“It’s a crime to film a people’s favorite in a hospital, in critical condition,” Alexander Rosenbaum. People have completely lost their conscience! Modern ethical theory
The article examines the historical forms of morality. The specificity of ancient virtue ethics is shown, it is explored what problems were solved in medieval ethics and in what new perspective the ethics of modern times began to consider morality. The shortcomings of the universalist approach in ethics are shown. Based on a comparison of the features of ethical thought in different historical eras The author concludes that the development of ethical codes and the convergence of morality with law do not exclude the importance of virtue ethics. Instead, virtue ethics and institutional morality are complementary components. The most important feature of solving applied issues is the development of the decision-making mechanism, which means an increasing role of subjective motivation. The methodology used is the historical consideration of morality, the method of systemic research, and the principle of complementarity.
Keywords: morality, ethics, motivation, institutions, virtue, decisions, responsibility, discourse.
The article considers the historical forms of morality. It shows the specific features of ancient virtue ethics, examines which tasks were solved by the medieval ethics and what new perspective was disclosed in the Ethics of New Time. The limitations of the universalist approach in Ethics are also revealed. On the basis of comparative studies of different Ethical paradigms the author concludes that the development of ethical codes and a partial unification between moral and law does not mean the lowering of virtue ethics. On the contrary, the virtue ethics and institutional moral are complementary components. The main feature of the solutions of applied tasks is the elaboration of decision-making procedure. This implies an increasing role of subjective motivation. The methodology is based on historical consideration of morality, involves the method of system research, and complementary principle.
Keywords: moral, Ethics, motivation, institutions, virtue, solutions, responsibility, discourse.
Ancient ethics mainly developed as a theory of virtues. Virtue is a moral concept that characterizes the qualities of a person that allow her to consciously pursue goodness. In contrast to the norms and principles of morality that characterize the transpersonal, generally obligatory side of morality, virtue represents morality at the personal level and reflects the unique uniqueness of various social and moral qualities of an individual. In this sense, it is more subjective compared to norms and principles.
Virtue is a character trait that reflects a person’s ability to perform some type of socially significant activity, the development of his ability to live together with other people and the ability to intelligently organize his own life. The term itself gets its meaning from the category of good, which in Antiquity meant any perfection, the correspondence of a thing to its purpose. This means that virtue is a conscious striving for good, the desire to realize it in one’s activities and at the same time achieve perfection (including in one’s profession).
Virtue presupposes a stable direction of character. This means that moral behavior for a virtuous person becomes to a certain extent habitual, his moral choice is made easier due to the fact that the very nature of the character shows how to act in a particular case.
When deciding to be virtuous, a person always accepts some program of improvement for himself. It involves managing one’s own affects, abandoning some desires, considered lower, in favor of others – higher. This means that a person consciously works to transform his own nature in accordance with some moral and social ideal, that he does not want to remain who he is, but always strives for more, for what he can fundamentally achieve.
But it is not some abstract person who is improving, but a person acting as an active being, participating in the affairs of society. Therefore, in virtue ethics, a certain goal is attached to morality, which can be considered not only in its own moral, but also in its general social meaning. I. Kant considered the doctrine of virtues precisely in connection with a person’s idea of goals.
When considering the problem of virtues, Kant poses the question as follows: since there are free actions, there must also be ends to which they are directed. But are there goals that are also a duty? If not, then ethics becomes meaningless, since every teaching about morality is a teaching about what should be (that is, first of all, a teaching about duties).
Kant names two such goals: one’s own perfection and the happiness of others. One’s own happiness, from Kant’s point of view, cannot be a duty, since everyone strives for it by nature, but someone else’s can. One's own perfection can also be a duty, because no one strives for it by nature. Perfection, from Kant’s point of view, is a culture of natural inclinations, but at the same time, a culture of will based on a moral way of thinking. Therefore it is: “1. It is the duty of man, through his own efforts, to emerge from [the state of] the primitiveness of his nature, from [the state of] animality (quoad actum), and rise ever higher to the human [state], only thanks to which he is able to set goals, make up for the lack of his knowledge and correct mistakes... 2. Raise your culture will to the purest virtuous way of thinking, when law also becomes the motive of his actions in accordance with duty, and to obey the law out of a sense of duty...” [Kant 1994: 428].
Virtue, therefore, is related to duty in the sense that it requires effort (will), and not related to it in the sense that it is the result of a free choice of goal. It also involves the development of natural inclinations, and therefore the determination of one’s predispositions and abilities. Thus, the sphere of virtue is not only the sphere of action of universal imperatives, but also the ability to subordinate yourself to what you are disposed to. The latter still needs to be determined, and universal imperatives here, in fact, cannot give anything.
A controversial issue is the question of the so-called “proper moral” emotions that can motivate and accompany moral action. There were philosophers who allowed such emotions. For example, A. Shaftesbury wrote: “Not a single soul has done good deeds so that it would not do them with greater readiness - and with greater pleasure. And deeds of love, mercy or generosity were never done except with increasing joy of the heart, so that the performer did not feel more and more love for these noble actions" [Shaftesbury 1975: 113]. But I believe that the motivator of virtuous action is not moral emotion itself. Their nature (if such emotions are allowed) is incomprehensible, since morality orients us towards what is due, and if morality were motivated by some basic emotion, it would be necessary to recognize a moral need.
By the way, D. Hume directly writes about this, comparing moral feelings with feelings generated by the process of satisfying other needs.
In his work “An Inquiry into the Principles of Morals,” Hume proceeds from the presence in everyone of a certain universal human feeling that allows one to distinguish between good and evil. He calls this feeling philanthropy.
“The concept of morality implies some feeling common to all mankind, which recommends the same object as worthy of general approval, and causes each person, or the majority of people, to agree with each other, arriving at the same opinion or decision regarding it. This concept also implies a certain feeling so universal and all-embracing that it extends to all mankind and makes the actions and conduct of even the most remote persons an object of approval or condemnation according to whether they are consistent or inconsistent with the established rules of right. These two necessary circumstances are connected only with the feeling of philanthropy, on which we insisted here” [Hume 1996: 269].
In conclusion, Hume definitely connects this feeling with a need that is essentially similar to other human needs, only with greater universality.
"Don't be any needs(emphasis mine. – A.R.), preceding self-love, this tendency could hardly ever have an effect, for in this case we would experience insignificant and weak pains or pleasures and would know little grief or happiness to avoid or achieve. Further, is it difficult to imagine that the same can be the case with benevolence and friendship, and that, thanks to the original make-up of our character, we can wish another person happiness or good, which, thanks to this passion, becomes our own good, and then becomes an object of desire, based on a combination of motives of benevolence and self-satisfaction? [Ibid: 296].
But then morality as such would not be needed at all, because the need, if it already exists (or even if it is gradually formed), does not need the additional motive of duty. She herself initiates behavior aimed at her satisfaction. Another thing is the formation of such personality qualities that would allow her to participate in complex types of social activities. They, as well as the desire for these types of activities themselves, are not given to man by nature. In indicating the need for strenuous activities as a social service and in developing the social qualities necessary for this, morality can undoubtedly play a role. It really influences the process of formation of higher social needs personality and those social qualities of a person (his abilities) that are necessary to satisfy them. Emotions are included in moral action from the side of the process of satisfying all the highest social needs of a person. Indirectly they have moral significance, since in recognition of his merits by society a person sees the criteria of his own achievements and confirmation self-esteem. At the same time, the moral component complex action increases the tension of emotions from the very process of satisfying higher needs, because awareness of the degree of uniqueness of the activity performed and the complexity of the tasks being solved undoubtedly receives a corresponding emotional coloring. The result always causes greater emotions, the more difficult it is to achieve.
As for moral emotions themselves, they can only accompany a moral action in the sense of consciousness of a fulfilled duty; a state of calm conscience, satisfaction from the consciousness of one’s own dignity, caused by the fact that a person was able to overcome himself; or stimulate moral action in the sense of the anticipatory role of negative emotions (to prevent a state of remorse, disrespect for oneself, etc.).
In connection with the above, the development of personality in virtue ethics cannot be represented as a process different from its holistic social formation, that is, it is impossible to imagine a person who is incapable of specific types of social activities, who has not achieved perfection in them, but nevertheless is highly moral in the sense that he does not deceive anyone, does not cause physical harm to others, does not encroach on other people’s property and etc.
For ancient society, virtue was clearly associated with the dignity of the individual, especially in heroic morality.
But then in philosophy and religion the displacement of this idea began. A person was required to be virtuous, but at the same time not to determine the measure of his dignity through this, since in ethics, oriented towards submission to the absolute, to God, everyone has the same dignity.
Hence, in Stoicism, and then in Christianity, a stable tendency emerged to separate moral qualities proper from other social abilities of the individual. Even earlier, one can see this tendency in Plato (in his ethics of moral perfection, which was a simultaneous movement towards truth and beauty).
For ancient ethics, the separation of morality and other aspects of human life, however, was not as sharp as for the ethics of modern times. The moral development of the individual was constantly conceptualized in terms of practical skills, compared with the development of other human abilities, and sometimes considered as a single process with the formation of other social qualities. Thus, Protagoras says that cithara players, teaching young people their art, for their part take care of the prudence of young people, in addition, in the very process of training, they become acquainted with the works of good poets and songwriters, in which there are instructive instructions [Plato. Prot. 326b].
The idea of the need to separate the actual moral qualities of an individual and his other social abilities intensifies as society becomes larger, the connection with the group becomes less direct than before, and selfish motives associated with the acquisition of wealth begin to manifest themselves more and more in the motivation of activity.
Until the Hellenistic era, man was not faced with the question of why he should act for the benefit of the polis. This was part of his life, consistent with his idea of true good.
Only in Seneca do the so-called bourgeois virtues appear, which indicate the need for human participation in public affairs, to an attitude towards oneself that does not allow one to relax or indulge in idleness. But the problem of bourgeois virtues itself can only develop in those conditions when a person has a real choice to live one way or another.
For the vast mass of people in medieval society, the possibility of such a choice simply disappears. This society was class-based and hierarchical. Estates reflected the inevitability of fulfilling their social functions. Hierarchy implied the division of classes into higher and lower. The possibility of at least some choice of lifestyle, along with the struggle to assert one’s social status, was characteristic only of the upper classes. Therefore, knights participated in tournaments or wars, representatives of the clergy delved into the study holy books and theological discourses. Kings asserted their dignity through conquest. As for the peasants and artisans, they bore their cross without complaint.
Nevertheless, medieval ethics reflected a higher assessment of human sensuality compared to Antiquity, a higher assessment of labor, including simple labor associated with handicraft production and agriculture. From the XII–XIII centuries. labor even began to be viewed not as a punishment from the Lord, but as a means of salvation, as a test that a person must endure, demonstrating his devotion to God. Certain types of labor were associated with a significant variety of life and with different virtues. But these virtues themselves, as certain social skills, even containing signs of perfection, have ceased to be a measure of the expression of personal dignity. This manifested itself even more clearly in Protestantism, which equalized the moral dignity of different types labor, but in fact deprived them of such dignity altogether. Perfection began to correlate only with the idea of being chosen by God. What were the social prerequisites for such a turn?
During this period, society faced two tasks: 1) to preserve the social inequality that had already arisen; 2) ensure a variety of labor functions, without linking their performance with a claim to change or increase in individual social status. This meant that bearing one’s cross had to be taken for granted, without any hint that this was associated with the assertion of some dignity.
In the Middle Ages, the vast diversity of moral decisions characteristic of Antiquity was contrasted with the divine absolute as a single authoritative source of moral good. In Christianity, God performs punitive functions and at the same time sets the ideal of moral perfection. He is supposed to be all-good, all-seeing, omnipresent. Christian ethics, unlike the ancient Greek and Roman ones, basically became an ethics of duty. It formulated other criteria of moral goodness. Qualities such as courage and military valor faded into the background. They were opposed to tolerance, mercy, charity, and care for one's neighbor. The main virtues were Faith, Hope, Love. All people began to be viewed as equally worthy. In classical virtue ethics, the dignity of people looked different, depending on their achievements and the degree of development of virtues.
However, it cannot be said that in the Middle Ages there was a leveling of personality, that the goals of personal existence were simplified, reduced to self-restraint of one’s own sensuality and a benevolent attitude towards one’s neighbor, that man abandoned the independent search for moral truth and began to trust in the mercy of God in everything.
The Old Testament contains numerous examples of violations of traditional norms of behavior. But all this is done for reasons of realizing some higher values and receives the approval of the highest authority, that is, God. These are well-known stories related to Jacob's appropriation of the birthright, Joseph's use of a magical means to divide property (with his father-in-law) in his favor, etc. Each time after performing such actions, biblical heroes meet God in a dream and actually receive his approval.
Modern ethics had a complex history. From the very beginning, it was based on various, even contradictory principles, which received their own special combination in the concepts of individual thinkers. It is based on humanistic ideas developed during the Renaissance, the principle of personal responsibility introduced through Protestant ideology, the liberal principle that placed the individual with his desires at the center of reasoning and posited the main functions of the state in protecting the rights and freedoms of the individual.
In the 17th century moral theories reflect the complexities of the process of the emergence of capitalist society, man's uncertainty about his fate, and at the same time encourage initiative aimed at practical achievements. In ethics, this leads to a combination of two opposing approaches: the desire for personal happiness, pleasure, joy at the lowest empirical level the existence of the subject and the desire to achieve stoic peace at a different – higher level of existence. The highest moral being is comprehended through purely rational constructions associated with the affirmation of intellectual intuition and innate knowledge. In them, the sensory aspects of the subject’s existence are actually completely overcome. An emotionally charged attitude to reality is considered meaningless, because in a causally determined world nothing can be changed. Therefore, you can only accept this world and be calm about your fate. So mechanics as the leading scientific concept of the 17th century. used to argue moral ideas.
This is well confirmed by Descartes’ rules for practically valid morality (morality that a person can accept for himself even when the theory has not yet developed final moral ideas):
1) “to obey the laws and customs of my country, strictly adhering to the religion in which, by the grace of God, I was brought up from childhood, and being guided in all other respects by the opinions of the most moderate, alien to extremes and generally accepted among the most noble people in whose circle I will be live";
2) “to remain as firm and decisive in my actions as possible, and, having once accepted any opinion, even doubtful, to follow it as if it were completely correct”;
3) “always strive to conquer ourselves rather than fate, changing our desires rather than the order of the world, and in general get used to the idea that only our opinions are in our complete power and that after we have done everything possible with the objects around us , what we failed should be considered as something absolutely impossible” [Descartes 1953: 26–28].
The first two theses indicate that a person is forced to live in conditions of lack of knowledge about the world. He can adapt to it only practically, focusing on moderate opinions, since since the time of Aristotle it has been known that moderate is further from extremes and thereby further from vice, further from wrong. Firmness in decisions gives confidence in life, so opinions should not be changed. The third rule obviously demonstrates the stoic attitude of moral consciousness, resulting from the thesis that essentially nothing can be changed in the world.
XVIII–XIX centuries associated with a relatively calm period in the development of capitalism. Moral theories here are more oriented towards the sensory aspects of human existence. But feelings are understood not only in eudaimonic terms, as conditions for achieving happiness, as positive emotions that contribute to the joy of life. In a number of concepts, they begin to acquire a purely moral meaning, appearing as attitudes that express a humane attitude towards another, support for his existence, which contributes to the harmonization of social life. Along with moral theories that appeal to the actual moral feelings, primarily the feeling of compassion, the sensory understanding of morality also contains calls for a radical transformation of society, the creation of such social organization, in which all the sensory aspects of human existence can receive adequate, consistent expression. This is often expressed in the well-known concept of rational egoism.
As a reaction to the sensory and eudaimonic understanding of morality, an approach arises in which morality appears as a rational construct derived from pure reason. Kant is trying to formulate an autonomous approach to the justification of morality, to consider the moral motive as not connected with any pragmatic motives of existence. Kant's categorical imperative, based on the procedure of mental universalization of one's behavior as a means of its control by the autonomous moral will, is still used in various versions in the construction of ethical systems.
Nevertheless, basically all these systems appealed to the individual consciousness of the individual, to reasoning on moral issues of a single individual.
The idea of history finds expression in the ethics of modern times. In the concepts of the Enlightenment, G. W. F. Hegel, K. Marx, morality is understood as relative, specific to each specific stage of development of society; in Kantian philosophy, the historical consideration of morality, on the contrary, is subordinated to the study of those conditions under which absolute moral principles can become effective and practically feasible. In Hegel, the historical approach develops on the basis of the thesis that the autonomous moral will is powerless and cannot find the desired connection with the whole. It becomes effective only due to the fact that it is based on the institutions of the family, civil society and the state. Therefore in the end historical development Hegel conceives of morality as coinciding with perfect tradition.
Historicity is already inherent in Christian moral doctrine. The idea of history is expressed by the very genesis described in the Bible. This is not just a change of events, but a change in the person himself, his acquisition of moral qualities, his preparation to accept the divine commandments, and then to rethink them in the light of a new stage of understanding of divine truth, which only an already changed, New Testament person is capable of perceiving.
K. Marx and mainly his followers tried to combine the Hegelian and Kantian approaches in a clever way. Hence, morality, on the one hand, turned out to be class-based, historically relative, on the other hand, it was presented as the only means of regulating behavior in a communist society, when, according to the classics of Marxism, all social circumstances distorting the purity of morals would disappear, all social antagonisms would be overcome.
Medieval morality gives us a significant range of ideas from different strata about the tasks of moral life and virtues. The highest nobility lived according to one morality, the clergy - according to another, special moral ideas serving the purpose of expressing their mission were formulated by numerous knightly orders, merchants were divided into guilds, artisans into guilds. Even the poor had their own morals. Compared to Antiquity, this in no way looks like a simplification.
But the morality of the 17th century. shows much greater uniformity. Why? The answer, in general, is clear. The development of universal connections that correspond to the material form of relationships between people in a capitalist society requires the unification of their relationships. As for those moral ideas that determined the goals of people’s activities, they largely lose their moral foundations. This is very well shown by W. Sombart, who notes the following historical trend: “In those days when efficient and dutiful business people praised diligence to the younger generation as the highest virtue of a successful entrepreneur, they had to try, as it were, to drive a strong the foundation of duties, they had to try to evoke in each individual by exhortation a personal direction of will. And if the admonition bore fruit, then the diligent business man practiced his lesson through strong self-restraint. Modern economic man reaches his fury in completely different ways: he is drawn into the whirlpool of economic forces and carried away by it. He no longer cultivates virtue, but is under the influence of coercion. The pace of the matter determines its own pace” [Zombart 2009: 142]. Consequently, the task of improving man in the sense of cultivating the so-called bourgeois virtues has ceased to be relevant. His “virtue” began to be determined by the pace of production, and not by his subjective volitional efforts.
However, such an assessment is not suitable for modern society. Nowadays, human labor in production is becoming more and more creative, and creative work is difficult to control externally; its rhythm is not set by external factors of the systemic organization of production, at least not as rigidly as specific work associated with production can be set by these factors. performing individual production operations.
Hence, in ethics, attention to virtues is again increasing, including in the sphere of public morality, in applied and professional ethics.
Modern morality
The specific features of the moral life of modern society, about which most researchers agree, are:
1. Moral pluralism, the development of systems of professional and corporate codes, reflection of the diversity of cultures, the division of morality along ethnic lines.
2. The rapprochement of morality and law, the institutionalization of morality (formalization of requirements and tightening of sanctions).
3. Orientation of ethical rules to the standard, contrasting this with the call for limitless perfection in the Christian sense (be perfect, like your heavenly father).
4. Collective decisions and collective responsibility.
5. The utilitarian approach, which involves making decisions based on the logic of the lesser evil (which is not always perfect, since it involves the use of some groups of people or individuals as a means).
In Russian ethics of the 1970s. morality has traditionally been viewed as a “non-institutional” regulator of individual behavior. Sometimes, however, it was noted that morality may be associated with the activities of certain non-state institutions, for example, with the church, but this was considered historically transitory and inconsistent with its nature. Traditional moral imperatives were addressed to the consciousness of the individual. Characteristics dependent on the capabilities of the individual were associated with such distinctive features of morality as freedom of choice (voluntary assumption of moral obligations); virtuous lifestyle (conscious striving for good); readiness for self-sacrifice (the fundamental affirmation of the interest of society as superior to the interest of the individual); equality between people (the willingness to treat others the same way as oneself, hence the universality of expression of moral requirements); the idea of self-improvement (hence the conflict between what should be and what is).
The state of modern society largely refutes a number of the provisions noted above. Thus, in the development of professional ethics, a massive process of codification of moral norms began. The implementation of standards is monitored by certain organizations: ethical or appeal committees at universities; professional meetings of doctors that have taken on additional functions of moral assessment; committees on parliamentary ethics, assessing the acceptability or impermissibility of the behavior of deputies from a moral point of view, professional organizations of business communicators or organizations of public relations workers, councils on journalistic ethics, one way or another ensuring that the public receives truthful information about the state of affairs in individual corporations and public life in general. It is clear from this that morality becomes partly institutional. At the same time, the norms of professional ethics are no longer addressed to all people on Earth or not to all beings endowed with reason, as Kant believed, but to representatives of a given profession.
Along with the division of morality along professional lines, a division arose along the lines of corporate affiliation. Many modern corporations have developed their own codes of ethics and proclaimed their own moral missions, which reflect how the activities of a given corporation contribute to the growth of the public good as a whole, how this type business helps meet people's needs.
To this we must add that those moral requirements that traditionally addressed each individual, for example, caring for one’s neighbor, in modern society often become the subject of activity of special government bodies. People working in such bodies essentially perform special moral functions serving the entire society.
All of the above really gives grounds for the assertion that morality has, to a certain extent, ceased to be what it was. R. G. Apresyan calls modern society postmodern. He notes that moral pluralism is a characteristic feature of a given society.
Analyzing the existing literature, which in one way or another reflects the problem of public morality, R. G. Apresyan comes to the conclusion that it is necessary to distinguish between individual ethics of improvement and public or social morality. Western sources offer slightly different solutions: public morality and individual morality (T. Nagel), social and individual ethics (A. Rich), institutional ethics and institutional design (R. Hardin).
The term “public morality” seems to us more accurate, since all morality is inherently public. In individual morality, a person most of all pays attention to such personal qualities that can make existence conflict-free with a close circle of people, with his neighbors, and also ensure reasonable mutual assistance with those with whom he has to come into personal contact in one way or another. In public morality, a person deals with large groups of people, impersonal connections, with the performance of various public functions. The imperatives of public morality cannot be as universal as the well-known requirements of Christian ethics, because public functions are different and their implementation often involves a selective attitude towards to different people.
The imperatives of individual morality may look like a way of resolving questions about what properly organized sexual relationships should be, how one should treat members of one’s family, how one should live in order to be happy, etc. In public morality, groups of people are identified as having certain specificities , different from other groups. Therefore, the principle “treat others the same way you would like to be treated yourself” does not fully apply here. Imperatives of public morality can be provisions such as “don’t be racist”, “take part in elections”, if you perform any general public function, then perform your duties honestly, do not give advantages to anyone in accordance with your personal likes and dislikes and etc.
It is clear that when performing many public functions it is simply impossible to treat another in the same way as oneself. A person, by necessity, finds himself forced to act against another. In his work “Ethics for Opponents,” A. Appelbaum notes: “Professionals and political figures perform roles that often force them to act on the basis of opposing intentions, strive to achieve incompatible goals, and destroy the plans of another. Prosecution and defense attorneys, Democrats and Republicans, secretaries of state and national security advisers, industry and environmentalists, investigative journalists and official sources, doctors and insurance companies often find themselves pitted against each other as a result of their missions, work and propaganda." It is clear that this requires the development of special ethics, the basis of which is the rules of fair play, respect for the enemy, and consideration of the public interest. It is also necessary to take into account the relationships of subordination that inevitably arise when performing public functions, which imposes special moral obligations, and in some cases gives the right to control the destinies of other people.
Let's say an officer can decide who to send on a deadly mission and who to leave in reserve. These decisions will be based on the logic of choosing the lesser evil in order to eliminate the greater. They also allow what traditional ethics strongly prohibited, that is, saving the lives of some at the expense of the lives of others. Here, however, it is necessary to make a reservation that such decisions can be morally justified only in an emergency period that is officially recognized (an officially declared war, a natural disaster, a global environmental disaster, etc.).
As modern morality becomes pluralistic again, the era is passing when philosophers tried to formulate universal imperatives, to subject behavior to uniform rules that allowed no exceptions.
The very logic of these imperatives is called into question. G. Simmel was one of the first to see this turn in modern ethics. He criticizes Kant's categorical imperative precisely because it does not take into account individual person, his conflicting feelings, conflict situations, etc.
“The irresistible rigor of Kant’s morality is associated with his logical fanaticism, which strives to give all life a mathematically precise form. The great moral teachers, whose source of teaching was exclusively an assessment of the moral, were by no means distinguished by such rigorism - neither Buddha, nor Jesus, nor Marcus Aurelius, nor St. Francis... This is connected with the fact that Kant, for whom ethical interest significantly exceeds theoretical interest , poses only the problems of the most everyday and seemingly crude events of moral life. He examines everything that is accessible to general concepts in moral data with unprecedented grandeur and acuteness. However, all the deeper and more subtle questions of ethics, the aggravation of conflicts, the complexity of feelings, the dark forces in us, in the moral assessment of which we are often so helpless - all this seemed unknown to him - he, penetrating into the deepest, subtlest and most refined functions mental human activity. The lack of imagination and primitiveness in the formulation of moral problems, on the one hand, the sophistication and scope of flight in theoretical ones, on the other, prove that he introduces into his philosophical thinking only that which allows penetration by logical thinking” [Simmel 1996: 12–13].
Simmel believes that Kant and other Enlightenment philosophers assumed in principle that all people are the same in their essence. From here, universal rules can be applied to them, and the society itself must be one in which the application of these universal rules will become possible, that is, in the future, a society of universal equality. This gave rise to revolutions that were themselves based on a false idea.
“...Class, guild and church ties created countless manifestations of inequality between people, the injustice of which was very keenly felt; therefore it was concluded that with the removal of these institutions, with which this uneven distribution of rights would disappear, there would no longer be any inequality in the world at all. There was a confusion of existing meaningless differences with inequality in general, and the opinion was established that freedom, which would destroy them, would lead to general and permanent equality. And this was combined with the rationalism of the 18th century, for which the subject of interest was not a special person, incomparable in his originality, but man as such, man in general” [Simmel 1996: 149].
One can discuss how correct this assessment of enlightenment as a whole is, but there is no doubt that general imperatives can govern people’s lives only if all motives that differ from the motives for preserving society at the level of general rules are taken beyond the boundaries of morality. In relation to virtue ethics and in relation to modern society, this, I believe, is wrong.
And Simmel, I think, is right when he writes about the continuity of life and those rules that follow not from general laws, but from this continuity itself. “Everything that is changeable and in its sense unique, fluid in the continuity of life without precise boundaries, not subject to a pre-existing law, as well as to abstract sublimation into a universal law - all this henceforth receives an obligation over itself, for this latter itself is life and preserves its continuous form" [Ego 2006: 60].
Despite the significant subjectivity presented in this argument, there is also a rational grain here. A person is motivated to action not only by an abstract universal duty, but also by his own choice, the choice of goals, a life program, which corresponds to the ethics of virtues. This corresponds to the individualization of moral actions and moral assessments in virtue ethics.
XIX century - This is also a period that causes a powerful surge in the utilitarian understanding of morality. Utilitarianism considers morally positive behavior that leads to an increase in the amount of happiness possible more of people. This theory arises along with the development of capitalist society, which has dramatically increased total produced material goods, which raised consumption to a new qualitative level. Material goods are considered in utilitarianism as one of the main conditions for happiness. Utilitarianism differs from traditional hedonistic theories in that it speaks about the public good, including how social institutions should work to increase it, while classical hedonism mainly considered the path to happiness in terms of lifestyle preferences.
One important criticism of utilitarianism is that the happiness of the many can be more effectively secured at the expense of the few. Even if we take into account all the restrictions that have been formulated in connection with this objection, for example, that along with the utilitarian principle other rules must be followed, that all proposed norms of behavior must undergo a procedure of universalization in the sense that everyone must agree to them accept (rule utilitarianism), this remark is not completely removed. Not all social life can fit into rules. In addition, when they are accepted, everyone does not expect to find themselves in such a critical situation when it is their interests that will need to be sacrificed.
In contemporary ethical discussions, the utilitarian approach is often seen as appropriate for solving problems of public morality in contrast to traditional ethics, which is often characterized as an ethic of individual improvement. The utilitarian approach seeks to resolve issues in the interests of the majority and assumes that such solutions, in principle, allow for some minimal evil.
Of course, the task of, for example, politics is precisely to help increase the public good. At the same time, the interests of everyone cannot be taken into account to the same extent. For example, economic modernization often requires the destruction of the traditional way of life of some social groups. However, in the future, this turns out to be justified for the members of these groups themselves, although they, most likely, will not support such a policy.
However, utilitarian theory cannot be applied to all aspects of the organization of life and the public sphere. Most people have an understanding that some basic human rights should be understood in an absolute sense, as values that are not directly related to the issue of the public good. They must be respected even when this does not lead to an increase in public goods.
However, despite some obvious principles following from common sense, our moral intuitions, many years of practice of the existence of society in the sense of the survival of those groups that adhered to these principles, in theoretical terms always remains topical issue when exactly we can adhere to utilitarian principles and when not.
Big question modern ethics is the question of whether morality itself is not destroyed if behavior is guided by a certain standard, expressed, say, in professional code behavior.
Exploring the problem of modern morality, A. A. Guseinov notes that it has undergone significant changes compared to traditional morality. The essence of these changes is formulated in a brief thesis that the relationship between morality and civilization seems to change places. If earlier civilization was subject to moral criticism, now, on the contrary, civilization acts as a critic. Indeed, changes in the understanding of what is moral and what is not, what is acceptable in our behavior and what is considered reprehensible, are happening with incredible speed. Many moral researchers have pointed this out. In this case, the question arises: is there anything stable in morality at all, what moral concept can we accept to confirm the truth of our moral judgments?
A. A. Guseinov notes that the specificity of modern morality has become the expansion of the morally neutral zone, the desire for liberation from ideological justifications and, in many respects, from the complex associated with developed motivation and the search for individual solutions. Instead, institutional ethics is being developed, that is, the ethics of rules developed for certain social systems. “Each of... social practices turns out to be the more effective the less it depends on personal connections and, what seems particularly paradoxical, on individual moral motivation” [Guseinov 2002: 119]. This does not mean that morality as such loses its meaning. Simply, “morality moves from the level of motives of behavior to the level of consciously set and collectively developed general frameworks and rules according to which the corresponding activity takes place” [Guseinov 2002: 121]. This process expresses the development of institutional ethics that characterizes post-traditional society. A. A. Guseinov does not say that institutional morality completely replaces virtue ethics, which is associated with developed individual motivation and a focus on individual improvement. He only draws attention to the fact that the ratio of the two components present in morality and previously is changing noticeably in the sense of the role they play in modern society. “The ethics of virtues, associated primarily with the motives of behavior, retains important (perhaps even increasing) importance in the field of personal relationships and in all situations that have a pronounced personal, individualized character, that is, generally speaking, in areas of personal presence. In systemic (socially functional, professionally tough) behavior it is complemented by institutional ethics” [Ibid: 123].
We can agree that the noted changes are associated with a change in the share of moral components identified by A. A. Guseinov. The expansion of the significance of the public life of society and the complication of the very nature of public relations undoubtedly leads to the need to codify morality and create special institutes, monitoring the implementation of codes in a formal sense.
However, I do not think that the sphere of what is morally neutral is expanding in modern society. For example, even in economics, traditionally considered as a sphere far from morality, where the desire to establish private interest dominates (this is exactly how I considered economic relations A. Smith), the morality of modern society is increasingly gaining its position.
In his study on trust, F. Fukuyama showed that large corporations historically arose in societies with a high level of trust, that is, in the USA, Japan and Germany. They were later joined by South Korea, where large corporations arose largely due to state intervention in the economy, but were also associated with the peculiarities of national identity. However, not only the development of large corporations, in which people’s trust, manifested in production relations between individual links, leads to a reduction in the costs of legal registration of contractual relations, but also the development of the corresponding information society network structures are also based on trust. “It is no coincidence that it is the Americans, with their penchant for public behavior, were the first to create a modern corporation at the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th century, and the Japanese were the first to create a network organization in the 20th century” [Fukuyama 2006: 55]. How, then, can one deny the role of morality in economics?
Numerous professional and corporate codes do not eliminate individual motivation. If this were so, man would simply act as a moral automaton. Many standards of corporate ethics are formulated in the form of positive and recommendatory requirements. But then their implementation necessarily requires the activity of the individual.
Take, for example, the following group of norms of the code of PR activities formulated by A. Page: “Fulfill your duty as a specialist in the field of public relations as if the well-being of your entire company depends on it. Corporate relations is a management function. No corporate strategy can be implemented without taking into account its possible impact on the public. A professional in the field of public relations is the creator of company policy, able to perform a wide range of activities related to corporate communications" [cit. from: Scott et al. 2001: 204].
It is clear that norms formulated in this form require professionalism, and professionalism cannot be achieved without subjective motivation, without virtue, which precisely shows a person’s path to some standard of perfection.
In the public sphere, we constantly encounter situations where a person is responsible not only for the fact that he did something bad, morally condemnable, but also for the fact that he did not fulfill what is provided for by his professional duties. Therefore, the requirements of professional competence and official compliance become the most important requirements of public morality.
Thus, the development of institutional ethics does not limit the necessity of existence and does not narrow the scope of virtue ethics. In my view, virtue ethics itself permeates institutional morality. Their interaction is carried out on the principle of complementarity, and not mutual exclusion. I believe that the meaning of virtue ethics in modern society is expanding precisely in connection with the increasing diversity of moral relations, their extension to such relationships between people that were previously considered morally neutral. This forces many researchers (E. Anscombe, F. Foote, A. MacIntyre) to talk about the need to revive virtue ethics.
In business communications, personal qualities such as the ability to work with other people, understand their characteristics, and even emotional states moment. This turns out to be important both for relationships with one's colleagues and for communications between professionals belonging to different organizations.
Investigating the question of the manifestation of a person’s emotional abilities in business communications, D. Goleman, referring to P. Drucker, notes: “At the end of the 20th century, a third of the American workforce consisted of knowledge processors, that is, people whose activity is to increase the value of information, be it either market analysts, theorists or computer programmers. Peter Drucker, the famous business scholar who coined the term “knowledge processor,” points out that the expertise of such workers is limited to a narrow specialization and that their productivity depends on the extent to which their efforts, as part of an organizational team, are coordinated with the work of others: theorists do not have relations with publishers, and computer programmers are not involved in distribution software. Although people have always worked collaboratively, Drucker notes, when processing knowledge, teams, not individuals, become the work unit” [Goleman 2009: 253].
Despite the fact that in modern ethics, of course, obedience to a standard gains importance and the institutionalization of morality takes place, they do not lose their importance informal relationships. They necessarily accompany network interactions, because network communication presupposes the free association of people, the free choice of who you want to communicate with, the search for like-minded people, including in solving business problems.
“Informal networks are especially important for solving unexpected problems. Official organization designed to easily cope with expected difficulties, reports one study of such networks. “But when unforeseen problems arise, the informal organization comes into play. Its complex web of social connections is formed with each case of communication between colleagues and strengthens over time, turning into surprisingly strong networks” [Ibid: 257–258].
Without such strong networks, it is difficult to imagine the development of science and business, because despite the fact that business organizations strive to preserve their know-how, they are still interested in learning about new fundamental discoveries of science and the possibilities of new technologies. The modern world, by the way, suffers from the fact that many people in it strive to hide knowledge. In the first half of the 20th century. More fundamental discoveries of a practical nature were made than in the first half of the 21st century. But if anything can counter the tendency to hide knowledge in the modern world, it is informal connections.
“...There are at least three types of communication networks - who talks to whom, expert networks that unite those people who are asked for advice, and trust networks” [Ibid: 258]. For the development of business, science, and decision-making in politics, expert networks are, of course, of fundamental importance. Experts are professionals in their field who constantly communicate with each other and therefore have a level of development modern science or are specialists in specific areas of economics, regional studies, ethnography, etc. It is not so important how they do their work, for money or not, it is important that such people exist. And they wouldn’t exist if they assessed every step they took only from the point of view of the possibility of making a profit, if they never communicated with their colleagues just like that, without a second thought about some benefit. Otherwise, they simply would not be communicated with and they would be excluded from the informal community that is being formed in this field of knowledge or other areas of culture. Consequently, there is inevitably an ethical attitude present here, and it is precisely this attitude that belongs to the sphere of virtue ethics.
Standard is a requirement professional qualifications, the requirement of a degree of personal excellence corresponding to this standard. But the path to such perfection itself has its own characteristics for each person; it is connected with the efforts of his will, with overcoming everything that distracts him from the corresponding professional development, and morality cannot in any way be eliminated from this process. In a number of cases, subordinating one’s behavior to a standard requires special motivation aimed at limiting excessive manifestations of one’s own individuality, especially when this leads to arrogance and borders on violation job descriptions, traffic rules, etc.
Modern ethics is certainly faced with a rather difficult situation in which many traditional moral values have been revised. Traditions, which previously were largely seen as the basis of the original moral principles, often turned out to be destroyed. They have lost their importance due to global processes developing in society and the rapid pace of change in production, its reorientation towards mass consumption. As a result, a situation arose in which opposing moral principles appeared as equally valid, equally deducible from reason. This, according to A. MacIntyre, led to the fact that rational arguments in morality mainly began to be used to prove those theses that the one who presented them already had in advance. The category of good, traditional for ethics, turned out to be, as it were, taken beyond the boundaries of morality, and the latter began to develop mainly as an ethics of rules, and those that can be accepted, despite the different life ideas of each individual person. This made the topic of human rights extremely popular and led to new attempts to build ethics as a theory of justice. One such attempt is presented in the well-known book by J. Rawls, “A Theory of Justice.”
Another important step, representing a reaction to the modern situation, was an attempt to understand morality in a constructive way, to present it as an endless discourse (communication and those communicating, taken in an inextricable unity), aimed at developing solutions acceptable to all its participants. This is developed in the works of K. O. Apel, J. Habermas, R. Alexi and others. The fundamental position of discourse ethics is the rejection of the strategy of reward and punishment as a means of controlling some people by others. Instead, it is proposed to search for agreement, justification and approval in public life of such principles that all parties interested in communication are ready to accept. The same applies to the strategy of making political decisions. Distinctive feature Discourse ethics is also the assertion that the foundations of morality cannot be derived from the reasoning of an individual. There is no need to guess the interests of others. They are openly presented and discussed in discourse along with a rational justification for the necessary forms of communication and other acceptable for all conditions of social life.
In modern ethics, there is certainly a distinction between different principles, such as the principles of liberalism and communitarianism.
Liberalism proceeds from the idea of protecting human rights, reserving to him the right to determine the path to his own happiness, taking this issue beyond the boundaries of theoretical ethics. From a liberal point of view, there is no basis for saying that one way of life brings more happiness than another. When determining basic human rights, they proceed from obvious values: living is better than dying, living in abundance is better than living in poverty, every person strives for recognition of his merits by others, the desire for self-affirmation is natural for a person, etc.
The communitarian point of view, opposite to liberalism, proceeds from the fact that a person’s life without connections with a certain community is impossible. On this basis, the ideas of ancient virtue ethics are being revived in modern society.
Classical liberal concepts consider the functions of the state in a very limited way, reducing them mainly to the protection of human rights, the protection of his property, taking questions about life preferences, normative programs, and happiness beyond the scope of morality. Accordingly, they deny the task of searching for the ideal of moral development of the individual; in fact, the problem of the goals of human spiritual activity is not considered. Even if all this is recognized as a significant fact of life, it is not considered as an area of influence of morality on human behavior. On the contrary, communitarian ethics says that the highest moral manifestations cannot be understood without a person’s connection with the life of a certain community.
The position of liberalism is attractive because it allows one to accept general moral rules without striving for unification cultural life different peoples, allowing for all the diversity of individual differences. However, with the utmost expansion of the concept of human rights, theoretical thought encounters some barriers. For example, if there are no grounds for preferring one way of life to another, if a person himself chooses how to build his own life, his right to be recognized, to assert his dignity in the eyes of other people, is essentially meaningless. It is clear that achievements are always assessed by some community that has specific goals of activity, confirmed by accepted values. But then it is communitarian, not liberal, principles that work, and they turn out to be built into the very values of liberalism. The liberal point of view faces problems when resolving such moral issues as the permissibility of prostitution, suicide, euthanasia, abortion, because if a person is the master of his body, he, logically, can do whatever he wants with it.
In my opinion, to resolve the above-mentioned contradictions, modern ethics needs to expand the basis of its reasoning. It can no longer rely on the individual’s ideas about his moral life, on the operations that he can perform with his mind. Integration with the entire store of human knowledge, with the natural sciences, modern ideas about the brain, and the process of formation of human consciousness is required.
Here we can reason as follows. It is generally accepted that human consciousness is formed gradually, in the process of its development in childhood. During this formation, a person masters a language that is fixed in the culture of a given society. He uses many cultural symbols that constitute his personality. It is no coincidence that P. Florensky said that culture is an environment that nourishes personality. But then the consciousness of an individual cannot be recognized exclusively as his personal property? Accordingly, the human body, which is a unique carrier of socially conditioned consciousness, cannot be recognized as personal property. Thus, liberal approaches to this problem may well be adjusted from the standpoint of communitarianism.
Modern society also needs a new look at the problem of human dignity. Only on the basis of ideas about personal dignity can a responsive modern production degree of trust, because creative work, as already mentioned, is difficult to control externally. The system of traditional morality, still operating in some societies (for example, the work ethic based on Confucianism in Japan), is gradually losing its significance in connection with the process of development of human individuality and the destruction of his ties with local communities. This can only be countered by a sense of personal dignity and a desire for recognition at the universal level of communication (real, virtual, or even just ideally considered possible).
But for this we need to rethink the problem of solidarity. By and large, solidarity is a way of uniting different layers of society into a whole and uniting these layers themselves with the whole. This does not mean that society should be solidary in the sense that some should live at the expense of others, that someone can count on constant help from society. But this means that society must represent a single organism that is capable of assessing the contribution of its members to the common good not only from the point of view of their remuneration, but above all in terms of the criteria for determining and approving their dignity.
In conclusion, we can say that the variety of positions presented in modern ethics is not its drawback, but only means that when deciding on moral motivation and moral duties, it is necessary to combine various principles. How to do this is a matter of social practice. This is already mainly the sphere of politics, the sphere social management. As for ethics, its task is to show the advantages and disadvantages of reasoning built on the basis of one or another principle, to determine the possible scope of its application and the necessary restrictions when transferring to some other area.
Literature
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Appelbaum A. Ethics for Adversaries. The Morality of Roles in Public and Professional Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Twentieth-century ethics can be called an intellectual response 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.
Another very significant type of ethical teaching that has had a huge influence on the development of Western culture is ethics of existentialism (philosophy of existence). Representatives of existentialism 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 emerged in Western Europe during the period between the two world wars. Its representatives tried to comprehend the position of man in crisis situations and develop certain values that allow him to overcome the crisis situation with dignity.
The starting point of existentialism is that existence precedes essence, the reason that determines it. A person first exists, appears, acts, and only then is he defined, i.e. receives characteristics and definitions. Openness to the future, internal emptiness and initial readiness for free self-determination from oneself is true existence, existence.
Existentialist ethics believes freedom to be 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, freedom of consciousness, freedom to choose the spiritual and moral position of the individual. All causes and factors affecting a person are necessarily mediated by his free choice. A person must constantly choose one or another line of his behavior, focus on certain values and ideals. By their formulation of the problem of freedom, the existentialists reflected the main basis of morality. Existentialists rightly emphasize that people’s activities are guided mainly not by external circumstances, but by internal motivations, that each person in certain circumstances mentally reacts differently. A lot depends on each person, and in case of negative developments of events one should not refer to “circumstances”. People have considerable freedom in determining the goals of their activities. At each specific historical moment there is not one, but several possibilities. Given the presence of real possibilities for the development of events, it is no less 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 have an impact.
With freedom in the closest possible way human responsibility is involved. 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 has renounced freedom, thereby loses the main quality of a person and turns into a simple material object. In other words, such an individual can no longer be considered a person in the true sense of the word, because he has lost the quality of true existence.
At the same time, real life shows that for many people, authentic existence turns out to be an unbearable burden. After all, freedom requires independence and courage from a person, it presupposes responsibility for choices that give one or another meaning to the future, which determines what the distant world will be like. It is these circumstances that cause those unpleasant experiences of metaphysical fear and anxiety, constant anxiety that push a person and the sphere of “inauthentic existence”.
Existentialist ethics calls for opposition to all forms of collectivism. It is necessary to openly realize your loneliness and abandonment, freedom and responsibility, the meaninglessness and tragedy of your own existence, gain strength and courage to live in the most unfavorable situations of futility and hopelessness.
Existentialist ethics develops in the mainstream of stoicism: moral confusion and despair of a person, the loss of his dignity and strength of spirit is not so much the result of the collision of our mind and morality with the meaninglessness of human life and the inability to achieve well-being in it, but rather the result of disappointment in these our hopes. As long as a person wishes and hopes for a successful outcome of his endeavors, he will suffer failures and fall into despair, because the course of life is not in his control. It does not depend on a person what situations he may find himself in, but it is entirely up to him how he gets out of them.
Among the moral theories of the 20th century. attention should be paid to "ethics of non-violence". All ethics considers non-violence necessary. Since violence begets counter-violence, it is a deliberately ineffective method of solving any problems. Nonviolence is not passivity, but special nonviolent actions (sit-ins, marches, hunger strikes, distributing leaflets and speaking in the media to popularize their position - supporters of nonviolence have developed dozens of similar methods). Only morally strong and courageous people are capable of carrying out such actions, capable, thanks to faith in their rightness, not to respond blow to blow. The motive of nonviolence is love for enemies and faith in their best moral qualities. Enemies must be convinced of the wrongness, ineffectiveness and immorality of forceful methods and a compromise must be reached with them. The “ethics of nonviolence” considers morality not a weakness, but a human strength, the ability to achieve goals.
In the 20th 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, it allows for a situation of moral choice. If a person is guided by the ethic 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.
Plan
INTRODUCTION 3
1. ETHICAL CONTENT, MORAL RELATIONS IN MANAGEMENT AND
MANAGEMENT. 4
2. MANAGERIAL ETHICS: CONCEPT, MEANING AND FUNCTIONS. 7
3. MORAL PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT. VALUES AND ETHICAL STANDARDS OF A MANAGER.
10
4. RELATIONSHIP OF MORALITY AND LAW IN MANAGEMENT. 14
CONCLUSION 16
REFERENCES 17
Introduction
Ethics is a large and important part of universal human culture, morality,
morality developed over many centuries of life by all peoples in
in accordance with their ideas about goodness, justice, humanity - in
areas of moral culture and about beauty, order, improvement, everyday life
expediency - in the field of material culture.
You can give a lot of examples of complete disrespect for others, tolerated
people:
a neighbor in a theater or concert hall who has widely and “forever”
your hands on both armrests;
a person in a museum or at an exhibition whose back is blocking
exhibits from other visitors;
unceremonious colleagues interrupting important business negotiations.
Each of us meets dozens of people every day and has the most
different, sometimes very difficult relationships. And sometimes find the right, reasonable
and ethical solutions to conflicts that arise in relation to another person are not
so easy.
Ethics helps to study the moral significance of actions, motives,
characters. Ethics, while remaining a serious philosophical science, becomes
simultaneously the life position of both society as a whole and its individual
members.
Currently, much attention is paid to the study of business ethics
relations, business and management in order to improve the level of culture of these
relationships. She analyzes relationships between business partners and
positions on the interpretation of moral assessments of the reasons for success or failure in any
activities, in particular in commercial and managerial ones.
There are a number of reasons that have given rise to interest in business ethics and ethics
management in particular. Chief among them is the total harm of the unethical,
dishonest business conduct, felt not only by consumers, but also
manufacturers, business partners, employees, society as a whole,
the excess of this public harm over individual or group
benefit.
Russian and foreign researchers agree that
modern Russia is a system in which at the same time
the formation of the most important social subsystems takes place: social
economic, political, sociocultural. Together they form a special
transitional model. Accordingly, those ethical norms and principles
which take place in the modern Russian business environment, also
are in the process of formation and can be considered as transitional. They
represent a unique synthesis of behavioral stereotypes passed on from
era of totalitarian and authoritarian economy, borrowings from Western
business culture and not fully formed rules, just
emerging in the process of transition to a market economy.
1. Ethical content, moral relations in management and
management.
Although some business people adhere to strict moral values in
everyday life, the dynamics of business life require them to have
additional strong moral principles.
Each profession gives birth to its own moral “temptations” and moral “valours”
and “losses”, certain contradictions arise, peculiar
ways to resolve them.
The need to improve the quality of ethical consciousness is especially obvious in
in the light of changes in the organization of modern business:
1. the current increase in the level of corporatism;
2. information revolution.
The need to introduce modern production technologies is often
is equivalent to the need for significant economic innovations in the work
large corporations.
One of the disadvantages of the incredible growth of modern corporations is
the inevitable growth of bureaucratic organizational structures within them. Wherein
a tendency arises that is typical of bureaucratic structures responsible for
decision-making, which consists of unquestioning submission to the person
standing higher on the hierarchical ladder. This trend leads to the fact that
initiative is seriously suppressed. And this raises a lot of ethical
problems for decision makers within such
organizational structures, which also leads to situations where
even good and honest people commit bad and dishonest things, although this
is done for the benefit of the corporation.
The second change in the organization of modern business is information
revolution. The computer has concentrated information and made it much more
accessible. On the one hand, significantly more people around the world are now
time have the widest access to sources of information. With another -
computer use allows for massive concentration of purely personal
information about people and their habits. Such collection and centralization of such
information can be used, for example, to better understand requests
and the needs of the people, or be usurped by narrow groups for use
this important information for your own personal use.
Ethical standards in the workplace differ significantly from generally accepted ones
standards in everyday life.
In the course of their professional activities, people are often forced to do such things
which would never be done under normal, everyday conditions. For example,
most would never even think of stealing writing materials from someone's
or at home. However, very often they take away various materials from their work
places for their further use for personal purposes or give them to members
your family or friends.
But in an organization in which petty theft is commonplace, it becomes
it is difficult to draw the line between normal employee behavior and such
questionable behavior, such as personal telephone conversations,
intended for business contacts, private trips of employees at the expense of
organization budget, etc. Precisely because petty theft seems to everyone
So trivial, it seems extremely inconvenient for everyone to fight them. But how
only such an order turns out to be generally accepted, it turns out to be more difficult
the fight against offenses that, in terms of the degree of harm caused, turn out to be much
more severe. Over time, workers find themselves in a position where they
cannot resist large waste of funds that could go towards
profits to shareholders or returned to the people on whose money it operates
organization. Hiding the truth is another example of behavior that
considered wrong, but not in the workplace.
Some wrong things are done by people as a result of working in
business competitive environment. Often working in an organization can force you to lead
themselves in such a way that under normal circumstances they would consider such behavior
wrong. For example, criticism of the results of someone else's work leads to
numerous grievances that under normal circumstances they try to avoid. On
work, this, however, may be part of the job duties - to criticize,
sort out the shortcomings. People are forced to hide any facts,
get out, seek advantages, cause harm or ignore harm,
caused to others, or to remain silent when they see various unjust
actions towards other people.
Doing business basically means buying and selling goods on one side
benefit. When the opportunity arises to give false information about an object
sales, the seller will not necessarily take advantage of this opportunity for fear
sanctions laid down in legislation. However, hiding the whole truth, in
features of the information about the product being sold that can force
buyer to look for the same product elsewhere is simply not taken into account in
such a “game” as trading. From the above it follows that human work
creates situations with unusual rules of behavior that significantly
differ from the rules that apply to any other human contact in
society. People can hide any facts outside of their workplace,
considering it correct, for example, to hide any facts from acquaintances for their
well-being - so as not to put them in an awkward situation. But at the same time there will be
feel embarrassed in this situation if they do it to achieve
some benefit for yourself.
In contrast, any seller will feel satisfied
seeing your customer driving away in a used car,
but sold as new.
The characteristic of business is often its indifference to harming others.
people, which is atypical under normal conditions. Products manufactured and
sold by entrepreneurs in a market economy, often
turns out to be simply dangerous to the life and health of people. It has often been noted that
Due to various circumstances, the public tends to purchase such products,
even when aware of the risk. But manufacturers and sellers are by no means
strive to warn potential buyers of impending danger if
they are not forced to do so by law.
Indifference to harming other people often manifests itself when treating
with employees of the organization. In relation to a person who is fired from
work, demoted or whose salary is reduced,
sympathy from the executive is simply unacceptable
luxury. In some cases, such actions are performed with feeling
undeniable confidence and superiority, without providing any
explanations, with the understanding that the authority of the boss alone is enough
for the subordinate’s consent to any action of the boss. Perhaps, according to the law of this and
in fact it is sufficient, but for other reasons the law in this case is not
is absolutely perfect. From a moral point of view, disregard for
harm caused to other people is a type of behavior that we
under normal conditions is called incorrect.
In a work environment, flattery and intrigue may be considered "skills."
work with people." Under normal circumstances, to a person who flattery
wins over other people so that he can then use them to achieve
their goals, they will be treated as an insincere person. At work
in place it will be called “capable of maneuvering.”
No one will dispute the existence of such phenomena in the business world.
2. Management, managerial ethics: concept, meaning and functions.
The current level of development of science and technology places high demands on
the level of professional preparedness of a manager specializing in that
or other area. In addition, any manager, regardless of the field
activities, be it production, commerce, finance or show
business, it is necessary to have skills in working with personnel, to constantly take into account
human factor in solving management problems:
- anticipate, predict further development, determine goals and
develop strategy and tactics for achieving them;
- organize the activities of the enterprise (department, division) in
in accordance with its goals and purpose, taking into account (coordinating)
material and social aspects;
- manage personnel; - coordinate (connect, unite, combine)
all actions and efforts; - control the implementation of management decisions and
orders.
These are the functional tasks of management as a whole. And in particular, every
a self-respecting manager must strictly adhere to the ethical standards adopted by the
the company where he works. Here are some of them:
upon entering a job, the manager assumes ethical and
legal obligation not to disclose confidential or proprietary information
trade secret information, even if in the future he decides to leave
from the company. Likewise, if he previously worked in another organization, then
must be aware that he has no right to disclose confidential information
previous employer.
The manager of the company must work with full dedication for its benefit.
It is unethical to have outside business interests that would distract
a significant portion of the time or attention from performing official duties
duties in the company or in any other way negatively affected
activities of the company.
every manager is obliged to avoid external financial or other
connections that could adversely affect the interests of the company, create
duality in his attitude towards the company or its interests and hinder
effective performance of his official duties, as well as cause
emergence of a conflict of interest.
under no circumstances may it be accepted in connection with
work any invitations to entertainment, travel, sports
events, as well as accept gifts, tickets, paid vacations, personal
offerings in cash, etc. Actions of this kind can be considered
other persons as acceptance of a certain obligation on the part of the company and
involve you in a conflict of interest.
managers must know the laws that govern them
activities, and carry them out using all appropriate means available in
at the disposal of the company.
The main ethical issues that arise are the following:
concealment of facts and incorrect information in reports and during
inspections;
unreasonable overpricing and outright deception when conducting business
negotiations;
unconditional submission to management, no matter how unethical and
it turned out to be unfair;
deliberately exaggerating the benefits of one's work plan for
getting support;
deceiving clients in order to obtain benefits for the company;
moving up the career ladder over the heads of colleagues;
sacrificing the interests of other employees of the company for the sake of
performing this or that work;
production of products with questionable characteristics
security;
creating alliances with dubious partners in the hope of a happy
accident.
In order to meet these requirements, the manager must
develop a range of abilities and personality traits leaders, including
the most important are intelligence, self-confidence, honesty,
responsibility and common sense.
The sum of these qualities allows us to rely in our work not only on power
powers assigned to the manager by position, but also informally
authority who can play a more important role in working with people, especially in
establishing an atmosphere of cooperation and creating a healthy moral
psychological climate in the team.
As the famous expert John Cestara notes, any human activity
requires the use of his professional, special knowledge (know-how) and
ability to contact people, however, “for the activities of an ordinary worker
it is necessary that ninety percent come from his know-how and ten
percent on the ability to get along with people. Know-how for middle managers
makes up seventy-five percent of the activity, and the ability to get along with people
twenty five percent.
The management, standing even higher, uses know-how in its activities
only twenty percent, but the ability to get along with people here accounts for
already eighty percent. This means that the higher we climb
career ladder, the more we must take into account the orientation
people and the higher should be our ability to communicate with them."
Any manager is often faced with the need to make such decisions
which pose difficult ethical problems, and in such situations
the manager has no power to change anything: he is forced to make decisions,
as a result of which people will inevitably suffer; he has to go
for transactions in which one has to choose between equally necessary
material values and adherence to established moral principles; He
finds himself in a situation where the interests of his organization and the goals of his work
conflict with the personal needs of specific employees or consumers.
An example of this would be the abuse of investments by using the proceeds and
resources for personal enrichment. Managers use many methods
indirectly receiving money that rightfully belongs to shareholders. Most
A frequently used method is fraudulent transactions with expense items.
Another common move is to inflate the bill and then split the difference.
between the inflated and actual amount of the invoice with the supplier. Finally there is
the practice of selling company secrets to a competitor or using intercompany
information for playing on the stock exchange.
The manager must remember that he bears personal responsibility to colleagues and
company for assistance in eliminating the causes and circumstances that undermine
Such conditions have a negative impact on the situation in the team.
Here are some standards of ethical behavior for a manager:
not to show even a shadow of doubt about your integrity, honesty and
conscientiousness, especially when it comes to promotion through the ranks,
bonuses, achieving your career goals;
treats his leadership with respect, following the
the social values it serves;
make it a rule to treat people the way you would like to be treated
treated you;
do not brag about your talents, let your work reveal them;
take care of public money as well as your own;
clearly express your views on the rights of others. Recognizing data
rights, not to go beyond their boundaries;
openly apologize to everyone if you made a mistake;
try not to let personal, unimportant goals dominate
professional.
A sufficient number of people who find themselves in an ambiguous business situation
will conclude that what is not prohibited is considered right - especially if
They are rewarded for certain actions. Senior managers usually
rarely ask their subordinates to do what both parties know is
illegal or careless. However, company leaders make it clear that
some things they would rather not know about.
In other words, it may appear that they are accidentally or intentionally
distance themselves from the tactical decisions made by their subordinates,
to keep your hands clean in case something goes wrong. Often
they seduce ambitious managers with hints that those who will achieve
desired results, good rewards await them, and the ways in which they
succeed in achieving the desired goal will not be treated too harshly.
Employees should not take steps that are contrary to or may
be considered as a contradiction to professional duties.
3. Moral principles of management. Manager's values and ethics.
In business communication “top-down”, i.e. in the attitude of the manager to
subordinate, the golden rule of ethics can be formulated as follows:
“Treat your subordinates the way you would like to be treated.”
attitude of the manager." The art and success of business communication largely
are determined by the ethical standards and principles that are used
a leader towards his subordinates. Under the norms and principles
This refers to what behavior in the service is ethically acceptable and what is
No. These norms concern, first of all, how and on what basis they are given
orders in the management process, which expresses official discipline,
defining business communication.
Without observing the ethics of business communication between a manager and a subordinate
Most people feel uncomfortable in a group, morally
unprotected. The attitude of a leader towards his subordinates affects the entire character
etc.................
As the complexity of the world increases, the interdependence of people in society increases, the role and importance of moral values increases, including such as solidarity, responsibility, honesty, trust, ability to cooperate, mutual assistance, communitarianism (a modern synonym for collectivism).
It is moral values (the need for meaning, social recognition and respect from others, creative self-realization and socially useful activities) that are increasingly emerging as the most important needs and motives for social activity. modern man(scientist, manager, entrepreneur, doctor or teacher).
Already in the 70s. XX century in the countries of the prosperous West, a very high standard of living was achieved, the quality of life of the population improved, which led to a value shift 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 value shift of postmodernity.
Associated with this cultural shift of postmodernity is the actualization of the role of ethics in human life and society, the awareness of the need to develop social capital and ensure social and economic order (and not only within individual communities, but also of humanity as a whole). These trends have intensified even more in our time.
At the beginning of the 21st century. In connection with the processes of globalization, relationships, contacts and interdependence of people are increasing, and new dangers, threats and risks are emerging, so the relevance of ethics is increasing many times over. The world is changing, the subject of ethics is changing and expanding.
The focus on the development of individual self-awareness is fundamental for modern ethics in all its forms (social, applied, professional, environmental).
IN different cultures and in the course of their historical development, due to their original traditions and customs, their own systems of values and norms, myths and traditions were formed. The moral and religious values of different cultures do not coincide, which is the cause of contradictions and conflicts. These contradictions may take on a global character, but the main arena of struggle remains inner world person.
Theoretical, applied, professional ethics
Traditional ethics existed in two forms - religious and philosophical. Religious ethics, such as the ethics of Christianity, contains a significant normative context in the form of commandments, prohibitions and practical standards behavior, including ritual (observance of fasts, holidays, performance of rites and rituals of various kinds - calendar, wedding, etc.) Religious ethics also contains a theoretical part, consisting of dogmas, teachings, myths, symbols and traditions, the teaching of which forms the basis of religious upbringing and education. Religious ethics considers the same problems as philosophical ethics, but in the context of faith.
Actually theoretical ethics arose in ancient society along with philosophy as a sphere of rational thinking about the world and man. The specificity of ethics as a science is that it talks about due those. how must what a person should do (about moral values as the goals of existence), what society should be like, what the rules of behavior (norms) should be.
Aristotle already understood that ethics differs significantly from physics or mathematics. Ethics is a special kind of knowledge. He distinguished 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, and biology.
Practical knowledge (techne) appears in the form skills (a builder knows how to build a house, an artist knows how to paint pictures, an artist knows how to depict various feelings, a craftsman knows how to make goods, a 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, performing virtuous acts, and a moral attitude towards another person, including mercy and benevolence. For example, a lawyer, when passing a sentence, is guided not only by knowledge of the crime committed, but also by an understanding of the situation, the ability to put himself in the place of another person (both the criminal, the victim, and other people), feelings of justice, mercy, empathy and compassion. He knows how to do the right thing, i.e. he has not only knowledge of facts, but also ethical knowledge and understanding of the situation.
The subject of traditional ethics is man 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-awareness of an individual, the formation of his ability for moral and spiritual self-improvement. According to legend, Confucius even 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, Confucian ethics already set the space for the formation of life-meaning guidelines and spiritual development: the lower bar is inevitable cruel punishment, the upper bar is respect, honor, the high social status of a noble husband.
Traditional ethics was not only theoretical, but primarily normative (prescriptive) in nature, since the theoretical justification of values human existence acted at the same time 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 is 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 (eudaimonism), the ethics of simplification (cynicism), the ethics of contemplation, the ethics of duty (Stoics, Kant), the ethics of love and mercy, the ethics of compassion (A. Schopenhauer), the ethics of utility ( utilitarianism), ethics of heroism, ethics of reasonable egoism (utilitarianism), ethics of non-violence (L. Tolstoy, M. Gandhi), ethics of reverence for life (A. Schweitzer), etc.
It is no coincidence that ethics as a special type of knowledge received the name from Kant practical philosophy. If theoretical reason becomes entangled in contradictions and antinomies (which, according to Kant, is evidence of its imperfection), then practical reason quite easily resolves these antinomies, 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 discussions 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, fidelity, 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.
Twentieth-century ethics can be called an intellectual response 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.
Another very significant type of ethical teaching that has had a huge influence on the development of Western culture is ethics of existentialism (philosophy of existence). Representatives of existentialism 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 emerged in Western Europe during the period between the two world wars. Its representatives tried to comprehend the situation of a person in crisis situations and develop certain value systems that would allow him to come out of a crisis situation with dignity.
The starting point of existentialism is that existence precedes essence, the reason that determines it. A person first exists, appears, acts, and only then is he defined, i.e. receives characteristics and definitions. Openness to the future, internal emptiness and initial readiness for free self-determination from oneself is true existence, existence.
Existentialist ethics believes freedom to be 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, freedom of consciousness, freedom to choose the spiritual and moral position of the individual. All causes and factors affecting a person are necessarily mediated by his free choice. A person must constantly choose one or another line of his behavior, focus on certain values and ideals. By their formulation of the problem of freedom, the existentialists reflected the main basis of morality. Existentialists rightly emphasize that people’s activities are guided mainly not by external circumstances, but by internal motivations, that each person in certain circumstances mentally reacts differently. A lot depends on each person, and in case of negative developments of events one should not refer to “circumstances”. People have considerable freedom in determining the goals of their activities. At each specific historical moment there is not one, but several possibilities. Given the presence of real possibilities for the development of events, it is no less 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 have an impact.
Human responsibility is closely related to freedom.. Without freedom there is no responsibility. If a person is not free, if he is constantly determined in his actions, determined by some spiritual or material factors, then, from the point of view of existentialists, he is not responsible for his actions, and therefore is not a subject of moral relations. Moreover, an individual who does not exercise free choice, who has renounced freedom, thereby loses the main quality of a person and turns into a simple material object. In other words, such an individual can no longer be considered a person in the true sense of the word, because he has lost the quality of true existence.
At the same time, real life shows that for many people, authentic existence turns out to be an unbearable burden. After all, freedom requires independence and courage from a person, it presupposes responsibility for choices that give one or another meaning to the future, which determines what the distant world will be like. It is these circumstances that cause those unpleasant experiences of metaphysical fear and anxiety, constant anxiety that push a person and the sphere of “inauthentic existence”.
Existentialist ethics calls for opposition to all forms of collectivism. It is necessary to openly realize your loneliness and abandonment, freedom and responsibility, the meaninglessness and tragedy of your own existence, gain strength and courage to live in the most unfavorable situations of futility and hopelessness.
Existentialist ethics develops in the mainstream of stoicism: moral confusion and despair of a person, the loss of his dignity and strength of spirit is not so much the result of the collision of our mind and morality with the meaninglessness of human life and the inability to achieve well-being in it, but rather the result of disappointment in these our hopes. As long as a person wishes and hopes for a successful outcome of his endeavors, he will suffer failures and fall into despair, because the course of life is not in his control. It does not depend on a person what situations he may find himself in, but it is entirely up to him how he gets out of them.
Among the moral theories of the 20th century. attention should be paid to "ethics of non-violence". All ethics considers non-violence necessary. Since violence begets counter-violence, it is inherently ineffective method of solving any problem. Nonviolence is not passivity, but specific nonviolent actions (sit-ins, marches, hunger strikes, distributing leaflets and speaking in the media to popularize their position - supporters of nonviolence have developed dozens of such methods). Only morally strong and courageous people are capable of carrying out such actions, capable, thanks to faith in their rightness, not to respond blow to blow. The motive of nonviolence is love for enemies and faith in their best moral qualities. Enemies must be convinced of the wrongness, ineffectiveness and immorality of forceful methods and a compromise must be reached with them. The “ethics of nonviolence” considers morality not a weakness, but a human strength, the ability to achieve goals.
In the 20th 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, it allows for a situation of moral choice. If a person is guided by the ethic 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.