding a person in accordance with his sins and merits. In this case, morality is supported not so much by sacred authority and the intrinsic value of the Good, but by the threat of punishment or the promise of reward, therefore the actual moral meaning of such justification disappears. However, the authoritarian approach was not dominant in the history of Ethnicity. The second method, associated with the objectification of moral values, occupied a much larger place, as a result of which they became uncontested and, in this sense, absolute. By proving the objectivity of good, duty, etc., the philosopher thereby substantiates these values, forces a reasonable individual to accept them and agree with them. Thus, in the teachings of Plato, goodness, or benefit, is an objectively existing “idea” that embodies in its pure form the integral highest value as such. Such values, once their objectivity is recognized, immediately acquire a normative, goal-indicating meaning. Plato, following Socrates, believed (with certain reservations) that a person, cognizing objective good, thereby becomes virtuous. Philosopher interpreted the objectivity of morality differently. rationalism of modern times, dissolving normative and ethical. problems in the theory of knowledge. For R. Descartes, G. W. Leibniz, I. Kant, the objectivity of a certain judgment (including moral) meant its logical. necessity, compulsion for the mind. The famous categorical imperative was this kind of necessary position (maxim), with which, as Kant believed, every rational being cannot but agree, and therefore the formulation of this maxim itself is already its rational justification. Representatives of intuitionism of the 18th-20th centuries took a similar position. (R. Price, J. E. Moore, etc.); According to their views, “moral truth” is perceived directly (intuitively) as self-evident, which serves as its justification. These concepts recognized the autonomy of morality, i.e. it was assumed that own. the principles of morality are objective, absolute and do not require outside reinforcement.

The concepts of heteronomous ethics make the principles of morality dependent on other, deeper and stronger foundations that give these principles contain, certainty, and obligation. Such grounds are various. Philosopher provisions in which certain characteristics of the world, society, and person are fixed. Thus, the idea of ​​world necessity, the objective predetermination of all events, their inability to control man, served as the basis for a life teaching preaching humility, self-restraint, wise dispassion, etc. [directions in Chinese (Taoism) and other Greek. (stoicism) philosophy]. From ideas about the objective “legislation” of nature, imperatives such as “live in harmony with nature”, “everything natural is good”, etc. (the teachings of other Greek philosophers - Cynics, Sophists, etc.) emerged. If this meant not external, but human nature, then these imperatives were transformed into calls: “listen to the voice of your own nature,” “follow your natural aspirations,” etc., which formed the basis of normative and ethical. naturalism, represented by the teachings of hedonism, eudaimonism, and the theory of egoism.

In the 19th-20th centuries. Concepts in which morality is justified by reference to the objective laws of the development of nature or society have become widespread, i.e. Actions consistent with the direction of nature were recognized as due or justified. evolution (evolutionary E.) or corresponding to the objective course, trends, “objective needs” of history (Marxist E.). A special line is formed by concepts in which the role of the objective basis of morality is played by non-moral values. The “objectivity” of these values ​​is often identified with their social, i.e. supra-individual or supra-group status, and in this case morals. the imperative addressed to an individual or a group is justified as follows: something is good or proper because it serves the public (universal) good, social progress, the establishment of a just system, the interests of the state or nation, or is aimed at achieving the greatest. happiness for the most number of people (utilitarianism), etc. In other cases, objective extra-moral values ​​are understood as “non-human”, absolute, supreme (deities, self-will, standing “above” good; cosmic goals, etc.), so that moral the dignity of actions, the binding nature of the corresponding instructions is determined by their subordination to the highest. values-goals (teleology, the doctrine of the expediency of the world order).

Theoretical ethics is a science that describes and explains morality as a special social phenomenon. This science answers the questions: what is morality, how does it differ from other societies. phenomena; what is its origin, how has it changed historically; what are the mechanisms and patterns of its functioning; what is its social role, etc. All these issues began to be formalized explicitly only in the 18th century. Kant saw the specificity of morality in the self-sufficiency, unconditional bindingness and universality of its imperatives (formalism, absolutism). A. Shaftesbury, D. Hume and others saw the difference, a sign of moral assessments and prescriptions in their special mental. substrate - “morals. feelings" (psychologism). Hume also noted logical. the uniqueness of moral statements (“judgments of what should be”), their non-derivability from statements about facts (“judgments of what is”). The development of this thought was the idea of ​​the impossibility of science. justification of morality (neopositivism), the presence of a special (“deontic”) logic of moral reasoning, etc. For representatives of intuitionism, the specificity of morality meant the irreducibility of a moral motive to any other, the uniqueness of the content of moral concepts (good, duty), their irreducibility to any then other contents. Thus, Moore qualified any definition of good through other concepts as “naturalistic.” error"; this mistake, in his opinion, is characteristic of the entire trs., “sch. E. Mn. philosophers various directions (Aristotle, Kant, A. Schopenhauer, etc.) recognized free will as a necessary sign of moral consciousness, without which, they believed, moral choice is impossible, and therefore, moral responsibility of the individual is impossible. At the same time, free will was opposed either to natural (including mental) determination, or to supernatural predestination (voluntarism, determinism, fatalism). The problem of free will was also posed in a different context - in connection with the clarification of the source of morality, its origin. Free will was no longer considered in this case as a prerequisite for a morally responsible choice between good and evil, but as the ability of a person to arbitrarily set his values, to establish the criterion of good and evil (existentialism, personalism).

In the 19th-20th centuries. theoretical problems Ethics increasingly came under the jurisdiction of specific sciences, for which morality formed part of their subject area. Thus, sociology (including social psychology) elucidates the phylogeny of morality and its societies. functions, the content of its principles and norms, the relationship with other social phenomena, etc. Personal psychology studies the ontogenesis of morality, its mental. substrate and mechanism. Ethology looks for the prerequisites for human morality in the behavior of animals. Logic and linguistics explore the language of morality, rules and forms of normative and ethical. reasoning. Theoretical E. brings together all these scientific. data concerning the essence, origin and functioning of morality; it covers a wide array of knowledge, including philosophy. will explain the concepts and ideas that make up the methodological. scientific base knowledge of morality.

Practical theoretical value E. lies in the fact that the knowledge it produces about the laws and conditions for the formation and change of morality can be used for consciousness. intervention in this process in order to achieve the desired result, for example, consolidating certain morals in the mind of the individual. installations. Theoretical Education itself, of course, does not contain specific methods of moral education, but it serves as a methodological tool. the basis for the corresponding practically oriented discipline (theory of moral education). If normative E., justifying moral values, can influence morals. position of the individual directly by its very content, then the influence of the theoretical. E. affects indirectly - through the development of methods and techniques of moral education. activities. Therefore, teaching theoretical E. has its own characteristics: as a teacher. discipline, it is designed for an audience not of “educated” people, but of educators; It is advisable to include it in training and advanced training programs for teachers.

Lit.: Moore J. E., Principles of Ethics, M., 1984; Guseinov A. A., Irrlitz G., A Brief History of Ethics, M., 1987; Maksimov P.V., The problem of substantiating morality, M., 1991. L.V. Maksimov.

Excellent definition

Incomplete definition ↓

Most domestic and foreign universities teach such an interesting discipline as ethics. Well, very few students find it interesting. But in vain!

Let's figure out why ethics is so important, in which areas of life you can't do without it, and also what will happen if it doesn't exist.

Global hysteria

There are frequent statements in political circles that today there is a severe decline in values. Increasingly, you can hear that people need to create a new morality in order to avoid violence and acts of vandalism.

Let's look at the suburbs of Paris, where it has become the order of things to show one's protest by bursting out with rage, adrenaline, and destroying everything around.

People in power complain about the loss of morality, while they themselves are often the reasons for the destruction of structures of social solidarity. What led to this?

• Democratization of education,
• devaluation of employment conditions, labor protection,
• condemning "anti-social" behavior of young people without any further action,
• lack of support for patriotic feelings and much more.

All this leads to a hectic pace of life, because people are left to themselves and are independently responsible for their own destiny. So they try to achieve everything and more in the short period of time allotted to them by fate.

Bottom line: there are more and more hysterical people in the world, suffering from their own limitations. Their distinctive feature is short-term planning, chaotic actions without any connection to the future.

And ethics is precisely the science that tries to instill in people the desire for leisure: for a slow lifestyle, art, and the thought process. After all, it is in slow thinking that plans for the future, forecasting, and modeling of situations are born.

In the modern world, market competition reigns as a model of behavior and social interaction. People begin to fear becoming replaceable, which is why the pace of life accelerates. And as a result, all this leads to the above-mentioned decline in values.

The task of ethics is to strengthen resistance to this process, to help a person get out of the networks of such fear and learn to live in peace with himself and the environment.

Now let's talk about everything in order.

The concept and subject of ethics

The concept of ethics came to us from ancient Greek (Greek ἠθικόν, from ancient Greek ἦθος - ethos, “character, custom”).

Ethics is a philosophical discipline. The subject of research and study of ethics is morality and ethics.

This doctrine was created with slightly different goals. The meaning of the word "ethos" has been interpreted as rules for cohabitation, norms for social unity, the fight against aggressiveness and individualism . But with the development of society, the study was added here:

• good and evil,
• friendship,
• sympathy,
• self-sacrifice,
• the meaning of life.

Today, synonyms for the concept of ethics are mercy, friendship, justice, solidarity - any concepts that guide the moral development of relationships and social institutions.

An interesting fact is that ethics is characteristic only of human society and its analogues are completely absent in the animal world

As for ethics as a discipline, there is the following definition:

Ethics is a field of knowledge, and the subject of ethics as a science (that is, what it studies) is morality and ethics.

Sometimes ethics is understood as a system of moral and ethical values ​​within a particular society .

In the work program of the discipline “ethics” you can also find the main problems:

1. The problem of the concepts of good and evil, vices and virtues;
2. The problem of the purpose of people on earth and the meaning of life;
3. The problem of free will;
4. The problem of the concept of “should” and the combination of this concept with the natural desire for happiness.

As you already understand, smart and cunning people skillfully use the errors between these concepts to push people off the right path. However, everyone has their own right path. Ethics refers to disciplines that only help a person find it, in no case indicating the only correct option.

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Classification of ethical values

According to Hartmann, all moral values ​​can be divided into:

• basic - are the basis of all other values, include goodness and the neighboring values ​​of nobility, purity and completeness;
• private – values-virtues.

Private values ​​are divided in turn into three large groups:

1. The values ​​of ancient morality: wisdom, justice, self-control, courage. Here are Aristotelian values ​​based on the principle of the mean.
2. The values ​​of the “cultural circle of Christianity”: sincerity and truthfulness, love for one’s neighbor, fidelity, hope, faith and trust, humility, modesty, distance, the value of external behavior.
3. Other values: giving virtue, love of the distant, personal love.

A Brief History of Ethics

We have already found out what ethics studies as a science and academic discipline, what its object, subjects, tasks and goals are. But when and why did this science arise? Why was it necessary to single her out? At what point did the need for ethics as an academic discipline arise?

Back in the 5th century. BC. the sophists discovered that the laws of nature do not coincide with the manifestations of culture. Natural necessity is the same everywhere, but human morals, customs and laws are different everywhere.

In this regard, the problem of comparing different morals and laws arose in order to find out which of them is the best.

An interesting fact is that as soon as people began the process of comparison, it immediately became clear: numerous morals and laws, changing not only from people to people, but also from generation to generation, are also interpreted differently depending on the justification. Reason is the only source of their justification.

This idea was quickly picked up by Socrates and Plato and began to be developed further.

Even at the stage of its emergence, it immediately became clear that ethics cannot be considered in isolation from philosophy.

Aristotle designated ethics as a special branch of practical philosophy, since it tries to answer the question: what should we do? The thinker himself considered happiness to be the main goal of moral behavior. Then this word was understood as the activity of the soul in the fullness of virtue or self-realization - reasonable actions, far from extremes and adhering to the golden mean. And the main virtues of Aristotle's teachings were prudence and moderation.

Plato's student was also confident that the subject and main tasks of ethics lay not in knowledge itself, but in the actions of people. And here, as a transparent thread, there was an inextricable connection between what the good was and how to achieve it.

The starting point of this science is not principles, but the experience of social life. That is why there cannot be the same precision that is inherent in mathematics, for example. The truth here can be established only in general terms, approximately.

Aristotle taught that there are different goals, forming a hierarchy. There must be a higher, final end that is to be desired in itself and not seen as a means to some other end. It is this that is the highest good and can determine the measure of perfection of the individual and social institutions. The highest good is happiness, which requires external goods, as well as Madame luck. But to a large extent it will depend on spiritual work - on activity correlated with virtue. And the subject of study and the purpose of ethics as a science according to Aristotle is the property of the soul to act in the image of virtues.

In a broad sense, ethics is a science that sets the basis for economics and politics.

It is from ethics that the golden rule came to us: do not do to others what you do not want for yourself! Many people think that it is biblical, but in fact it has existed in different cultures since ancient times, found in the Mishnah and Confucius.

Ethical theories continued to evolve, and philosophers began to experience some difficulty in using unified terms. The fact is that in different teachings completely different concepts were declared basic.

The subject of religious ethics in cultures with a personified God is God himself - this is the subject of morality. Then the basis is the norms that religion has declared divine by order. And the ethics of social relations as a system of moral obligations to society is replaced by divine ethics - a system of moral obligations to God. And sometimes this fact can be the cause of a conflict (social or even mass) with the morality of society.

Modern ethics

In modernity there is a place for both nihilism and the expansion of ethical concepts. The concept of goodness moves to relationships with nature and the scientific sphere (biocentric ethics and bioethics).

As feminism developed, ethics began to be interpreted from a gender perspective. Now abstract humanity and humanity as virtues are grouped along the lines of masculinity and femininity.

The ethics of nonviolence, founded by Tolstoy and Gandhi, is continued in the ideas of Albert Schweitzer, who described in his book the history of this science and its state in the 20th century, and also suggested ways for its further development.

But Teilhard de Chardin took a different path. He draws clear parallels between traditional ethics and the theory of evolution.

Other sciences also made their own changes to ethics. Developing medicine and biotechnology have caused the rapid development of bioethics, which analyzes the complex ethical difficulties that arise when making judicial, legal, medical and other decisions.

It’s rare today that people haven’t heard of the “prisoner’s dilemma.” She is a prime example of the logical-mathematical aspects of moral choice that are studied in game theory.

Sections of ethics

Despite the fact that ethics is often viewed as a moral philosophy that indicates the path of worthy behavior, it is at the same time a system of knowledge about the nature and origin of morality. That is why there are two subjects and specifics of the task of ethics - moral-educational and cognitive-educational. As a result, two areas were identified in the second half of the 20th century, which took shape into two completely independent (but interrelated) disciplines:

1. Normative ethics – focuses on life science and theoretical ethics.
2. Theoretical ethics is aimed at understanding morality.
3. Practical ethics is the place of morality in the real lives of people.

Theoretical ethics

Theoretical ethics considers morality as a special social phenomenon, finds out what it is, how morality differs from other social phenomena.

The subject and object of the science is theoretical ethics - origin, historical development, patterns of functioning, social role and other aspects of morality. It is based on knowledge, ideas and concepts from the scientific knowledge of morality.

Ethics is not the only science whose subject area is morality:

• Sociology and social psychology are busy studying the social function of morality and the rules it propagates in relation to other social phenomena.
• Personality psychology studies the physiological basis of morality.
• Linguistics and logic study the language of morality, forms and rules of normative and ethical logic.

These sciences also made a significant contribution to the development of ethics. The results of these studies form the basis of theoretical ethics, generalized and used by it.

Within theoretical ethics we should highlight metaethics .

Metaethics is a direction of analytical ethics within which ethics itself is analyzed as a scientific discipline.

The first sensible study in metaethics is considered to be the work “Principles of Ethics” by George E. Moore. The subject and tasks of metaethics as a science are the study of questions about the subject, structure, and purpose of ethics in dictionaries, textbooks and reference books.

Within the framework of metaethics, one can distinguish such a direction as noncognitivism - a doctrine that questions the cognitive status of ethics, the knowability of ethical concepts due to their uncertainty and the very fact of the admissibility of its existence as a science. Through this discipline, metaethics seeks to objectively study various ethical concepts.

Normative ethics

The subject of normative ethics is the search for a principle that regulates human behavior, guides his actions, establishes criteria for assessing moral goodness and a rule that could act as a general principle, a model for all subsequent cases.

The purpose of normative ethics is to maintain fundamental moral values ​​in society, to create norms of behavior in everyday life situations by appealing to reason; this section of ethics uses reasons, arguments, and evidence. This is what makes it attractive to any critically thinking person, in contrast to moralizing.

Moral principles take the form of rational reasoning, which turns into internal feelings that motivate behavior.

And for moral concepts and assessments to acquire the status of inflexible, there are two main ways:

• give them a mystical, divine meaning;
• give a natural objective meaning.

From a noncognitivist perspective, normative ethics is an element of moral consciousness, not morality in general.

Normative ethics was preceded by such directions as stoicism, hedonism, epicureanism, and among modern ones - consequentialism, utilitarianism, deontology.

Applied ethics

Applied (or practical) ethics is concerned with the study of particular problems and the application of moral ideas and principles formulated in normative ethics in particular situations of moral choice.

This section of ethics is quite closely related to modern socio-political sciences and includes the following sections:

• Bioethics.
• Medical ethics.
• Computer ethics.
• Professional ethics.
• Political ethics.
• Social ethics.
• Business ethics.
• Environmental ethics.
• Legal ethics.

Bioethics is the doctrine of the moral side of human activity in biology and medicine. The narrow side of this science considers all ethical problems between doctor and patient, ambiguous situations that constantly arise in practical medicine. And these problems need to be considered not only within the narrow medical community, but also among the general public. The broad side of the term is associated with the study of social, environmental, medical and socio-legal issues not only in relation to humans, but also to any living organisms. Here, bioethics is distinguished by its philosophical character, evaluating the fruits of labor and the development of new ideas and technologies in biology and medicine.

In general, we have studied the concept, subject, foundations and functions of ethics. And although students in universities do not attach due importance to this subject (the main blame for this lies on the shoulders of teachers who are unable to instill love and understanding of the discipline), we see how vitally important it is for all humanity.

However, this science is quite complex, and not everyone will like writing tests, term papers or diplomas in ethics. However, don’t worry, because there is always a trusted person nearby, ready to help in difficult times! Not for material benefit, but purely for ethical reasons ;-)