Historical forms of morality and modern ethics. Features of modern ethics

The ethics of the 20th century can be called an intellectual reaction to the social catastrophes that occurred in this century. two world wars and regional conflicts, totalitarian regimes and terrorism make us think about the very possibility of ethics in a world so openly alien to goodness. Of the great variety of ethical teachings created in the twentieth century, we will consider only two. Their representatives not only constructed theoretical models of morality, but also drew practical normative conclusions from them.

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

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

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

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

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

Existentialist ethics calls to resist all forms of collectivism. It is necessary to openly realize one's loneliness and abandonment, freedom and responsibility, the meaninglessness and tragedy of one's own existence, gain strength and courage to live in the most unfavorable situations of hopelessness and hopelessness.

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

Among the moral theories of the XX century. attention should be paid to "ethics of non-violence". Every ethic considers the renunciation of violence necessary. Because violence breeds retaliatory violence, it is notoriously ineffective. way to solve any problem. Non-violence is not passivity, but special non-violent actions (sit-ins, marches, hunger strikes, distribution of leaflets and media appearances to popularize their position - non-violence advocates have developed dozens of such methods). Only morally strong and courageous people are capable of carrying out such actions, capable, thanks to the belief in their rightness, not to strike back. The motive of non-violence is love for enemies and faith in their best moral qualities. Enemies should be convinced of the wrongness, inefficiency and immorality of forceful methods and reach a compromise with them. The "ethics of non-violence" considers morality not as a weakness, but as a strength of a person, the ability to achieve goals.

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

As the complexity of the world increases, the interdependence of people in society increases, the role and importance of moral values increase, including such as solidarity, responsibility, honesty, trust, the ability to cooperate, mutual assistance, communitarianism (a modern synonym for collectivism).

Exactly moral values(the need for meaning, for social recognition and respect from others, for creative self-realization and socially useful activity) are increasingly acting as the most important needs and motives social activities modern man(scientist, manager, entrepreneur, doctor or teacher).

Already in the 70s. 20th century in the countries of the prosperous West, a very high level life, the quality of life of the population improved, which led to a shift in values towards post-material needs: many people in Western countries felt, for example, the need to benefit people, to feel the approval of others. This qualitative shift was recognized as a postmodern value shift.

This postmodern cultural shift is associated with the actualization of the role of ethics in the life of a person and society, awareness of the need to develop social capital and ensure social and economic order(and not only within the framework of individual communities, but of humanity as a whole). These tendencies are even more intensified in our time.

IN early XXI in. In connection with the processes of globalization, interconnections, contacts and interdependence of people increase, as well as new dangers, threats and risks, therefore the relevance of ethics increases many times. The world is changing, the subject of ethics is changing and expanding.

Orientation towards the development of individual self-consciousness is the main one for modern ethics in all its forms (social, applied, professional, ecological).

In different cultures during their historical development due to original traditions and customs, their own systems of values and norms, myths and legends were formed. Moral and religious values of different cultures do not coincide, which is the cause of contradictions and conflicts. These contradictions can take on a global character, but the inner world of a person remains the main arena of struggle.

Theoretical, applied, professional ethics

Traditional ethics existed in two forms - religious and philosophical. Religious ethics, for example, the ethics of Christianity, contains a significant normative context in the form of commandments, prohibitions and practical norms of behavior, including ritual (observance of fasts, holidays, performance of rites and rituals of various kinds - calendar, wedding, etc.) Religious ethics also contains theoretical a part consisting of dogmas, teachings, myths, symbols and traditions, the teaching of which forms the basis of religious education and upbringing. Religious ethics considers the same problems as philosophical ethics, but in the context of faith.

Actually theoretical ethics originated in ancient society along with philosophy as a sphere of rational thinking about the world and man. The specificity of ethics as a science lies in what it says about due, those. how must what a person should do (about moral values as the goals of being), what society should be like, what rules of conduct (norms) should be.

Already Aristotle understood that ethics is essentially different from physics or mathematics. Ethics is a special kind of knowledge. He singled out three types of knowledge: theoretical, practical and ethical.

theoretical knowledge (episteme, or the form of "contemplation of eternal ideas") characterizes such sciences as mathematics, physics, biology.

Practical Knowledge (techne) appears in the form skills (the builder knows how to build a house, the artist knows how to paint, the artist knows how to portray different feelings, the artisan knows how to make goods, the shoemaker knows how to sew boots, etc.).

ethical knowledge (phronesis) is knowledge of a very special kind, which consists not so much in reasoning or skills, but in correct behavior, committing virtuous deeds, a moral attitude towards another person, including mercy and benevolence. For example, when passing a sentence, a lawyer is guided not only by knowledge of the crime committed, but also by understanding the situation, the ability to put oneself in the place of another person (and the offender, and the victim, and other people), feelings of justice, mercy, empathy and compassion. He knows how to do the right thing, i.e. he possesses not only knowledge of the facts, but also ethical knowledge and understanding of the situation.

The subject of traditional ethics is a person as a moral individual, the problems of the struggle between good and evil, virtues and vices in his soul. The main goal of traditional philosophical ethics is the development of the self-consciousness of an individual, the formation of his ability for moral and spiritual self-improvement. According to legend, even Confucius said that a person, if he does not develop as a cultural, moral being, becomes worse than an animal; in relation to such people, the state has the right to apply the most severe punishments. Thus, the Confucian ethics already set the space for the formation of meaningful life guidelines and spiritual development: the lower bar is the inevitable cruel punishment, the upper bar is respect, honor, the high social status of a noble husband.

Traditional ethics had not only a theoretical, but above all a normative (prescriptive) character, since the theoretical justification of the values of human existence acted simultaneously as a prescription, a moral requirement, a norm, for example, the theoretical definition of virtue presupposed its spread, theories of beneficence contribute to the spread of charity. The value of goodness lies in becoming kind, happiness - in becoming happy, love - in learning to love and be loved, justice - in its practical implementation.

The main achievements of traditional ethics are expressed in its normative programs. There are such programs as the ethics of pleasure (hedonism), the ethics of happiness (eudemonism), the ethics of simplification (cynicism), the ethics of contemplation, the ethics of duty (the Stoics, Kant), the ethics of love and mercy, the ethics of compassion (A. Schopenhauer), the ethics of utility ( utilitarianism), the ethics of heroism, the ethics of rational egoism (utilitarianism), the ethics of non-violence (L. Tolstoy, M. Gandhi), the ethics of reverence for life (A. Schweitzer), etc.

It is no coincidence that ethics special kind knowledge was named by Kant practical philosophy. If theoretical reason becomes entangled in contradictions and antinomies (which, according to Kant, is evidence of its imperfection), then practical reason resolves these antinomies quite easily, namely: it recognizes the need for free will, the immortality of the soul and the existence of God as necessary conditions for the existence of morality.

Nevertheless, traditional ethics contains a significant theoretical part, including arguments about the origin and nature of morality, its historical forms and essence, consideration of the specifics of morality, its role in the life of society and the individual, the structure of moral consciousness, the categories of good and evil, happiness, duty, loyalty , honor, justice, the meaning of life. The specificity of ethics lies in the fact that it has never been a pure theory, but has always contained theoretical and practical (normative) parts in equal proportions.

Ethics and morality in modern world

The topic of these notes is formulated as if we know what "ethics and morals" are, and we know what the "modern world" is. And the task is only to establish a correlation between them, to determine what changes ethics and morality are undergoing in the modern world and how the modern world itself looks in the light of the requirements of ethics and morality. In fact, not everything is so simple. And not only because of the ambiguity of the concepts of ethics and morality - ambiguity, which is familiar and even to some extent characterizes the essence of these phenomena themselves, their special role in culture. The concept of the modern world, modernity, has also become uncertain. For example, if earlier (say, 500 or more years ago) changes that overturned the daily life of people occurred in periods much longer than the lifetime of individuals and human generations, and therefore people were not very worried about the question of what modernity is and where it begins , then today such changes occur in terms that are much shorter than the life of individual individuals and generations, and the latter do not have time to keep up with modernity. As soon as they get used to modernity, they discover that postmodernity has begun, and then postpostmodernity ... The question of modernity has recently become a subject of discussion in the sciences for which this concept is of paramount importance - primarily in history, political science. Yes, and within the framework of other sciences, the need to formulate their own understanding of modernity is maturing. I would like to recall one passage from the Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle says that the good, considered from the point of view of timeliness, will be different in different areas life and sciences - in military affairs, medicine, gymnastics, etc.

Ethics and morality have their own chronotope, their own modernity, which does not coincide with what is modernity, for example, for art, urban planning, transport, etc. Within the framework of ethics, the chronotope is also different depending on whether we are talking about specific social mores or general moral principles. Morals are associated with external forms life and can change rapidly, over decades. Thus, the nature of the relationship between generations has changed before our eyes. Moral foundations preserve the stability of the century and millennium. For L.N. Tolstoy, for example, ethical-religious modernity covered the entire vast period of time from the moment when humanity, through the mouth of Jesus of Nazareth, proclaimed the truth of non-resistance to evil, to that indefinite future when this truth will become an everyday habit.

Under the modern world, I will mean that stage (type, formation) of the development of society, which is characterized by the transition from relations of personal dependence to relations of material dependence. This approximately corresponds to what Spengler called civilization (as opposed to culture), Western sociologists (W. Rostow and others) - an industrial society (as opposed to traditional), Marxists - capitalism (as opposed to feudalism and other pre-capitalist forms of society) . The question that interests me is the following: do ethics and morality retain their effectiveness at a new stage (in the modern world) in the form in which they were formed in the bowels of ancient culture and the Judeo-Christian religion, were theoretically comprehended and sanctioned in classical philosophy from Aristotle to Kant?

Can ethics be trusted?

Public opinion, both at the level of everyday consciousness and at the level of persons having explicit or implicit powers to speak on behalf of society, recognizes the high (one might even say paramount) importance of morality. And at the same time it is indifferent or even ignores ethics as a science. For example, in last years we have seen many cases when bankers, journalists, deputies, and other professional groups tried to comprehend the moral canons of their business conduct, draw up relevant codes of ethics and, it seems, each time they did without graduates in ethics. It turns out that no one needs ethics, except for those who want to study the same ethics. At least this is true of theoretical ethics. Why it happens? The question is all the more relevant and dramatic because, in such a formulation, it does not arise before representatives of other fields of knowledge studying human behavior (psychologists, political scientists, etc.), who are in demand by society and have practical areas of professional activity.

When thinking about why in our scientificized time real moral life proceeds without the direct participation of the science of ethics, one should keep in mind a number of general considerations related to the special role of philosophy in culture, in particular with the completely unique circumstance that the practicality of philosophy is rooted in its accentuated impracticality, self-sufficiency. This applies especially to moral philosophy, since the highest institution of morality is an individual and therefore ethics directly appeals to its self-consciousness, rational will. Morality is the instance of the sovereignty of the individual as a socially active being. Even Socrates drew attention to the fact that there are teachers of various sciences and arts, but there are no teachers of virtue. This fact is not accidental, it expresses the essence of the matter. Philosophical ethics has always participated in real moral life, including educational process, so indirectly that such participation was always assumed, but it was difficult to trace even backdating. Nevertheless, subjective trust in her existed. We know from history the story of a young man who went from one wise man to another, desiring to know the most important truth, which could guide his whole life and which would be so brief that it could be learned standing on one leg, until he heard from Khilela rule, which later received the name of the golden one. We know that Aristophanes ridiculed the ethical lessons of Socrates, and Schiller - Kant, even J. Moore became the hero of satirical plays. All this was an expression of interest and a form of assimilation of what the moral philosophers were saying. Today there is nothing like it. Why? There are at least two additional circumstances that explain the distancing from ethics of those who practically reflect on moral problems. These are changes in a) the subject of ethics and b) the real mechanisms of the functioning of morality in society.

Can morality be trusted?

After Kant, the disposition of ethics in relation to morality as its subject changed. From the theory of morality, it has become a critique of morality.

Classical ethics took the evidence of moral consciousness, as they say, at face value and saw its task in substantiating the morality preassigned to it and finding a more perfect formulation of its requirements. Aristotle's definition of virtue as the middle was a continuation and completion of the demand for measure, which was rooted in the ancient Greek consciousness. Medieval Christian ethics, both in essence and in terms of subjective attitudes, was a commentary on evangelical morality. The starting point and essential foundation of Kant's ethics is the conviction of moral consciousness that its law is absolutely necessary. The situation has changed significantly since the middle of the 19th century. Marx and Nietzsche independently of each other, from different theoretical positions and in different historical perspective come to the same conclusion, according to which morality, in the form in which it presents itself, is a complete deceit, hypocrisy, Tartuffe. According to Marx, morality is an illusory, transformed form of social consciousness, designed to cover up the immorality of real life, to give a false outlet to the social indignation of the masses. It serves the interests of the ruling exploiting classes. Therefore, working people do not need a theory of morality, but to free themselves from its sweet intoxication. And the only position worthy of a theoretician in relation to morality is its criticism, its exposure. Just as the task of physicians is to eliminate diseases, so the task of the philosopher is to overcome morality as a kind of social disease. Communists, as Marx and Engels said, do not preach any morality, they reduce it to interests, overcome it, deny it. Nietzsche saw in morality an expression of a slave psychology - a way by which the lower classes manage to put on a face in a bad game and pass off their defeat as a victory. She is the embodiment of a weak will, the self-aggrandizement of this weakness, the product of ressentiment, self-poisoning of the soul. Morality humiliates a person, and the task of a philosopher is to break through on the other side of good and evil, to become in this sense a superman. I am not going to analyze the ethical views of Marx and Nietzsche, nor to compare them. I want to say only one thing: both of them stood on the position of a radical denial of morality (although for Marx such a denial was only one of the minor fragments of his philosophical theory, and for Nietzsche - the central point of philosophizing). Although Kant wrote the Critique of Practical Reason, Marx and Nietzsche were the first to give a real scientific critique of practical reason, if we understand by criticism the penetration of the deceptive appearance of consciousness, the revelation of its hidden and concealed meaning. Now the theory of morality could not but be at the same time its critical exposure. This is how ethics began to understand its tasks, although never later on their formulation was so sharp and passionate as that of Marx and Nietzsche. Even academically respectable analytic ethics is nothing more than a critique of the language of morality, its unfounded ambitions and pretensions.

Although ethics convincingly showed that morality does not say what it says, that the unconditional categoricalness of its requirements cannot be justified in any way, hangs in the air, although it cultivated a suspiciously wary attitude towards moral statements, especially moral self-certifications, no less morality in all its illusory and unreasonable categoricalness has not gone away. Ethical criticism of morality does not cancel morality itself, just as heliocentric astronomy did not cancel the appearance that the Sun revolves around the Earth. Morality continues to function in all its "falsity", "alienation", "hypocrisy", etc., just as it functioned before the ethical revelations. In one of the interviews, the correspondent, embarrassed by B. Russell's ethical skepticism, asks the latter: "Do you at least agree that some actions are immoral?" Russell replies, "I wouldn't like to use that word." Despite what Lord Russell thinks, people still use the word "immoral" and some other much stronger and more dangerous words. Just as on desktop calendars, as if to spite Copernicus, every day they indicate the hours of sunrise and sunset, so people in everyday life (especially parents, teachers, rulers and other dignitaries) continue to preach morality in defiance of Marx, Nietzsche, Russell.

Society, assuming that ethics speaks in its name, in its relationship with morality finds itself in the position of a husband who is forced to live with his wife, whom he had previously convicted of treason. Both of them have no choice but to forget, or pretend to have forgotten about the previous revelations and betrayals. Thus, to the extent that a society appeals to morality, it seems to forget about philosophical ethics, which considers morality unworthy of being appealed to. This way of behavior is quite natural, just as the actions of an ostrich are natural and understandable, which, in moments of danger, hides its head in the sand, leaving its body on the surface in the hope that it will be mistaken for something else. It can be assumed that the above-mentioned disregard for ethics is an unfortunate way to get rid of the contradiction between the ethical "head" of morality and its social body.

Where is the place of morality in the modern world?

The transition from a predominant apology of morality to its predominant criticism was not only due to the progress of ethics, but at the same time it was associated with a change in the place and role of morality in society, during which its ambiguity was revealed. We are talking about a fundamental historical shift that led to what can be called a new European civilization with its unprecedented scientific, technological, industrial and economic progress. This shift, which radically changed the whole picture historical life, not only marked a new place for morality in society, but was itself largely the result of moral changes.

Morality has traditionally acted and understood as a set of virtues that are summed up in the image of a perfect person, or a set of norms of behavior that define a perfect organization. public life. These were two interrelated aspects of morality passing into each other - subjective, personal and objectified, objectively deployed. It was believed that the good for the individual and the good for the state (society) are one and the same. In both cases, morality was understood as the concreteness of individually responsible behavior, the path to happiness. This, strictly speaking, is the specific objectivity of European ethics. If it is possible to single out the main theoretical question, which at the same time constituted the main pathos of ethics, then it consists in the following: what is it, what are the boundaries and content of a person’s free, individually responsible activity, which he can give a perfect virtuous look, direct to achieve his own good. It was this kind of activity in which a person, remaining the sovereign master, combined perfection with happiness, and was called morality. She was considered the most worthy, was considered as the focus of all other human efforts. This is true to such an extent that philosophers from the very beginning, long before Moore methodically worked out this question, already, at least since Aristotle, came to the idea that good cannot be defined otherwise than through identity with oneself. Society and social (cultural) life in all the richness of its manifestations were considered the arena of morality (and this is essential!) it was assumed that, in contrast to nature and in opposition to it, the entire area mediated by consciousness (knowledge, reason) life together, including politics, economics, decisively depends on the decision, the choice of people, the measure of their virtue. Therefore, it is not surprising that ethics was understood broadly and included everything related to the second nature, self-created by man, and social philosophy was called moral philosophy, according to tradition, it still sometimes retains this name to this day. The distinction between nature and culture carried out by the sophists was of fundamental importance for the formation and development of ethics. Culture was distinguished according to an ethical (moral) criterion (culture, according to the sophists, is the sphere of the arbitrary, it includes those laws and customs by which people, at their discretion, are guided in their relationships, and what they do with things for their own benefit, but does not follow from the physical nature of these things). In this sense, culture was originally, by definition, included in the subject of ethics (it was precisely this understanding of ethics that was embodied in the well-known, formed in the Platonic Academy, the three-part division of philosophy into logic, physics and ethics, according to which everything related to ethics in objective world, which is not related to nature).

Such a broad understanding of the subject of ethics was a fairly adequate understanding of the historical experience of an era when social relations took the form of personal connections and dependencies, when, consequently, the personal qualities of individuals, the measure of their morality, virtue were the main supporting structure that held the entire building of civilization. In this regard, we can point out two well-known and documented points: a) outstanding events, the state of affairs in society had a pronounced personal character (for example, the fate of the war depended decisively on the courage of soldiers and commanders, a comfortable peaceful life in the state - on a good ruler, etc.); b) people's behavior (including in business area) was entangled in morally sanctioned norms and conventions (typical examples of this kind are medieval workshops or codes of knightly duels). Marx has a wonderful saying that a windmill produces a society headed by an overlord, while a steam mill produces a society headed by an industrial capitalist. Denoting with the help of this image the originality of the historical epoch that interests us, I want to say not just that the miller windmill- a completely different human type than the miller at the steam mill. This is quite obvious and trivial. My idea is different - the work of a miller as a miller at a windmill depended much more on the moral qualities of the miller's personality than the work of a miller as a miller at a steam mill. In the first case moral character miller (well, for example, whether he was a good Christian) were no less important than his professional skills, while in the second case they are of secondary importance or may not be taken into account at all.

The situation changed dramatically when the development of society took on the character of a natural-historical process and the sciences of society began to acquire the status of private (non-philosophical) sciences, in which the axiological component is insignificant and even in this insignificance turns out to be undesirable, when it turned out that the life of society is regulated by the laws of such as necessary and inevitable as the move natural processes. Just as physics, chemistry, biology and others were gradually isolated from the bosom of natural philosophy. natural Sciences Thus, jurisprudence, political economy, social and other social sciences began to emerge from the bosom of moral philosophy. Behind this was the transition of society from local, traditionally organized forms of life to large and complex systems (in industry - from workshop organization to factory production, in politics - from feudal principalities to nation states, in the economy - from subsistence farming to market relations; in transport - from draft power to mechanical means of transportation; in public communication - from salon conversations to means mass media; etc.).

The fundamental change was as follows. Various spheres societies began to be structured according to laws effective functioning, in accordance with its objective parameters, taking into account large masses of people, but (precisely because these are large masses) regardless of their will. Public relations inevitably began to acquire a material character - they were regulated not according to the logic of personal relations and traditions, but according to the logic of the objective environment, the effective functioning of the corresponding area of joint activity. The behavior of people as workers was now set not with regard to the totality of spiritual qualities and through a complex network of morally sanctioned norms, but by functional expediency, and it turned out to be the more effective, the more it approached the automated, emancipated from individual motives, incoming psychological layers, the more the person became a worker. Moreover, human activity as a subjective element social system(worker, functionary, doer) not only bracketed moral distinctions in the traditional sense, but often demanded the ability to act immorally. Machiavelli was the first to explore and theoretically sanction this shocking aspect in relation to state activity, showing that one cannot be a good sovereign without being at the same time a moral criminal. A similar discovery in economics made by A. Smith. He established that the market leads to the wealth of nations, but not through the altruism of subjects. economic activity but, on the contrary, through their selfish desire for their own benefit (the same idea, expressed in the form of a communist sentence, is contained in the famous words of K. Marx and F. Engels that the bourgeoisie in ice water selfish calculation drowned the sacred awe of religious ecstasy, chivalrous enthusiasm, philistine sentimentality). And, finally, sociology, which proved that the free, morally motivated actions of individuals (suicide, theft, etc.), considered according to the laws big numbers as moments of society as a whole, line up in regular rows that turn out to be more rigorous and stable than, for example, seasonal climate change (how can one not recall Spinoza, who said that if the stone thrown by us had consciousness, he would think that flies freely).

In a word, the modern complex-organized, depersonalized society is characterized by the fact that the totality of professional and business qualities of individuals that determine their behavior as social units depends little on their personal moral virtues. In his public behavior a person acts as a carrier of functions and roles that are assigned to him from the outside, by the very logic of the systems in which he is included. Zones of personal presence, where what can be called moral education and determination are of decisive importance, are becoming less and less significant. Social mores no longer depend so much on the ethos of individuals, but on the systemic (scientific, rationally ordered) organization of society in certain aspects of its functioning. The social value of a person is determined not only and not so much by his personal moral qualities, but by the moral significance of the total great work in which he participates. Morality becomes predominantly institutional, transforms into applied areas, where ethical competence, if we can talk about ethics here at all, is determined to a decisive extent. professional competence in special areas of activity (business, medicine, etc.). The ethical philosopher in the classical sense becomes redundant.

Has ethics lost its subject?

Ethics, as a traditionally developed area of philosophical knowledge, continues to exist in the usual theoretical space, enclosed between two opposite poles - absolutism and antinormativeism. Ethical absolutism proceeds from the idea of morality as an absolute and, in its absoluteness, incomprehensible precondition for the space of rational life; one of its typical extreme cases is moral religion (L.N. Tolstoy, A. Schweitzer). Ethical anti-normativeism sees in morality an expression (as a rule, transformed) of certain interests and relativizes it; philosophical and intellectual experiments, called postmodernist, can be considered its ultimate expression. These extremes, like any extremes in general, feed each other, converge with each other: if morality is absolute, then it inevitably follows that any moral statement, insofar as it has a human origin, is filled with a specific, definite and in its certainty limited content, will be relative. , situational and in this sense false; if, on the other hand, there are no absolute (unconditionally binding and universally valid) definitions of morality, then any moral decision will have absolute meaning for the one who makes it. Within this framework there are modern ethical ideas both in Russia (an alternative to the religious-philosophical and socio-historical understanding of morality) and in the West (an alternative to Kantianism and utilitarianism).

Absolutism and anti-normativeism in their modern versions, of course, differ from their classical counterparts - primarily in their excess, exaggeration. Modern absolutism (unlike even Stoic or Kantian) has lost touch with social mores and recognizes nothing but the selfless determination of the moral person. Only the absoluteness of moral choice and no legality! It is significant in this respect that L.N. Tolstoy and A. Schweitzer oppose morality to civilization, in general they refuse civilization a moral sanction. Supporters of antinormativism, genetically related and essentially continuing the eudemonistic-utilitarian tradition in ethics, experienced strong influence great immoralists of the 19th century, but unlike the latter, who denied morality in the context of a supra-moral perspective, they do not set the task of overcoming morality, they simply reject it. They do not have their own "free individuality" like K. Marx or "superman" like Nietzsche. Not only do they not have their own super-morality, they do not even have post-morality. In fact, such philosophical and ethical super-dissidence turns into a complete intellectual surrender to circumstances, as happened, for example, with R. Rorty, who justified the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999 by referring to the fact that there " good guys"fought the" bad guys. "Despite all the features of absolutism and antinormativity in modern ethics, we are nevertheless talking about traditional mental schemes. They represent a reflection on a certain type public relations, which is characterized by internal inconsistency (alienation) between the private and the general, the individual and the family, the individual and society.

Whether this contradiction retains its fundamental nature today is the question that we must answer when reflecting on what is happening with ethics and morality in the modern world. Is the social (human) reality preserved today, the comprehension of which was the classical image of morality, or, in other words, is not the classical ethics presented in our works, textbooks, the ethics of yesterday? Where in modern society, which in its direct cultural design has become massive, and in its own driving forces is institutionalized and deeply organized, where are the niches of individual freedom, zones of morally responsible behavior located in this ordered sociological cosmos? To be more specific and professionally accurate, the question can be reformulated as follows: isn't it time to take a more critical look at the heritage of classical philosophy and question the definitions of morality as disinterestedness, unconditional duty, universally valid requirements, etc.? And can this be done without abandoning the idea of morality and without replacing the play of life with its beaded imitation?

The ethics of the 20th century can be called an intellectual reaction to the social catastrophes that occurred in this century. Two world wars and regional conflicts, totalitarian regimes and terrorism prompt us to think about the very possibility of ethics in a world so openly alien to goodness. Of the great variety of ethical teachings created in the twentieth century, we will consider only two. Their representatives not only constructed theoretical models of morality, but also drew practical normative conclusions from them.

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

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

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

Among the moral theories of the XX century. attention should be paid to "ethics of non-violence". Every ethic considers the renunciation of violence necessary. Since violence breeds retaliatory violence, it is a deliberately ineffective method of solving any kind of problem. Non-violence is not passivity, but special non-violent actions (sit-ins, marches, hunger strikes, distribution of leaflets and media appearances to popularize their position - non-violence advocates have developed dozens of such methods). Only morally strong and courageous people are capable of carrying out such actions, capable, thanks to the belief in their rightness, not to strike back. The motive of non-violence is love for enemies and faith in their best moral qualities. Enemies should be convinced of the wrongness, inefficiency and immorality of forceful methods and reach a compromise with them. The "ethics of non-violence" considers morality not as a weakness, but as a strength of a person, the ability to achieve goals.

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