The golden rule of morality - the basic meaning, principle and significance

In modern society, talking seriously about morality is, to put it mildly, bad manners. Modern culture and the media in various ways try to create an ironic and disdainful attitude towards moral disciplines - they say that this is a rudiment of the past, unmodern and, in general, the lot of religious fanatics. When someone starts a conversation about morality, people most often react as they have been taught: either they perceive it with caustic irony, or they persistently try to find out which “sect” the one who raises the topic of morality has fallen into. However, even those who consider themselves moral people and adhere to some rules can exhibit very peculiar forms of supposedly moral behavior.

The thing is that morality is a very, very flexible concept. Take, for example, various religious movements, in which today they talk a lot about issues of morality. For example, in some religions, only causing harm to people is considered immoral, and, say, eating animals and cruelly treating them in a number of religions is not only not condemned, but is even sometimes cultivated and extolled as behavior worthy and pleasing to God. Generally accepted religious rituals are sometimes even associated with cruelty to animals. At the same time, adherents of such religions are in the complete illusion that they are highly moral people. And if we go even further, let us remember the times of the “Holy” Inquisition and the Crusades, when a very, to put it mildly, specific moral paradigm was imposed on people and not only the killing of animals, but even the killing of people was not considered immoral. Moreover, it was considered a “godly” deed. Therefore, a particular group of people may have their own concept of morality and vary depending on religion, country, culture, traditions, and so on.

What are human moral values?

Moral values ​​are material and intangible benefits that are significant for an individual and endowed with subjective meaning. Every day, each of us is faced with situations of choice based on internal guidelines and rules.

In general, there are many different values ​​in the world, some of which can be called objective. A person must decide which rules to accept and which to reject . But it is important to understand that this choice will be subjective. The hierarchy of values ​​is based on personal needs, experience, motivation and perception of the world as a whole. Thanks to internal values, people converge or diverge. Values ​​determine the nature of behavior that arises between people.

Moral principles help us distinguish between what is good and what is bad. Where is good and where is evil.

Human moral values ​​consist of:

• good and evil;
• happiness;
• pleasure;
• duty and conscience;
• freedom and responsibility;
• shame and guilt;
• virtue and vice;
• the meaning of life;
• pleasure and benefit;
• honesty and justice;
• suffering and compassion;
• mercy;
• friendship and love.

Society generally respects the observance of rights and freedom . But a complete list of social values ​​consists of more components. Not all people tend to perceive public values ​​as personal. Much depends on a person’s surroundings and the environment in which he spent his childhood and growing up.

Moral foundations direct the activities of each individual person to perform certain actions. They also influence your attitude towards others and yourself, and help you make the right choice of life path. Values ​​become a compass when moving along the road of life. When they are violated, a person begins to experience difficulties. Depression and uncertainty appear. In this state, many people lose the meaning of life and question any possibilities.

What is morality in modern society and what are its functions?

Every person, even unconsciously, knows what morality is. Psychologists believe that this is the identification of the free will of each individual, based on certain principles and morals. From the moment we make our first, independent decision, personal, moral qualities begin to form in everyone.

​List of human qualities

The system of qualities of each individual consists of a combination of moral and moral rules.

Moral principles consist of:

• love for neighbors;
• respect for society;
• devotion (loyalty);
• selfless beginning (sincere motive to perform actions without personal gain);
• spirituality (a combination of moral and religious principles).

Moral principles consist of:

• sense of duty;
• responsibility;
• honor;
• conscience;
• striving for justice;
• dignity.

But not all qualities are positive. There are also negative ones among them, for example: hatred, envy, lies, etc.

When the moral level of society is low, then gradually negative actions become the norm . This is especially dangerous for the new generation, which “absorbs” the behavior of others.

Concepts are changing rapidly. This is noticeable in the generational difference between fathers and children.

Positive moral qualities become dogma at the level of large communities. Compliance with these rules gives a person a guarantee that this community will consider him moral and well-mannered.

The following qualities are most often highly valued:

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• responsibility;
• humanity;
• openness;
• sincerity;
• discipline;
• loyalty;
• collectivism;
• tact;
• hard work;
• zeal;
• cleanliness.

High moral qualities are those that in a certain society are in the positive range in the hierarchy of values.

Some people are considered highly moral for their sincerity and depth of feeling, and not at all for following social principles. Those with a patriotic spirit, chastity, and absolute humanism are also revered.

How is morality different from ethics?

Many people argue that morality and morality are synonymous, but this is a fallacy. Morality is considered to be a system established by society that regulates the relationships between people. Morality means following your own principles, which may differ from the attitudes of society. In other words, moral qualities are given to a person by society, and moral qualities are established by character and personal psychology.

Lack of moral principles

Sometimes people are credited with having no concept of accepted moral standards. This impression can be formed if a person is not familiar with the moral laws of a given social group, and it is for this reason that he violates local taboos, and does not do it maliciously.

An absolute absence of moral principles is impossible - even the most primitive people have an understanding of what can and cannot be done. These concepts may differ radically from those generally accepted in a given society, then the individual is spoken of as an immoral or immoral person. In addition, if an individual stops developing his personality, setting goals and guidelines, then he begins to degrade. Along with it, the regression of formed moral norms and rules begins. Accordingly, a person feels like an inferior person and is even exposed to various diseases.

Interesting. Scientists from the University of California have proven that actions in accordance with accepted moral standards increase people's resistance to stress and strengthen their physical condition.

Thus, moral principles are something that has been formed over the years, is relevant for a particular society and for each person individually, without them the existence of society is impossible.

Morality in modern society

Many people believe that the morality and ethics of modern society have now fallen greatly. Ahead of the rest of the planet are material values ​​that turn people into a herd. In fact, you can achieve a high financial position without losing morality; the main thing is the ability to think broadly and not be limited by stereotypes. Much depends on upbringing.

Modern children practically do not know the word “no”. Getting everything you want from a very early age, a person forgets about independence and loses respect for elders, and this is a decline in morality. In order to try to change something in the world, you need to start with yourself, and only then will there be hope for the revival of morality. By following good rules and teaching them to their children, a person can gradually change the world beyond recognition.

Education of morality

This is a necessary process in modern society. Knowing how morality is formed, we can fully hope for a happy future for our children and grandchildren. The influence on the human personality of people who are considered authorities for him, form in him unique qualities that have the greatest influence on his future fate. It is worth remembering that education is only the initial stage of personality development; in the future, a person is able to make decisions independently.

THE GOLDEN RULE OF MORALITY

- “(Don’t) act towards others as you (wouldn’t) want them to act towards you.” This moral requirement appeared under different names: a short saying, a principle, a commandment, a basic principle, a saying, a prescription, etc. The term “golden rule” has been attached to it since the end of the 18th century.

The first mention of the “golden rule of morality” refers to the so-called. “Axial time” - the middle of the 1st millennium BC. It is found in the Mahabharata (Mokshadharma, book 12, chapter 260), in the sayings of the Buddha (Dhammapada, chapter X, 129; chapter XII, 159), in Homer (Odyssey, V, 188–189) and Herodotus (History, book III, 142; VII, 136). Confucius, to a student’s question about whether one can be guided throughout one’s life by one word, answered: “This word is reciprocity. Don’t do to others what you don’t want for yourself” (“Lun Yu.” 15, 23). In the Bible, the “golden rule” is mentioned in the Old Testament book of Tobit (Tob. 4:15) and twice in the Gospels when presenting the Sermon on the Mount (Luke 3:31; Matt. 7:12). The Gospel formulation is considered the most complete and adequate: “So, in everything you want people to do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12). The “golden rule” is not recorded in the Koran, but it appears in the Sunnah as one of the sayings of Muhammad. The “golden rule of morality” has firmly entered into culture and mass consciousness, settled in the form of proverbs, obvious requirements of worldly wisdom (German: “Was du nicht willst, dass man dir tu, das flieg auch keinem anderen zu”; Russian: “What in another If you don’t love it, don’t do it yourself”).

In ancient philosophical texts, the “golden rule” is rarely found and always as a requirement of everyday morality, but not as a theoretically sanctioned principle. It is attributed to two of the seven sages

- Pittacus and Thales. When asked how to live the best and righteous life, Thales answered: “If we ourselves do not do what we reproach others for” (Fragments of early Greek philosophers, part I. M., 1989, p. 103). Seneca refers to the “golden rule” (“Letters to Lucilius”, 94, 43).

Christian medieval ethics considers the “golden rule of morality” in the context of the Sermon on the Mount. For Augustine, the “golden rule” is the principle of natural morality, which should be guided in relations between people (“On Order,” II, and the violation (inversion) of which deforms human behavior (“Confession.” I, 19); at the same time, he considers it as a concrete expression of the law of love, understood as love for God: “The law of love is that a person should wish for his neighbor the same good that he wishes for himself, and not wish for him the evil that he does not wish for himself” (“On the True religion", 46). The "Golden Rule of Morality" is included in the social-contractual concept of T. Hobbes, acting as a criterion to determine whether an action does not contradict natural laws ("On the Citizen", Section I, Chapter III, 26) D. Locke sees in the “golden rule” “an unshakable moral rule and the basis of all social virtue” (“Essays on Human Understanding.” Book I, Chapter 3, § 4). Leibniz believes that the “golden rule” is not a self-evident measure of morality: “If it depended on us, then we would want unnecessary things from others; does that mean we have to do extra things to others too?” (“New experiments on human understanding by the author of the system of pre-established harmony.” Book I, Chapter II, § 4). In his opinion, this rule only describes the disposition for making a fair judgment (to take the point of view of another).

X. Thomasy uses the material of the “golden rule of morality” to differentiate the spheres of law, politics and morality. He identifies three forms of the “golden rule”, calling them respectively the principles of right (justum), decency (decorum) and respect (honestum). The principle of law is that a person should not do to anyone else what he does not want someone else to do to him. The principle of decency involves doing to another what he would like the other to do to him. The principle of respect requires a person to act as he would like others to act. The first two principles are generalized in natural law and politics (Thomasius calls them external laws), the last - in ethics. According to Kant, the “golden rule of morality” cannot be a universal law, because it does not contain the foundations of duty, and the criminal, based on it, “would begin to argue against his punishing judges” (“Foundation for the metaphysics of morality.” Works, vol. 4(1), p. 271). Kant attached fundamental importance to the distinction of the categorical imperative

and the "golden rule".
Some critics of Kant, on the contrary, saw in the categorical imperative only another expression of the “golden rule” (see A. Schopenhauer
. On the basis of morality. § 7).
References to the “golden rule” as a criterion of moral assessment and a concentrated expression of humanistic morality are also found in Marxist texts - in K. Marx (Debates on freedom of the press ... - Marx K.
,
Engels F.
Soch., vol. 1, p. 3) , A. Bebel (Woman and Socialism. M., 1959, p. 516). P. Kropotkin saw in it an expression of the general natural law of mutual assistance (Modern science and anarchy. M., 1990, pp. 338–41). L.N. Tolstoy considered the “golden rule” as an ethical invariant inherent in all religions, most consistently formulated in the teachings of Christ and expressing the universal essence of morality (“What is religion and what is its essence?”).

In modern literature, the most complete substantive description of the “golden rule of morality” (which echoes the interpretation of Thomasius) was proposed by G. Rainer, who identified three of its forms. The rule of empathy (Einfühlungsregel): “(don’t) do to others what you (don’t) wish for yourself.” Here the egoistic will of the individual becomes the scale of behavior, and in this form the rule cannot be elevated to a universal moral principle - its negative formulation excludes punishment, since it is unpleasant for a person; the affirmative form cannot be a universal scale of behavior, because egoistic desires are often immeasurable. Rule of autonomy (Autonomieregel): “(do not) do yourself what you find (not) commendable in another”; The basis for decision-making in this case is an impartial judgment about the behavior of others. The rule of reciprocity, combining the first two and coinciding with the gospel formulation (Gegenseitigkeitsregel): “as you want people to act towards you, do the same towards them.” Here, the basis for decision-making is the individual’s own desire, which coincides with his own impartial judgment about the behavior of others. Rainer justifiably believes that the rule of reciprocity is the most complete and adequate formula of the “golden rule”.

The "golden rule of morality" is both genetically and essentially the negation of talion .

In the process of diverse internal differentiation and expansion of social relations, the talion was transformed in two directions: the damage subject to revenge began to be calculated taking into account the subjective aspect (unintentional actions, damage caused by livestock, etc. were gradually taken out of its brackets) and replaced by material reward, ransom . The changes that led to the need for a transition from the collective responsibility of the clan to the individual responsibility of individuals and the removal of that sharp division between “us” and “strangers”, which could only be balanced by mutual recognition of the right of force, were embodied in the “golden rule of morality”. As A. Dile believes, the intermediate link in the process of transition from talion to the “golden rule” was the rule: “good for good, insult for insult.” The “Golden Rule” differs from the talion in that it: 1) affirms the actor himself as the subject of behavior and obliges him to be guided by his own ideas about good and bad (“what you don’t like in another…”, “in everything, as you wanted... "); 2) connects “us” and “strangers”, which now become simply different and embrace all people; 3) represents an ideally (mentally) given regulation of behavior, and not a custom.

The “Golden Rule of Morality” is a formula for a person’s attitude towards himself through his attitude towards others. It is essential that these types of relationships have different modalities: the attitude towards oneself is real, covers actions (“do the same”, “don’t do that yourself”), the attitude towards others is ideal, covers the area of ​​wishes (“as you want”, “what don’t you like in someone else”) It is assumed that a person must and wants to be guided by norms that have the dignity of universality (they do not destroy his connections with others, but open up the prospect of cooperation with them). The Golden Rule offers a way to establish this. A norm can be considered universal (and in this sense moral) if the subject of an action is ready to recognize (sanction, desire) it, and if others apply it to him. To do this, he needs to mentally put himself in the place of another (others), i.e. those who will experience the effect of the norm, and put the other (others) in their own place. The arguments of Leibniz (desires can be limitless) and Kant (a criminal would not want to be convicted) do not take into account this mental exchange of dispositions, as a result of which the subject proceeds not from his situationally given egoistic desires in relation to another, but from those presumed desires with which he would be guided if he were in the place of the other, and the other one was in his place. The Golden Rule can be interpreted as a thought experiment to identify the moral quality of relationships between individuals (the mutual acceptability of these relationships for both parties). It connects the arbitrariness of moral requirements with their universal validity and in this sense expresses the specificity of morality as such.

The specificity of the “golden rule” as a purely moral phenomenon is reflected in its linguistic expression. The wording of the talion is exclusively in the imperative mood - its imperativeness is categorical and in this respect “a life for a life” is no different from “thou shalt not kill.” The “Golden Rule of Morality” complements the imperative mood with the subjunctive (“as you wish” in the meaning “as you would like”). Through the imperative mood, the formula of the “golden rule” sets the subject’s attitude towards himself, and through the subjunctive mood, his attitude towards others. Thus, morality turns out to be universally valid as an ideal project, in desires, and arbitrary as a real choice, in actions.

Literature:

1. Guseinov A.A.

The golden rule of morality. M., 1988, p. 91–131;

2. Dihl A.

Die goldene Regel. Eine Einführung in die Geschichte der antiken und frühchristlichen Vulgärethik. Gott., 1962;

3. Reiner H.

Die "Goldene Regel" Die Bedeutung einer sittlichen Grundformel der Menschheit. – “Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung”, 1948, Bd. 3, H 1.

A.A.Guseinov