Forms public consciousness: legal consciousness and moral consciousness(morality)

The forms of social consciousness are understood as various shapes reflection in the minds of people of the objective world and social existence, on the basis of which they arise in the process of practical activity.

Social consciousness exists and manifests itself in the forms of political consciousness, legal consciousness, moral consciousness, religious and atheistic consciousness, aesthetic consciousness, and natural scientific consciousness.

The existence of various forms of social consciousness is determined by the richness and diversity of the objective world itself - nature and society. Various forms of consciousness reflect the relations between classes, nations, social communities and groups, states and serve as the basis of political programs.

In science, specific laws of nature are learned. Art reflects the world in artistic images etc. Having a unique subject of reflection, each form of consciousness has its own special form of reflection: a scientific concept, a moral norm, a religious dogma, an artistic image.

But the richness and complexity of the objective world only create the possibility of the emergence of various forms of social consciousness. This opportunity is realized on the basis of a specific social need. Thus, science arises when the simple empirical accumulation of knowledge becomes insufficient for the development of social production. Political and legal views and ideas arose along with the class stratification of society.

Moral consciousness. Moral consciousness is one of the forms of social consciousness, which, like its other forms, is a reflection of social existence. It contains historically changing moral relations, which represent the subjective side of morality.

The basis of moral consciousness is the category of morality. Morality is a concept that is synonymous with morality, although in the theory of ethics there are also various interpretations these terms. For example, morality is considered as a form of consciousness, and morality is the sphere of morals, customs, and practical actions.

Morality arose earlier than other forms of social consciousness, even in primitive society, and acted as a regulator of people’s behavior in all spheres of public life: in everyday life, in work, in personal relationships. It had universal significance, extended to all members of the team and consolidated everything in common that constituted the value foundations of society, which formed the relationships between people. Morality supported social principles of life and forms of communication. It acted as a set of norms and rules of behavior developed by society. Moral rules were mandatory for everyone; they did not allow exceptions for anyone, because they reflected the essential living conditions of people, their spiritual needs. Morality reflects the relationship of a person to society, the relationship of a person to a person and the requirements of society to a person. It presents rules of behavior for people that determine their responsibilities to each other and to society.

Moral consciousness permeates all spheres of human activity. We can distinguish professional morality, everyday morality and family morality. At the same time, moral requirements have an ideological basis; they are associated with an understanding of how a person should behave. Moral behavior must be in accordance with relevant ideals and principles, while great importance here they have the concepts of good and evil, honor and dignity. Moral ideas are developed by society and can change as it develops and changes.

The main function of morality is to regulate the relationships of all members of society and social groups. Each person has certain needs (material and spiritual) and interests, the satisfaction of which may conflict with the needs and interests of other people or society as a whole. According to the “law of the jungle,” these contradictions could be resolved through the affirmation of the strongest. But such a resolution of conflicts could lead to the extermination of humanity. Therefore, the question arose about the need to approve a method for regulating conflict situations. A person was forced to combine his interests with the interests of society, he was forced to submit to the collective. If he did not obey the norms and rules of conduct in the tribe, then he should have left it, and this meant death. Therefore, the fulfillment of moral standards meant a significant stage in the development of mankind, and it is associated with the need for self-preservation.

In the process of moral development, certain principles and rules of behavior were developed, which were passed down from generation to generation; their observance was mandatory, and non-compliance was punished. In primitive society, morality and law were identical concepts, and the punishment system was harsh. With the division of society into classes, morality acquires a class character; each class has its own ideas about the norms and rules of behavior, which are determined by social and economic interests. Moral norms, reflected in the categories of good, evil, duty, conscience, honor, dignity, responsibility, have a specific historical content, determined by the level of development of society.

The concept of morality is dialectically changeable. F. Engels was right that “ideas about good and evil changed so much from people to people, from century to century, that they often directly contradicted one another.”

The content of morality is determined by the interests of specific social classes; at the same time, it should be noted that moral norms also reflect universal moral values ​​and principles. Such principles and norms as humanism, compassion, collectivism, honor, duty, loyalty, responsibility, generosity, gratitude, friendliness have a universal meaning. Moral norms of this kind are the basic rules of any society.

The modern world is becoming extremely interconnected and interdependent, so now, first of all, it is necessary to highlight universal Eternal values. Under these conditions, the role of morality as a form of social consciousness and a universal regulator of activity increases significantly. There is continuity in moral requirements associated with simple and understandable forms of human relations, such as not stealing, not killing, honoring parents, keeping promises, helping those in need, etc. And always, at all times, cowardice, betrayal, greed, cruelty, slander, and hypocrisy have been condemned.

Moral consciousness is studied by one of the philosophical disciplines - ethics. Ethics (Greek, from - morality, custom, habit) is a theory of morality, the science of morality, which studies human relationships, the meaning of life, the concept of happiness, good and evil, moral values, and the reasons for the emergence of morality. Already the ancient philosophers considered ethics as a practical philosophy, for it sought to substantiate thoughts about what should be in the form of moral principles and norms, in the form of ideals and spiritual needs. The term "ethics" was introduced by Aristotle.

In moral consciousness, two main principles should be distinguished: emotional and intellectual. The emotional principle is expressed in the form of attitude and worldview - these are moral feelings that represent a personal attitude towards various aspects of life. The intellectual principle is presented in the form of a worldview of moral norms, principles, ideals, awareness of needs, concepts of good, evil, justice, conscience.

The moral development of people becomes especially important due to the needs of modern society. Understanding universal human values ​​is possible only under the condition of the moral development of the individual, i.e. development in social terms, when it rises to the level of understanding of social justice.

Moral consciousness is connected with other forms of social consciousness, it influences them and, first of all, such a connection is visible with legal, political consciousness, aesthetic and religion. Moral consciousness and legal consciousness interact most closely. Both law and morality regulate relationships in society.

It should be noted that moral norms should not be dogmatic in the sense that morality could properly evaluate non-standard actions and phenomena; morality should not limit the freedom of individual development. A person’s moral consciousness can be ahead of its time, and people were very often pushed to fight against an unfairly structured world not only by economic reasons, but also by moral dissatisfaction with the existing situation, the desire to change and improve the world based on the principles of goodness and justice.

Legal awareness- this is one of the forms, types of social consciousness. Legal consciousness is most closely related to political consciousness, because both the political and economic interests of social groups are directly manifested in it. It has a significant impact on the economy, politics, and all aspects of social life.

Legal consciousness is understood as a system of knowledge and assessments through which the sphere of law is understood by social subjects (individuals, groups, classes). Legal consciousness performs regulatory, evaluative and cognitive functions in society.

Legal awareness is a form of social consciousness that reflects knowledge and assessments of the standards of socio-political activity of subjects of law accepted in society as legal laws: an individual, a collective, an enterprise.

Legal consciousness has a specific historical nature; it changes in connection with changes in the economic and political conditions of society, but at the same time, it should be noted that there is a significant continuity between the past and the present. Legal consciousness is closely connected with all forms of social consciousness, but most of all it interacts with political and moral consciousness. Legal consciousness is the means that guarantees the fulfillment of tasks and rules identified by political consciousness; it has the opposite effect on it. The legal consciousness of society helps to support the idea of ​​regulated relations between the individual and the state; it is necessary to establish law and order, to protect society from arbitrariness and anarchy. But if political consciousness is formed depending on socio-economic interests, then legal consciousness is also based on rational and moral assessments.

Legal consciousness arises with the advent of the political organization of society, law, and with the division of society into classes. It arose as a social order for the need for regulation public relations and served as a means of political stability of society. Legal awareness appeared as a need to have clear knowledge about the law, about its assessment by various social groups and classes. Legal awareness is related to law. This connection is explained by the common reasons for their occurrence, functioning and change. Legal awareness and law at the same time are not identical. Law is legal laws, it is a system of generally binding social norms protected by the power of the state. With the help of law, social forces that have state power in their hands regulate the behavior of people, groups, classes, and establish certain social relations as mandatory.

The fulfillment of the law is mandatory; it is ensured by state power. The rules of law regulate social relations, the participants of which are bearers of rights and obligations. Legal relations are relationships between individuals, organizations, government bodies, connected with each other by responsibilities and rights; they are guaranteed by law and reflect the measure of possible and proper behavior. Legal norms do not allow deviations from legal requirements. The law provides for civil, administrative, disciplinary and criminal liability for violations.

A legal state differs from a non-legal state in the content and quality of laws; they must be fairer, more humane, and enshrine the rights of every person. Man has these rights by nature. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” But freedom has a certain measure, i.e. implies a limitation. In society, this measure of freedom is expressed in the form of law and should be equal for everyone. Human rights express the possibilities of his actions in various spheres of life: political, economic, cultural, personal.

The rule of law constitutionally enshrines the freedom of people and their equality in rights as the innate qualities of every person. The inviolability of human rights, his honor and dignity, his interests, their protection and guarantee are the principles of the rule of law. In turn, the individual also undertakes to obey the general regulations of the state. In a rule-of-law state, the principle of mutual responsibility of the individual and the state is established. Unlike a non-legal state, a legal state manages society in a normative manner, i.e. through laws, the basis of which is civil society.

In creating the rule of law big role legal consciousness is intended to play a role.

Legal consciousness reflects those changes that occur in the sphere of both material and spiritual production, in the sphere of law. Legal awareness includes views, ideas about lawful and unlawful, legal and illegal, fair and unfair, as well as feelings and emotions.

The structure of legal consciousness includes such elements as legal ideology and legal psychology.

Legal ideology is designed to reflect the legal and related political reality quite deeply; it is characterized by consistency, logic, and the ability to predict. Legal ideology includes the theory of state and law, a system of knowledge about the legal basis, a theory of legal development based on an analysis of objective reality. Legal ideology, like any other ideology, is developed by specialist ideologists and legal scholars.

The formation of legal ideology is significantly influenced by the economic basis of society.

In the structure of legal consciousness, an important element is legal psychology, as a specific form of its manifestation, including feelings, moods, traditions, customs, public opinion, social habits and formed under the direct influence of a variety of social phenomena.

In the structure of legal consciousness, according to subjective criteria, one can distinguish individual, group and mass (for example, class) consciousness.

According to the level of reflection of reality, the following concepts can be distinguished: ordinary, professional and scientific legal consciousness. Ordinary legal consciousness is formed spontaneously in the everyday practice of people, as an empirical reflection of the legal and interconnected moral and political aspects of the life of society. Professional and theoretical legal consciousness are a reflection of the essential connections and patterns of reality and find their expression in legal science and other forms of consciousness (for example, political and moral).

In practice, everyday, professional and theoretical consciousness are very closely interconnected and interact, however, for philosophical understanding they need to be isolated and presented in a specific form. The named levels of legal consciousness cannot replace each other, but they interact very actively. For example, at the ordinary level of legal consciousness, the laws existing in society are considered and assessed from the standpoint of their compliance with moral standards, while professional and scientific legal thinking examines law from the standpoint of its political content and compliance with the principles of a rational state structure.

Legal consciousness is historical in nature, since legislative law itself is historically specific. But along with the changing aspects in legal consciousness, it also retains a stable constant characteristic - this is the idea of ​​​​society, based on specific legal relations. Legal awareness is intended to support this idea, which regulates the relations between classes, social groups, individuals and the state. At the same time, the specificity of legal consciousness lies in the fact that it not only reflects existing law, but can also critically evaluate the current legal system and can put forward its moral and legal ideal as a symbol of justice.

Etymologically, the term "morality" goes back to the Latin word "mos" ( plural"mores"), meaning "temper". Another meaning of this word is law, rule, regulation. In modern philosophical literature, morality is understood as morality, a special form of social consciousness and a type of social relations; one of the main ways to regulate human actions in society through norms.

Morality arises and develops based on the need of society to regulate the behavior of people in various spheres of their lives. Morality is considered one of the most available ways people’s understanding of the complex processes of social existence. The fundamental problem of morality is the regulation of relationships and interests of the individual and society.

Moral ideals, principles and norms arose from people’s ideas about justice, humanity, goodness, public good, etc. The behavior of people that corresponded to these ideas was declared moral, the opposite - immoral. In other words, what is moral is what people believe is in the interests of society and individuals. What brings the most benefit. Naturally, these ideas changed from century to century, and, moreover, they were different among representatives of different strata and groups. This is also where the specificity of morality among representatives of various professions comes from. All of the above gives grounds to say that morality has a historical, social-class and professional character.

The scope of morality is wide, but, nevertheless, the wealth of human relationships can be reduced to relationships:

Individual and society;

Individual and collective;

Team and society;

Team and team;

Man and man;

A person to himself.

Thus, in resolving moral issues, not only collective, but also individual consciousness is competent: the moral authority of someone depends on how correctly he understands the general moral principles and ideals of society and the historical necessity reflected in them. The objectivity of the foundation allows the individual to independently, to the extent of his own consciousness, perceive and implement social demands, make decisions, develop rules of life for himself and evaluate what is happening. Here the problem of the relationship between freedom and necessity arises. The correct determination of the general basis of morality does not yet mean the unambiguous derivation of specific moral norms and principles from it or the direct following of the individual “historical trend.” Moral activity includes not only the implementation, but also the creation of new norms and principles, finding the ideals and ways of their implementation that best suit modern times.

Morality as a form of social consciousness

It is pointless to look for an exact definition of the essence of morality; this was tried unsuccessfully in ancient times. We can only outline the basic framework of concepts that “make up” this science:

Moral activity is the most important component of morality, manifested in actions. An action, or a set of actions that characterizes a person’s behavior, gives an idea of ​​his true morality. Thus, only the activity and implementation of moral principles and norms give an individual the right to recognition of his true moral culture. The action, in turn, contains three components:

Motive is a morally conscious urge to commit an act or motivation is a set of motives that means a preference for certain values ​​in moral choice, the individual performing the act. For example, ...Two friends, workers of the Oxygen Plant, were sitting at the evaporator. It was a hot summer. One of them said: “It would be nice to cool down now!” Another quickly opened the damper, as a result of which the speaker was frozen alive by the oxygen vapor escaping...

It would seem that in this case there are no direct incentives to commit a crime, and here the criminal result does not coincide with the motives and goals of the action. Here the motivation, at first glance, is inadequate to the committed act. This act can rather be called motiveless, however, the “convolution of the motive”, its situational conditionality does not mean its absence. In this impulsive action there was no criminal goal or corresponding motive, but here the stereotypical readiness to act frivolously, thoughtlessly, under the influence of individual isolated ideas was at work...

Result is the material or spiritual consequences of an action that have a certain meaning.

Evaluation by others of both the act itself and its result and motive. An action is assessed in relation to its social significance: its meaning for a particular person, people, team, society, etc.

Consequently, an act is not just any action, but a subjectively motivated action that has meaning for someone and therefore evokes a certain attitude (evaluation). An action may be moral, immoral or non-moral, but nevertheless assessable. For example, ... raising a unit to attack is moral, but if the attack is reckless and will lead to senseless death, then this act is not only immoral, but also criminal.

Moral (ethical) relations are relationships into which people enter when committing actions. Moral relations represent a dialectic between the subjective (motives, interests, desires) and the objective (norms, ideals, mores) that have to be taken into account, and which have an imperative character for individuals. When entering into moral relations, people assign themselves certain moral obligations and at the same time assign themselves moral rights.

Moral consciousness - includes cognition, knowledge, volitional impulse and the determining influence on moral activity and moral relations. This also includes: moral self-awareness, moral self-esteem. Moral consciousness is always axiological, because in each of its elements it contains an assessment from the position of an established system of values ​​and is based on a certain set of moral norms, models, principles of traditions and ideals. Moral consciousness, as a system of assessments with plus or minus signs, reflects reality through the prism of approval and condemnation, through the opposition of good and evil, attitude and activity, intentions - these categories are of paramount importance in matters of ethics. Aristotle, for the first time in European ethics, comprehensively examined the concept of “intention,” understood it precisely as the basis of virtue and consciously contrasted it, distinguished it from will and idea. Intention does not deal with what is impossible to achieve, but is aimed at what is in the power of man, it concerns the means of achieving the goal (one cannot say: I intend to be blessed) in contrast to the will in general, which can deal with the impossible (the desire for immortality , for example), and direct to what is beyond our control (the desire for victory for this or that athlete in a competition), concerns a person’s goals. The rational grain of Aristotle's thought, according to which intention concerns the means, and will - the goals of human activity, is that the content of intention can, as a rule, be feasible, real goals, taken in unity with the means of achieving them. Intention is also not a representation. The first is always practically oriented, highlighting in the world only what is in the power of man, the second extends to everything: both the eternal and the impossible; the first is distinguished by good and evil, the second by truth and falsity; the first is an instruction to action, talks about what to achieve and what to avoid, what to do with the object; the second analyzes what the object itself is and how it is useful; the first is praised when it is in accordance with duty, the second when it is true; the first concerns what is known, the second what is unknown to us. In addition, it completes its comparative characteristics Aristotle, the best intentions and the best ideas are not found in the same people. Aristotle sees his own essential sign of intention in the fact that it is preceded by a preliminary choice, a weighing of motives, by which he, first of all, understands the different motivating role of reason and pleasure: “It is something that is chosen preferentially over others.”

Human morality as a special form of human relations has been developing for a long time. This perfectly characterizes interest

society towards it and the importance attached to morality as a form of social consciousness. Naturally, moral standards varied from era to era, and attitudes towards them were always ambiguous.

A person acquires qualitative certainty and his social status as his relationships with other people in society are formed. In this process of communication and life activity with others, a social person is formed, shaped not only by name, but also by content.

The need for social communication that provides social significance to each person, uniting people with an attitude of understanding, trust and mutual respect, is the real basis of morality. This need is rightly called the need for humanity.

The origins of morality should be sought in the era of antiquity, when there was a turn in philosophy to the problem of man, when Protagoras, through his thesis “Man is the measure of all things,” outlined the priority of the human. It is not being in the world that sets the measure for a person, but a person determines the measure by declaring his value guidelines. Measure is considered as a condition for regulating a person’s relationship to the world, where evil is perceived as immensity, and good as moderation.

A sense of proportion does not come on its own. It needs to be mastered. Democritus already notes that the main objective education is to master the measure: “Happy is not the one who has a lot, but the one who knows the measure. He who knows the measure has the art of turning even evil into good.”

The thesis that “virtue is knowledge” is developed by Socrates, bringing it to the moral sovereignty of the individual. A person, as part of his life activities, must be guided by well-thought-out beliefs.

Plato not only shares the position of his teacher, but also reveals the problem of the internal connection between the virtue of an individual and his social existence, declaring the need to search for a harmonious combination of individual virtue and social justice.

A virtuous person is an expression of perfection. A perfect person builds virtuous relationships with the world, recognizing the interests of other people as legitimate as his own.

In the process of his life, a perfect person, according to Aristotle, adheres to the “golden mean”, avoiding both lack and excess. He is characterized by friendliness, courage, truthfulness, evenness, justice, moderation, generosity, and ambition.

The image of a perfect person is the sphere of obligation, but such an obligation that is within the limits of what is possible for any person as a “reasonable or polis person.”

The Middle Ages took the criteria of good and evil beyond the boundaries of man. Virtue does not need to be learned, you do not need to cultivate the character of a perfect person. We need to learn to accept moral standards, which are the commandments of God. Morality was given before the existence of man. Its norms are universally valid, unconditional and absolute.

Morality as a form of social consciousness (Ethics of New Times)

Modern ethics tries to combine antiquity and the Middle Ages in their views on morality, answering the question how morality, as a property of an individual person, becomes a universally binding socially organizing force and how can this force block the egoism of an individual person? The rationalism of the New Age connects the answer to the question posed with hope in Reason. Only Reason, in the form of enlightenment and upbringing, is capable of curbing the anarchy of egoism and making the transition from the individual to the race, from evil to good, combining individual virtue and social justice, which I so dreamed of ancient philosopher Plato.

But practical reality often demonstrated not harmony, but confrontation between the individual and society, which allowed I. Kant to declare the indestructibility of people’s egoism and the absence of true virtue. Therefore, morality as a universal connection cannot be derived from experience. It cannot be a teaching about what exists, it is a teaching about what should be. The basis of morality is the categorical imperative of a priori origin: "... act only in accordance with such a maxim, guided by which you can at the same time wish that it becomes a universal law"

If I. Kant categorically denied morality the right to be a doctrine of existence, then another representative of classical German philosophy, G. Hegel, drew attention to the difference between morality and mores, ideal and actual forms of social communication between people. Morality, according to Hegel, is an expression of existence, fixed by tradition, mores, and morality is an expression of what should be.

Having noticed the important, essential aspects of the problem of morality, both thinkers consider morality as a kind of abstraction, while in reality morality is included in the living fabric of the interests of man and society, and each era puts its own content into it.

Thus, in the conditions of a primitive society, morality is a property of human life. The content of morality is provided by consanguineous relationships. Morality appears as a natural state of a person, which he does not even suspect, because he is deprived of personal certainty. The status of primitive man is a tribal being, bound by a single system of prohibitions, direct collectivism and egalitarian equality.

The division of labor, the emergence of private property, family and state create conditions in which the individual acquires qualitative certainty, socio-historical specificity. At this time, egoism develops as a kind of social and moral state of a person, which determines a certain way of communication between people, where one considers the other as a means of achieving their goals. Selfishness is not a natural property of man, but a property of a society based on private property. The capitalist mode of production gives rise to the fetishization of goods, money and capital. Transforming into an independent and dominant form, capital provokes the emergence of the phenomenon of alienation. Carrying out someone else's will, the worker turns from a subject of activity into a bearer of burdensome labor, when both the work itself and its results turn into an independent force that dominates a person and is hostile to him.

From now on, it is not society that serves people, but people that serve Leviathan, performing one function or another. In place of genuine subjectivity (individuality) comes role-playing pseudo-subjectivity as a derivative of the world of things and “personified” social relations. The inversion of social relations from a support system to a self-sufficiency system includes a mechanism for personification of relationships and depersonification of the individual, turning him into a “partial” person.

The existence of a “partial” man is not genuine, because the world of things and vanity obscure his historicity from man. He begins to live in a world of illusions, creating not real projects, but mythical ones. Focusing on the principle of “here and only now,” this person loses his face and dissolves in the material-natural or social environment. Moreover, he himself is inclined to consider himself as a thing, to determine his value.

The specificity of inauthentic being, as M. Heidegger notes, is the peculiar structure of interhuman relations. A person of inauthentic being is oriented towards the idea of ​​interchangeability. This interchangeability (mentally putting oneself in the place of another, and anyone else in his place) creates a precedent for the first step towards the formation of the phenomenon of averageness.

Under the illusion of interchangeability, another phenomenon is born. This “other” through whom the “I” views itself is not a specific person. He is “different in general,” but, nevertheless, under the sign of his dominant, a specific personality is formed. Concretization of the individual under the sign of the “other” increases his dominance. This is how the third phenomenon is born - the psychological setting of a false guideline “like everyone else.” In inauthentic being, this “other in general,” being a quasi-subject, acquires the status of a genuine subject, whom M. Heidegger calls “Das Man.” Das Man is a man of everyday life, of the street.

He is devoid of his individuality. This is a person of the so-called “mass society”, where everyone wants to be “the same as the other, and not themselves.”

In a society of inauthentic existence, no one tries to break out of the mass, to part with the psychology of the crowd, no one will feel a sense of responsibility for their actions within the crowd. Such a society is fertile ground for political adventures and the emergence of totalitarian regimes.

The indisputable conclusion that as a result of alienation a person loses his individuality, and the product of his activity increases the demonic power of personalized social relations, carries with it the false idea that alienation is produced only in the system of material production. And if this is so, then the means of its abolition should be sought there. In reality, in the sphere of material production, most often there is a single alienation, less often - local and, as an exception - total.

As for alienation at the level of power structures and culture, the possibility of total alienation here is more likely the rule than the exception. Due to relative independence, any power system (family, state, party, church) strives for self-worth, and now the family turns into an isolated “monad”, and the state becomes a bureaucratized Leviathan.

Culture can also bear the possibility of total alienation when it turns from a factor of unity of people into an instrument of their disunity, when not one of its faces fulfills its universal purpose - to be a system for ensuring people’s livelihoods; when science becomes "Samoyed", art turns into a game of lies and stupidity, and philosophy is no longer "an era captured in thought."

In conditions when a person is content with surrogates of culture, is a hostage of politicians, an object of manipulation in the hands of the state, ekes out a miserable existence because he is alienated from property, it is difficult to preserve his “I”. And since social production turns a person into a kind of social function, into a kind of one-dimensionality, then he is tempted to go with the flow, to prefer the inauthentic to authentic being.

But the practice of social reality shows that not all people and do not always lose their human appearance even in a situation of extreme alienation. The mechanism of selective ability to choose your path in life is triggered, focusing on universal human values ​​or the values ​​of the current moment. A person always has the choice to rise to transcendental heights or sink to a bestial state. This guideline forms the moral consciousness of an individual person.

The private property guideline sets the trend of social development, but does not exclude a disinterested beginning in this development. Morality has moved to an ideal (desired conceivable) form, breaking away from the mores of the current moment. It reflects not what exists today, but what is social, gathered through centuries of effort. And this universal human value sets, through its values, a worldview guide to the desired future, and acts as a standard for the morals of a specific people, a specific time.

Morality, being a special form of consciousness, has its own structure - a system of forms that increase in the degree of their generalization and independence from the specific situation. The structure includes: a norm - a system of norms - moral qualities - a moral ideal - moral principles - concepts that define the normative meaning of social reality (justice, social ideal, meaning of life) are concepts that set a special level of personal development (duty, honor, dignity, responsibility).

The structure of morality focuses on a specific requirement for human behavior. The specificity of this requirement is that it is universal, universal in nature, removes the distinction between subject and object, represents the highest level of conditionality, and has its sanctions in the form of public opinion, focused on what should be.

The logic of morality as a special form of consciousness is the logic of obligation. It orients a person to the opportunity to design himself through his efforts, to create his life activity, having understood his meaning of life and choosing his way of life, his understanding of the contradiction between what is and what should be.

Since morality as a form of consciousness is included in the structure of social consciousness, where one of the forms sets the benchmark for the reflection of social existence (philosophy in antiquity, religion in the Middle Ages, politics in the present), then morality, having a universal basis, bears the stamp of its time , and the form that dominates the structure of public consciousness. And in order to understand the content of morality, its nature in relation to a specific time, one should take into account all the factors influencing morality. This is the only way to understand the reason for the metamorphosis of certain moral norms, their camouflage.

Since morality has a double determination: dependence on universal human values ​​and dependence on specific social existence, this sets the particularity of morality, its specificity. She (morality) “sees,” reflects and diagnoses the state of existence through the abstractions of goodness and humanity. Carrying within itself the antithesis of what is and what should be, morality claims to help alienated individuals find worthy meaning in their lives.

Does morality have levels of everyday and theoretical consciousness, social psychology and ideology? - Without a doubt. The mechanism of interconnection between levels is practically the same as in the previously discussed political consciousness. Only political consciousness even advertises its ideology, and morality, due to the noted features, hides it. But deciphering universal human values ​​as the ontological basis of morality indicates their ideological affiliation. The Ten Commandments of Moses, the Sermon on the Mount of Christ, the “golden rule” of Confucius, and other moral requirements indicate that morality developed as an ethical theory through the efforts of the ideologists of their time.

As for the relationship between morality as a form of social consciousness and the moral consciousness of the individual, within the limits of this relationship, morality acts as an ideal form of humanity, orienting the individual towards a critical attitude towards society and himself.

Morality ensures the convergence of public and personal interests, coordinates the relationship between the individual and society, between individuals. Through individual consciousness, morality rises to the level of morality, and morality is enshrined in morals.

Conclusion

Moral consciousness, generated by the needs of social development, as a means of regulating the social life of people and their relationships, is designed to serve these needs. Being a form of reflection of reality, moral consciousness, like other forms of social consciousness, can be true or false; the criterion of its truth is practice. However, it has some specific properties. First of all, it can have an active impact on people's everyday behavior. Moral ideas, principles, ideals are woven into human activity, acting as motives for actions. Unlike science, moral consciousness operates mainly at the level of social psychology and everyday consciousness. Moral consciousness and moral knowledge are mandatory.

Moral feelings, multiplied by the theoretical elements of moral consciousness, manifest themselves and, being repeatedly realized in actions, are ultimately consolidated in a person as his moral qualities, holistic spiritual and practical formations that manifest themselves in a variety of spheres of human life. What they become depends on us.

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1. The essence and main features of morality

3. Morality in modern society.

Morality (moral) is a form of social consciousness, the basis of human spiritual existence. It is a set of historically established norms, rules, customs, traditions and principles governing proper behavior. Through morality, through morality, a person manifests himself as a rational, conscious, free and responsible being. Morality expresses certain real relationships that exist between people. As well as people’s attitudes towards various forms of human communities, such as family, labor collective, nation, society. Morality reveals itself in actions, it reveals itself in what we do, how we live. The most important functions of morality are the education of a person, the regulation of relations between people, and the maintenance of social foundations. Morality is aimed at establishing the self-worth of the individual, at establishing harmony between personal and public interests, at establishing the equality of all people in their quest for a happy life. a decent life. Morality expresses the ideal of humanity. It expresses the humanistic orientation of social development. Morality is viewed in relation to a person primarily as an external authority, as an external precept that guides human behavior. Morality requires achieving compatibility between personal and common interests. Or orientation towards the common good and public interests. There are two sides to morality: objective and subjective. The objective side reflects the conditioning of morality by objective factors, including social relations, the idea of ​​good, this may be due to faith in God. This objective side of morality determines the responsibility of a person. The subjective side of morality is morality, this is the moral consciousness of individual individuals, it will reflect the requirements of public morality for the individual, the extent of their assimilation by the individual and is realized in his behavior. Morality is an empirical level of morality; human morality is inextricably linked with the moral state of society. Moral values ​​cannot appear on their own; they must be formulated and instilled in the population. If a society does not have stable moral norms enshrined in the public consciousness, then they cannot appear among individuals. A moral personality must be cultivated mainly by example. That. Morality stems from the individual’s responsibility not only to society, but also to himself.

Nietzsche: “Many people from birth do not have a moral sense, they are insane, they cannot be re-educated or remade”

In the middle of the 1st millennium BC. in a number of regions of the world the basic principle of morality was born " Golden Rule morality": do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you. On the other hand, treat others as you would like them to treat you. In a truncated form, these rules are given in the commandments of the Bible. The rule is aimed at a healthy normal person.

Religion connects morality with God and gives it absolute existential meaning. If morality is an empirical level of morality, then the theoretical level - ethics - philosophical science about morality, she explores its place in the system of social sciences and relations, analyzes its natural structure, the origin of morality; Kant considered the main thing in ethics to be the theoretical justification of proper behavior. Ethics gives an understanding of existence that tells a person what he must do in order to be a human being. Human existence can either be ethically oriented or not at all. In morality, a person appears as an existential quantity; with his ethical actions, a person creates being, creates social reality. That. ontology, that is, the science of being, already contains an ethical principle. A person’s moral orientation is initially contained in his thoughts. To think means to highlight an area of ​​morally significant existence. Ontology is ethical, and ethics is ontological. Morality is the area of ​​such actions that a person sets for himself in order to become a human being. To find true existence. Human existence arose at the moment when primitive man first said NO to himself. That is, he set certain boundaries and showed the ability to subordinate the elements of instinct to the voice of morality. Morality imposes internal restrictions on human willfulness. Man has created a world of moral requirements, which are basic social values; they express what is sacred for a person and on the basis of which he makes his choice. Moral standards allow a person to choose a decent lifestyle; the specific features of morality are:

1) moral assessment of actions and motives for them. The basis for such an assessment is the prevailing ideas in society about basic moral values, such as good, evil, duty, justice and injustice, honor and dishonor - the main ethical categories.

2) unlike law, the principles and norms of morality are not fixed in state legislation; their implementation is not based on the law, they are supported by the power of public opinion, the power of mass habits, moral control in society, they are called upon to exercise family, state, collective, educational and cultural institutions, media, etc. The role of these institutions has been significantly undermined; as a result, the moral index today is two times lower than in 1990. The most important task is the revival of moral control.

3) in contrast to the norms of law, moral requirements are developed directly by mass consciousness, in moral consciousness they take the form of impersonal obligation. An unwritten law that applies to all people. The social will is hidden in morality, the principles of morality are formed as a universal law that applies to all people, they do not allow exceptions and compromises, they claim to be universal and absolute.

4) morality primarily speaks not about what should be done, but about what cannot be done! this makes morality a timeless substance. Morality is an internal system of taboos and prohibitions that exists in us, which connects us with the entire past of humanity. Without this, the connection of times, the connection of generations would be broken. Thanks to this connection, we perceive the dramaturgy of Sophocles, this is the unity of the human race. Morality, ethics, the whole system of taboos that was in ancient society works today and will work in the future, otherwise humanity will not be able to exist at all. Guidance by moral norms does not exclude moral conflicts, moral contradictions; these moral contradictions can arise when moral norms and real life situations collide, and also when these norms collide with each other, in these conditions moral suffering arises. To be moral and not know what stagnation is is nonsense (existentialists). Moral norms and principles consolidate the centuries-old experience of people associated with their joint life activities; moral norms develop spontaneously, they are honed in the practice of communication between people. They pass through the crucible of natural selection and are transmitted mainly orally through education and example from generation to generation. Schweitzer saw the source of morality in the crystallization of the historical experience of mankind. People developed a system moral values, which allowed them to live together, allowed them to evaluate events, learn lessons, etc.

In the process of historical development, the main categories of ethics were developed: good and evil, duty, conscience, happiness, love and hate, shame.

The initial categories are good and evil. They are the most generalized form of differentiation and contrast between moral and immoral. In the concept of goodness, people express their most important interests, aspirations, wishes and hopes for the future, everything that contributes to the happiness of people. Huseynov: Good is activity in a space that is fenced off by moral prohibitions. Good for believers is absolute; it is identified with the divine in man. Evil is what contradicts morality, what deserves condemnation, evil is the most generalized and abstract expression of a person’s negative moral qualities. Evil is identified with misanthropy, treachery, etc. They are identified with the satanic in man. Good and evil, the divine and the devil, wage a constant struggle in the human soul. Evil is not in the world, Dostoevsky wrote, but in the soul of a person who spills it out into the world. God and the devil are fighting, and the arena of this fight is the hearts of people.

Morality as a form of social consciousness is born in a system of specific historical social relations, is their spiritual product, the sum of rules, requirements, norms governing interactions between people, their attitude towards things and phenomena real world. Morality, relying on the power of public opinion, uses spiritual encouragement, compulsion, inducement, condemnation, influences the consciousness of people, educates them in the spirit of moral laws accepted in society. The morality of a particular person is a mastered, internally accepted social morality that regulates his individual behavior, based on ideological beliefs and a sense of conscience.
Scientific concept of the origin, essence of morality and moral education developed, for example, in the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of the forms of social consciousness. This theory emphasizes the concrete historical nature of morality, questions the idea of ​​eternal and unchanging morality, and emphasizes its objective class character. The analysis of the relationship and interaction of class and universal morality retains its scientific, theoretical and practical significance today,
In connection with the introduction in our society of a multistructure, a variety of forms of ownership, there is social stratification, and with it the divergence of ideas, concepts about moral principles and moral behavior. So, for example, in some social layers a negative attitude towards the exploitation of man by man remains; in others, they see nothing immoral in partial exploitation, in the creation of a reserve army of the unemployed, in the polarization of wealth and poverty.
At the same time, one cannot help but see that, compared with the period of the October Revolution, changes have occurred in the field of economics and the entire ideological superstructure. The society has accumulated experience of centralized planning and moral and political unity. A number of common spiritual and moral values ​​have been developed. All this makes it possible today to talk about the priority of universal moral imperatives over class ones. The bitter experience of today’s growth in social tension also encourages us to understand the need for moral unity in society. devastating consequences strikes, ethnic clashes. Global processes and interactions also contribute to the priority of universal human values. This is the unity of the world economic economy and the division of labor, the ecological unity of the planet, the unity of culture, the danger of nuclear war, the inability to cope alone with hunger, disease, and the consequences of natural disasters. All this, of course, does not remove the problems of social-class confrontation between people and the class approach to morality. However, in the dialectical interaction of class and universal human imperatives, universal human interests and values ​​come to the fore, free people from class blindness, and allow them to look at class confrontations and confrontations through the prism of new thinking.
The moral consciousness of a person in unity with his emotional sphere and behavior is a complex phenomenon. It consists of primary moral ideas, which become more complex and enriched over the course of life, and are integrated into moral concepts. However, the core of human morality is moral feeling, feelings, and conscience. An immoral individual may have fairly clear ideas about moral standards. But a person cannot be immoral if he has a developed moral sense, the ability to experience moral feelings and torment of conscience. Moral feeling is inextricably linked with the moral ideal, the ideal idea of ​​human behavior and his attitude to life. Perfect. active, creative fulfillment of the moral demands of society is the moral ideal.
On the way to moral ideal teenagers, boys and girls, experience moral quests, search for themselves, knowledge of their essence, determination of their place in complex, contradictory moral relations, knowledge of themselves, determination of a moral position, manifestation of moral will. Moral quests constantly present schoolchildren with a moral choice in large and small matters between principled and unprincipled behavior.
The most important components of moral consciousness and behavior are moral need and will, desire, perseverance, ability to realize moral choice in life. Outside of moral will there can be no moral behavior. Blind obedience. thoughtless execution leads to weakness of will, spinelessness and, ultimately, immorality. Only conviction, agreement with one’s own conscience and strong-willed firmness together provide the possibility of a truly moral act.
The final component of moral consciousness and behavior are moral skills and habits that arise and are consolidated in the child’s nervous system as a kind of result of the entire set of moral attitudes and behavior. A state of habitual moral consciousness and behavior occurs when immoral acts, especially within the framework of simple norms, become practically impossible. Moral behavior becomes habitual, ordinary, and does not require control.
Morality is inextricably linked with other forms of social consciousness. It is especially closely intertwined with law. Moral education ensures law-abiding behavior of students. The educational function of art, in addition to the development of artistic taste, also lies in the moral formation of the student’s personality. Science contributes to the moral education of children and encourages them to serve people. All religious teachings have always been and are a way of introducing a certain morality into the consciousness of people. On the basis of morality as a form of social consciousness and influence, pedagogical theories and systems of moral education exist and are being developed.

Morality as a form of social consciousness.

In the understanding of morality R.G. Apresyan identified several approaches and several levels:

1. Nihilism, a hedonistic protest against morality that imposes the “principle of reality,” which imposes a ban (restrictions) on receiving any or even some pleasures. For a hedonistically oriented personality, the main thing is the possibility of unlimited self-development, while morality as an ordering rule, a general pattern is perceived as nothing more than guardianship;

2. Protest against the prohibitiveness or indispensability of a norm, a critical attitude towards generally accepted norms of behavior that exist and are spontaneously reproduced in morals. Morality is usually understood as a rebellion against everyday life, as an opportunity for creative self-realization of the individual. Virtue is not subject to a rule, it is its own rule;

3. Statement of the extreme importance of morality as an appropriate interaction in society. Morality is a set of “rules of behavior” that are adequate to the needs and goals of society;

4. Regulatory morality. Morality is interpreted not as a force of supra-individual control over the behavior of citizens, but as a mechanism of inter-individual interaction developed by people themselves and enshrined in the “social agreement”, supporting “parity of freedoms”. Moral regulation is a system of requirements and prohibitions, which appears to be a horizontal structure, in contrast to state legislation, which is essentially a network of mutual obligations that people, as citizens of one state, have undertaken in order to maintain the integrity of the system and fairly satisfy the interests of all citizens;

5. Moral regulation as motivation. In this meaning of morality, restriction and prohibition remain in the shadows, and motivation comes to the fore. Any rationing, as soon as a certain standard is established, even in the form of an abstractly declared ideal, thereby points to the unacceptable, that is, the forbidden. Any rationing, in other words, represents a limitation of specific actions by the generalized experience of such actions, in morality and similar value-regulatory systems - the axiomatized experience of culture. In the field of social ethics, the key ideas of which are related to the rights and obligations of a person, individual freedom is largely expressed in respect for the freedom of others, and this respect essentially consists in the fact that the individual imposes certain restrictions on his own actions. A moral demand does not imply a threat; its sanction is ideal character, it is addressed to man as a conscious and free subject;

6. Mutual and self-restraints imposed by morality indicate its peculiarity that the requirements and norms of morality determine the form of volition. It directly depends on the person whether he will fulfill the requirement or not. By fulfilling the demand, he seems to proclaim it himself. However, this feature of non-institutionalized forms of normative regulation of activity was understood long before differentiated definitions of morality:

At the same time, all the restrictions that a person voluntarily imposes on himself, and the actions that he performs in fulfillment of the requirement, have a moral meaning under the indispensable condition that he acts in the confidence of his rightness.

Morality plays special role in the life of society, in regulating the behavior of its members. Morality is a form of social consciousness that reflects the views and ideas, norms and assessments of the behavior of individuals, social groups and society as a whole.

Along with law, morality plays the role of a regulator of people’s behavior, but at the same time it has distinctive features:

1. Morality is a regulatory system that is mandatory for each formational and civilizational stage of development of society. Law is an attribute only of “state” formations, in which morality itself cannot provide the appropriate public order people's behavior;

2. Moral standards of behavior are supported only public opinion, legal norms - with all their might state power. Accordingly, moral sanction (approval or condemnation) has an ideal-spiritual character: a person must be aware of the assessment of his behavior by public opinion, understand it internally and adjust his behavior for the future. Legal sanction (reward or punishment) takes on the character of a compulsory measure of social influence;

3. The categories of legal and moral systems are fundamentally different from each other. If the main categories of law are legal and illegal, lawful and unlawful, then the main evaluative categories of morality and ethics are good, evil, justice, duty, happiness, conscience, honor, dignity, the meaning of life;

4. Moral standards also apply to relationships between people that are not regulated by government agencies (friendship, partnership, love, etc.)

With the advent class society morality in many of its manifestations takes on a class character, not only in its content, but also in its subject: one can absolutely speak about the morality of the ruling classes and the morality of the oppressed classes. In this regard, historical types of morality can be distinguished: the morality of slave owners and the morality of slaves, the morality of feudal lords and the morality of serfs, the morality of the bourgeoisie and the morality of the proletariat.

In the ethical and philosophical tradition, morality is usually understood as a dichotomy of good and evil, as such an aspect of activity in which a person’s desire for good and aversion from evil are manifested. With this approach to morality, what is significant is what a person does, what results his actions lead to, and not what a person should be as a subject of morality, how morality acts on him, what is the nature of the requirement for him, what social and cultural mechanisms guarantee its implementation.

The basic concepts of morality are “good” and “evil”, “justice”, “right” and “wrong”, “honor”, ​​“duty”, “shame”, “conscience”, “ “happiness”, etc.
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In the history of society, the content of the category of morality has changed. People had different understandings, for example, of what “good” or “happiness” was. At the same time, it remained undoubted that the highest values ​​are goodness, conscience, justice, honor, duty, and human happiness. Based on appropriate ideas, people developed rules or commandments, principles of behavior, attitudes towards their own kind and towards society as a whole. A number of such rules (commandments) are formulated in religion.

In the philosophical tradition, good has been understood in different ways: as pleasure, profit, benefit, common good, glory, solidarity, perfection, humanity, etc.

The concept of good reflects in the form of an abstract moral idea that which should be and deserves approval; people express their most common interests, wishes, and hopes for the future in the concept of good. Good is a given moral expression of what contributes to the happiness of people.

The famous Russian religious philosopher V.S. spoke beautifully about the significance of the moral category of good in the system of human spiritual values. Soloviev (1853 – 1900):

The concept of “good” is opposed to the concept of “evil”. The concept of “evil” is a category, which in its content is the opposite of good. Good and evil manifest themselves as normatively evaluative concepts and phenomena, and based on what is subject to evaluation, they distinguish virtues that have moral value and vices that do not contain it. The most well-known virtue complexes include wisdom, courage, moderation, justice; Christian virtues of faith, hope, love, repentance, humility, mercy and compassion; the virtues of the ethics of nonviolence; tolerance, agreement, understanding. Manifestations of goodness in life are associated with the values ​​of health, peace, ideas of altruism, voluntariness, obligation, and treating a person as a goal. Manifestations of evil include various forms of deviation and destructiveness, hostility and indifference towards a person, treating him as a means, sinfulness and depravity, and selfish orientations.

However, using the categories of “good” and “evil” interpreted in a certain way, people evaluate a person’s actions, moral qualities personality, relationships between people, the state of society as a whole. Good and evil, complementing each other, always exist in unity, acting as one of the attributive, fundamental signs of social and individual existence.

Ethics, which is the science of morality, deals with the study of various understandings and interpretations of good and evil. Ethics is aimed at the theoretical justification of morality as a set of generally valid principles, norms and rules of human behavior in society. She explores the place of morality in the system of other social relations, analyzes its nature and internal structure, studies the origin and historical development morality.

Moreover, moral norms as regulators provide not just the ordering of social life, but are aimed at striving for a spiritualized existence. Universal human values ​​of goodness, truth, love, justice, duty, beauty, etc. represent what is most valuable to people, what they strive for, what they would like, what without which their life is meaningless. Without an orientation towards these values, without a transition to a new, noospheric thinking and way of life on the principles of non-violence, without abandoning the dominance of the values ​​of technogenic civilization, the future of humanity will not rise to a new level of spirituality.

Questions for self-control:

1. What forms of spirituality do you know? Which of these forms dominates the culture of modern society?

2. Trace the development of forms of spiritual life, starting from primitive society and ending with modernity.

3. Is it possible to conclude that modern society V sufficiently spiritually and spiritually developed?

4. Identify the levels of social consciousness.

5. Reveal the interaction of public and individual consciousness.

6. What norms - morality or law - in your opinion, are more powerful in the conditions of modern Russian society?

2.6. Basic Concepts historical process. Formational and civilizational approaches to history

Morality as a form of social consciousness. - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Morality as a form of social consciousness." 2017, 2018.