We all live in society, interact every day with many people: loved ones, colleagues, and just strangers: passers-by on the street, in public places - shops, cafes, cinemas. To make this interaction as comfortable as possible, society has adopted certain rules of behavior, which are usually called public morality. On the one hand, it is clear that if each individual does only what he wants, regardless of the convenience of those around him, life in the society of such people will become much more difficult and even dangerous. How can you exist calmly if you don’t know what to expect from others? Therefore, moral standards are a protection for people. On the other hand, public morality in some matters is often a stumbling block, and sometimes there are those who declare themselves free from all morality. We usually call such people immoral, socially dangerous, and sometimes they deserve to be called villains or tyrants.
If morality is a certain framework, norms by which humanity regulates relationships within society, and they, as a rule, are duplicated in the legislation of any civilized country, then moral values are what every person is guided by when he behaves one way and not another. These are beacons that people focus on on their life path. Well, or they don’t get their bearings - here, of course, options are possible.
Religion
Faith has been an important driving force at all times. Islam, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism - all these religious movements basically have the same generally accepted rules of behavior in society that must be observed. They are collected in a set of laws or commandments, supported by the motivation of followers of a particular religion.
Do not kill, do not steal, do not deceive, do not harm your neighbor... For a believer, this is like a guide to action. In addition, all commandments resonate well with legislation. Spiritual and moral values are built on their basis. Among other things, for a religious person they mean grace, which ultimately leads to a better life.
Upbringing
From the earliest years, a person, even a tiny one, is surrounded by society with its own rules and norms. It is he who, from childhood, lays for us the foundation on which the formation of moral values will take place.
First, parents, by their own example, show the child what is good, what is bad, what is possible and what is not. Further, his life will be influenced by teachers who, in addition to demonstrating their own example, convey in an accessible form the norms of correct behavior in society, show the border between good and evil, and explain how thin it can be.
Self-loyalty as the basis of morality
Loyalty to oneself is an integral quality of a mature Personality. Morality, even in theory, is also unthinkable without it. In our conversation about marital fidelity, we came to the conclusion that it cannot exist without fidelity to oneself. But what is “being true to yourself”? What is behind these words and why is it so rare?
The very expression of being true to oneself is paradoxical - how can a person change oneself if he is alone? For this to be possible, it is necessary to admit the incompleteness of a person, the presence in him of certain opposing forces or directions. And indeed, in order to fulfill, for example, a promise given even to oneself, one has to overcome one’s own laziness or other inclination. The question here is: which side should we recognize as ourselves - the one that made a promise, or the one that is too lazy to fulfill it? This internal inconsistency of man was noticed a long time ago - and for thousands of years, religion, philosophy, writers and artists have identified and tried to solve this problem...
One way or another, they all recognized that a person can be called a Man only when he overcomes this duality in favor of being true to himself, namely, when he can put moral values, beliefs and other “high” things above his own mercantile (and materially, and spiritually) interests. In this case, “himself” was understood as his moral or life choice, for which he is responsible. The focus of his responsibility is . Yes, he is doomed to this struggle with his “lower” interests for the rest of his life - but in this struggle he becomes a Personality, he grows and asserts himself - every time he makes a choice in favor of being true to himself, that is, to his highest values.
This problem can be solved differently - by abandoning higher values. Indeed, why any struggle and division, if you can once and for all make a choice in the other direction - in favor of needs and desires? Then unclouded happiness will come - it’s enough to establish ways to satisfy your needs by mastering a few simple techniques. When their satisfaction is seen at the expense of others, the methods will be more complicated, because others also have needs, and they will not agree to unselfishly satisfy ours. Perfect solution! How stupid humanity has been throughout history that it suffered and could not think of such a simple solution!
But wait, at what cost are we given this way out? The desire to satisfy their physiological and emotional needs is also characteristic of animals, and they also do not know duality... And then how do we differ from animals? And indeed, the champions of this ideology are persistently trying to prove to us that we are not fundamentally different from animals... What is a person like if we subtract moral values, beliefs, faith, loyalty, the concept of good and evil? What is the meaning of such a life? What are relationships in which people only use each other? And what could all this turn out to be?
Still, we differ from animals even without higher values, and often unfortunately. For example, unlike animals, man is insatiable and easily goes against nature and expediency. He is not bound by the dictates of instincts and is endowed with imagination. And his rampant needs can be monstrous and dangerous - both for others and for himself. We see maniacal killers, sadists, robbers, pedophilia, prostitution, abandoned children and parents, alcoholism and drug addiction... - the list goes on for a long time.
But even quite “decent” needs are never fully satisfied - they multiply endlessly and their disorderly satisfaction ultimately leads to the melancholy of satiety, but not to satisfaction. Here is our “happiness”! This is the logical price of the philosophy “don’t let yourself dry out” and “take everything from life.” Maybe our ancestors weren’t so stupid after all when they sought happiness and the meaning of life in the victory of something higher over lower interests? Maybe such ephemeral things as beliefs, ideas, paths, faith, morality are not so ephemeral, and we hastened to declare them archaic?
Freedom or licentiousness?
Now it remains to solve one inconvenient question: what about freedom? Well, I don’t want to limit myself, force myself..! But here everything is just simple. Often, “freedom” is understood as “permissiveness,” the possibility of unhindered satisfaction of all whims. In fact, such freedom turns into licentiousness and like real slavery: desires and needs dictate their will to a person, but he only rushes around feverishly, fulfilling it - and he has no choice.
If we understand freedom as the possibility of choice, then it is feasible only if a person has power over himself, or more precisely, over his desires. Such a person himself can set a goal and achieve it, and no “needs” will lead him astray from the path that he has consciously chosen. He is his own master and therefore truly free. Even in ancient Rome, the difference between a free citizen and a slave was self-discipline .
With “self-violence” it’s the same. Either your desires and needs constantly rape your will - or you keep them in check, exercising your will and feeling like a Human, and not a meaningless animal - and this is not violence, but the joy of independence. The only question is: who do we consider ourselves to be—that part of us that is capable of having high goals and moral values that go beyond “selfish” interests or the part that looks after these same consumer interests? And this is a question of our moral choice - a question for us.
Teenage maximalism
Overestimation often occurs during adolescence. Parents and teachers talk about how things should be done, but friends and peers think it’s bad and good is something else entirely. This is where the question of ethical choice arises: creating your own worldview and determining what is important for you and what you should not do.
Freedom of choice is one of the most obvious human freedoms. It is given to us by nature upon birth and is even enshrined in law. A person decides for himself what to do.
But the freedom of one, as we know, ends where the freedom of another begins. It is during adolescence that people most often make some mistakes, sometimes break laws, try forbidden things, and make wrong decisions. All this in one way or another helps in the formation of an individual with his own value system.
Types and levels of values
Some psychologists divide values into 2 categories:
- Socially constructive.
- Socially destructive.
The first category includes: family, love, faith, homeland.
The second category includes: finances, status, comfort, bodily pleasure.
The first category teaches people mutual understanding, mutual support and unites people.
From the second category, people self-destruct and perceive others from the position of means to achieve the desired result or view them as an obstacle.
Let me mention that the individual values of people are considered relative. Not every person is able to go over the heads of others for the sake of their own success. Another category of people is ready to commit robbery, or even murder, for the sake of their family and friends. Each value must be assessed solely on the individual's value system.
This classification is not the only one. If we look at values in general, they can be categorized into the following types:
- Object: material, spiritual.
- Content and subject: socio-political, economic, moral.
- Subject: social, class, group.
- Goal: selfish, altruistic.
- Level of generality: concrete, abstract.
- Manifestation method: persistent, situational.
- Role in human activity: terminal, instrumental.
- Content of the activity: cognitive, subject-transforming.
- Affiliation: personal, group, collective, public, national, universal.
- Attitude to society: positive, negative.
There are a huge number of such classifications, but if divided in a broad sense, then there are only 2 categories:
- Material.
- Moral.
The formation of values occurs through specially organized influence, both in the family and school, and under random circumstances, on the street, from the news, from friends.
Kindness
Mercy, self-sacrifice, charity, helping the weak and infirm - all these moral values are characteristic of a good person. “Good” seems to be a simple and unambiguous concept, but everything is not so simple. It can be interpreted in different ways. Everything depends on the moral values of a person.
Everyone has their own criteria for good: for some, the absence of evil is already good, for others it lies in specific deeds. Both take place and, in essence, are good. There are also more examples that describe not so good actions, but they are explained by the best intentions. Sometimes it can be very difficult to determine the fine line between good and evil.
People around
Man, as you know, is a social creature - alone he is bored, sad, and has no one to talk to. There are almost always a lot of people around us, very different. These are our parents, and people of the older generation, and those younger than us. All these people around influence us and contribute to our understanding of the moral values of the society in which we find ourselves.
Individuals have different values and degrees of authority for us. We listen to someone more and even go for advice; we try to be like someone. Some people are remembered by their actions, others by the words they say, which leave a mark and make us think.
One way or another, the environment affects everyone. During the course of historical changes in society, changes also occur that affect moral values. What was considered immoral a couple of centuries ago is now considered the norm; once “wild” things are now an everyday occurrence. There are also controversial human moral values, for example, maintaining virginity until marriage.
Moral development of personality
The value system reflects the individuality of a person, but at the beginning of life (the first years after birth) a person internalizes someone else’s value system (parents, teachers). Gradually one of the possible relationships to it is formed:
- active (full acceptance and support);
- counteracting (internal and external contradiction to the proposed system);
- conformal (conditional external acceptance with internal denial);
- completely indifferent;
- negating (criticism of the system, denial, attempts to change it).
The first serious breakdown of the established value system occurs in adolescence. Then comes the peak of development of moral consciousness. However, its formation begins even earlier.
American psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg developed a theory of moral development of the individual. The author identified three stages of development of moral consciousness. Each stage has two substages:
- Pre-conventional. The first stage is a focus on punishment and obedience (how can I avoid punishment?). The second stage is hedonic orientation (what good does this do to me?).
- Conventional. The first stage is orientation towards the values of a significant group (the model of a good child, an obedient citizen). The second stage is an attitude towards maintaining the established order, rules, justice (following the rules and laws).
- Post-conventional. The first stage is the idea of morality as a product of a social contract. The second stage is your own ethical principles, living according to your conscience. Laws are perceived as a flexible mechanism, but life, liberty and justice are valued more.
According to Kohlberg's theory, most people reach the second stage of the second stage and stop there. In general, the level of development of moral consciousness depends on the level of intelligence and general development of the individual.
The transition to a new level or stage occurs through the development of empathy and cognitive skills. The new stage retains everything that was learned in the previous ones. You cannot skip any stage, but you can linger at one of the stages or go down. Moreover, development and transitions do not depend on age. Some people can reach the third level already in their youth, while others spend their entire lives at the first level.
Moral norms and principles are formed exclusively in the process of social interaction. Punishment and censure are not effective methods of moral education. You can instill values in a child only by personal example or examples from books, films, cartoons, games, etc. The same thing happens in adult life. You can change your value system and develop moral consciousness at any age.
Immorality
What does the concept of “bad” include? It seems that everything is extremely simple, but in the modern world, good and bad are so closely intertwined and confused that it is difficult to distinguish one from the other. Some spiritual and moral values seem insignificant. Today it is fashionable to be strong and powerful, to despise weakness and infirmity. To achieve their goals, people often forget about friendship, love, respect, mutual assistance, mercy and many other things that are considered correct and kind.
Of course, each person decides for himself what is good and what is bad, but in any case, white always remains white, and black always remains black. And there are things that, when we step over them, we commit immoral acts. And they cannot be justified by citing the thin boundaries between good and evil.
Unity of peoples
On the scale of nations and humanity, in a general sense, significance is also attached to certain objects. The whole society decides what is of paramount importance to it. A value-normative system is being drawn up. Society develops, its individual members interact with each other. If ideals and interests are similar, then the interaction is fruitful, favorable and effective. The people must have one goal and priorities in social and political life. Mechanisms for achieving common goals are collectively developed.
As a rule, great importance is given to social justice, civic duty, the richness of spiritual life, human dignity, and material well-being. Ideally, people care about what is happening in the world around them: whether resources are being used correctly, whether policies are being pursued wisely, whether wars are being fought, the state of the economy.
