The spiritual sphere of society theory. Spheres of society

Not only social subjects are identified as parts, but also other formations - spheres of society's life. Society is a complex system of specially organized human life activity. Like any other complex system, society consists of subsystems, the most important of which are called spheres public life.

Sphere of social life- a certain set of stable relations between social actors.

Spheres of public life are large, stable, relatively independent subsystems of human activity.

Each area includes:

• certain types of human activities (for example, educational, political, religious);
• social institutions (such as family, school, parties, church);
• established relationships between people (i.e., connections that arose in the process of human activity, for example, relations of exchange and distribution in the economic sphere).

Traditionally, there are four main spheres of public life:

• social (peoples, nations, classes, gender and age groups, etc.)
• economic (productive forces, production relations)
• political (state, parties, socio-political movements)
• spiritual (religion, morality, science, art, education).

Of course, a person is able to live without satisfying these needs, but then his life will differ little from the life of animals. Spiritual needs are met in the process spiritual activity - cognitive, value, prognostic, etc. Such activities are aimed primarily at changing individual and social consciousness. It manifests itself in scientific creativity, self-education, etc. At the same time, spiritual activity can be both producing and consuming.

Spiritual production is the process of formation and development of consciousness, worldview, and spiritual qualities. The product of this production are ideas, theories, artistic images, values, spiritual world individual and spiritual relationships between individuals. The main mechanisms of spiritual production are science, art and religion.

Spiritual consumption is called the satisfaction of spiritual needs, the consumption of products of science, religion, art, for example, visiting a theater or museum, acquiring new knowledge. The spiritual sphere of society's life ensures the production, storage and dissemination of moral, aesthetic, scientific, legal and other values. It covers various consciousnesses - moral, scientific, aesthetic, etc.

Social institutions in spheres of society

In each sphere of society, corresponding social institutions are formed.

In the social sphere the most important social institution, within the framework of which the reproduction of new generations of people is carried out, is. Social production of man as social being, in addition to the family, is carried out by such institutions as preschool and medical institutions, schools and others educational institutions, sports and other organizations.

For many people, the production and presence of spiritual conditions of existence are no less important, and for some people even more important, than material conditions. Spiritual production distinguishes humans from other beings in this world. The state and nature of development determine the civilization of mankind. Main in the spiritual sphere institutions are performing. This also includes cultural and educational institutions, creative unions (writers, artists, etc.), funds mass media and other organizations.

At the heart of the political sphere there are relationships between people that allow them to participate in the management of social processes and occupy a relatively safe position in the structure of social connections. Political relations are forms of collective life that are prescribed by laws and other legal acts of the country, charters and instructions regarding independent communities, both outside and inside the country, written and unwritten rules of various. These relations are carried out through the resources of the corresponding political institution.

On a national scale, the main political institution is . It consists of many of the following institutions: the president and his administration, government, parliament, court, prosecutor's office and other organizations that ensure general order in the country. In addition to the state, there are many organizations in which people exercise their political rights, that is, the right to manage social processes. Political institutions that seek to participate in the governance of the entire country are social movements. In addition to them, there may be organizations at the regional and local level.

Interrelation of spheres of public life

Spheres of public life are closely interconnected. In the history of the sciences there have been attempts to single out any sphere of life as determining in relation to others. Thus, in the Middle Ages, the prevailing idea was the special significance of religiosity as part of the spiritual sphere of social life. In modern times and the era of Enlightenment, the role of morality and scientific knowledge. A number of concepts assign the leading role to the state and law. Marxism affirms the determining role of economic relations.

Within the framework of real social phenomena, elements from all spheres are combined. For example, the nature of economic relations can influence the structure social structure. Place in the social hierarchy shapes certain Political Views, opens appropriate access to education and other spiritual values. Economic relations themselves are determined by the legal system of the country, which is very often formed on the basis of the people, their traditions in the field of religion and morality. Thus, at different stages of historical development, the influence of any sphere may increase.

The complex nature of social systems is combined with their dynamism, i.e., mobile nature.

The spiritual sphere of society's life is a subsystem, the content of which is the production, storage and distribution of society's values, capable of satisfying the needs of the consciousness and worldview of subjects, and reproducing the spiritual world of man.

The spiritual life of society constitutes the leading, main process of the formation and development of its spiritual culture.

The main criteria for the sphere of spiritual life of society are: development individual consciousness; a person’s ability to be aware of himself, his relationship with nature and society; humanistic orientation of the social worldview; state of spiritual values; the degree of their consistency with the needs and interests of the individual and other subjects of society, as well as the degree of development of education, upbringing, science, information life of society, art, the practical implementation of freedom of conscience of citizens.

The spiritual sphere of society's life is intended for the reproduction of individual and social consciousness, the spiritual values ​​of the individual and society, to regulate the activities of institutions and subjects of spiritual life.

The structure of the sphere of spiritual life of society can be represented, like other spheres, in many ways. The most common approach is to identify relatively independent processes of spiritual life that have their own purpose, content and methods of implementation. In spiritual life the following stand out:

The process of reproduction of individual and social consciousness; personal and social worldview through satisfying needs and interests for their development;

Scientific life;

Artistic and aesthetic life;

Educational process in society;

Spiritual and moral life;

The functioning of religion, free thought and atheism;

Information life of society.

Morality is included in the structure of the spiritual life of society in a certain way: the processes of understanding the role and meaning of morality, its categories, norms and principles for the functioning of spiritual life.

The main functions of the spiritual life of society: a) General: reproduction of individual and social consciousness; creation, storage, distribution and consumption of spiritual values; ideological; methodological; regulatory; communication, etc. b) Species: scientific and educational; artistic and aesthetic; educational and educational, etc.

Let us consider some elements of the content of the spiritual life of society.

Science characterizes the sphere of spiritual life from the point of view of the role of empiricism and rationality in it, the process of obtaining, storing, demanding and using scientific and theoretical knowledge.

Science is a form of spiritual activity of people, aimed at producing knowledge about nature, society, man and knowledge itself, at the discovery of objective laws and essential characteristics of existence.

The typical structure of science as a phenomenon of the spiritual life of society is unity scientific consciousness, scientific institutions and the activities of its subjects. Therefore, objectively true knowledge, obtained outside of science, is not included in the content of science, but constitutes the sphere of everyday practical or rational, abstract-logical extra-scientific knowledge.

A common classification of sciences is the recognition of three large groups: natural sciences - natural science; social sciences - social sciences or social, humanities; sciences about technology - technical sciences. The human sciences can be divided into a special group - anthropology, or included in the natural, social, and also technical sciences.

Sciences are also classified into fundamental (mainly theoretical) and applied (aimed at the fairly rapid application of scientific knowledge in practical activities).

Features of scientific knowledge:

1. It reflects the natural, essential, qualitative in the material world.

2. This is systematized, conceptual (theoretical) knowledge, expressed by a system of concepts, judgments, teachings.

3. Scientific knowledge is basically true knowledge in the unity of objective-subjective, absolute and relative, concrete and abstract. In science, misconceptions and false knowledge are also possible.

4. It is intended to be implemented in the complex practical life of people.

5. This is knowledge obtained on the basis of special techniques and means (instruments).

6. Scientific knowledge has evidence.

Artistic and aesthetic life of society consists in the figurative and creative reproduction of human life, inanimate and living nature in the forms of artistic image using the categories of the sublime, beautiful, perfect, tragic and comic, serious and playful, as well as base, ugly, imperfect. It includes art, folk artistic culture, elite and popular culture, various artistic subcultures.

Artistic culture is studied by a special science - aesthetics . Reflection in people's minds and comprehension artistic culture both directly and with the help of aesthetics forms their aesthetic culture. Aesthetic culture- this is the state of consciousness, worldview and the entire spiritual world of the subject, which reproduces artistic culture and determines the degree of inclusion of the subject in the world of art, folk and other culture. Signs of a person’s aesthetic culture: artistic and aesthetic knowledge; aesthetic needs and interests; aesthetic ideal; aesthetic taste; aesthetic experiences; aesthetic feelings; artistic and aesthetic qualities, etc.

The main element of the artistic and aesthetic life of society is art. This is a type of professional artistic and aesthetic activity for the reproduction, distribution and consumption of art values. It is characterized by the authorship, style and direction of artistic creativity. Art differs, for example, from folk artistic culture, which develops spontaneously, it does not, as a rule, have specific authors, it does not specialize and is not a means of obtaining benefits for its anonymous authors, and is not intended for reward.

Structure of art: architecture; fine arts(sculpture, painting, graphics, etc.); fiction; music; choreography; theater; movie; stage; audio-video art; computer, including virtual, art, applied art, etc.

In characterizing the basic concepts of artistic culture (art), attention should be paid to the categories of aesthetics: artistic image; art form; the beautiful and the ugly; the sublime and the base; tragic and comic.

Religion is one of the oldest and main (along with science, education, art) forms of spiritual culture. In modern theory, a popular definition of religion is based on its recognition as the basis of faith in God (“religion is faith in God”). Along with it, other approaches to understanding the essence of religion are widespread: religion is a system of dogmas, creeds and cults, which are based on the importance of veneration of the divine, recognition of the sacred and holy; religion is also one of the forms of human adaptation to the world around us, characteristic of spiritual culture, satisfying his spiritual needs with faith in the supernatural and the expectation of reward from him.

The basis of religion is belief in a special supernatural. Faith reveals the most important features that determine the place of religion in the relationship between man and existence. Religious faith consists of: 1) faith itself, i.e. belief in the correctness of the fundamentals of religious teaching; 2) knowledge of the most essential provisions of the doctrine; 3) recognition and adherence to the norms of morality and worship contained in religious requirements for a person; 4) compliance with the standards and requirements for everyday life a believer.

There are different types of religion: monotheistic (based on the belief in one God) and polytheistic (polytheistic); ritual - with an emphasis on performing certain religious actions; salvation religions, which recognize the dogma of in a special way a person’s life, his posthumous fate. Important role play national religions, common among representatives of one or related nations, as well as tribal religions. TO national religions include Shintoism (Japanese), Confucianism (Chinese), Judaism (Jews), etc. There are numerous religious sects, as well as the so-called “living” religions, pseudo religious associations. The world's religions are the most widespread and numerous in their followers. Major world religions in modern world- Christianity (emerged at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD), Islam (emerged in the 7th century BC), Buddhism (emerged in the 6th-5th centuries BC).

The following data speaks about the role of world and other religions in the modern world.

1. The vast majority of people living on Earth are adherents of one of the existing world religions. It is estimated, for example, that today 1.99 billion people are supporters of Christianity, 1.19 billion people of Islam, and 359 million people of Buddhism.

2. In a number of countries around the world, religious associations are separated from the state. Nevertheless, the influence of religion on the life of modern society remains significant. A number of states recognize one of the religions as state and compulsory.

3. Many religions are sources of moral, artistic and aesthetic values ​​and norms, regulate the daily lives of people, and preserve the principles of universal morality. The role of such religions in the revival and enhancement of cultural heritage and the familiarization of people with it is very significant.

4. Unfortunately, religious contradictions continue to be a source and breeding ground for bloody conflicts, terrorism, and a factor of separation and confrontation. Religious aggressive fanaticism is destructive; it opposes culture, universal spiritual values, and human interests.

One of the basic human rights in the modern world is the right to freedom of conscience. According to Article 28 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, “everyone is guaranteed freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, including the right to profess, individually or together with others, any religion or not to profess any religion, to freely choose, have and disseminate religious and other beliefs and to act in accordance with them.”

Freedom of conscience, therefore, leaves a person with a choice between religious faith and atheism. Any choice of freedom of conscience is not the basis for assessing the qualities of a person with a predetermined result: a believer means bad, a believer means good, etc. A person is assessed by the manifestation of his qualities in practice - in behavior, communication, activity.

The main thing in understanding freedom of conscience as a legal norm Russian Federation is that its implementation is a personal, private matter for each person. This is one of the natural, inalienable and not limited to anything or anyone rights of the individual.

Freedom of conscience, therefore, includes three freely chosen options for the orientation of one’s worldview and personal position:

Believe in any religion, freely choose your religion;

Do not believe in any religion, adhere to atheistic views and beliefs;

Freely, without persecution, criticize any religion or atheism on the basis of mutual respect and tolerance.

It should be noted that sometimes human spirituality is understood or explained as only or specifically religious spirituality. This interpretation is one-sided. It is not consistent with the principle of freedom of conscience and unambiguously orients a person’s worldview and spiritual world towards religiosity, and, as a rule, of a specific nature. A person’s spirituality is the state of his consciousness, the nature and direction of his worldview, a set of social qualities.

The spiritual sphere of society.

1. Specifics of the spiritual sphere of society.

2. Features of spiritual production.

3. Science as a type of spiritual production.

4. Art as a type of spiritual production.

5. Religion as a type of spiritual production.

Elements of the spiritual sphere of society:

· spiritual needs of people: are a product purely social interaction

· spiritual values: people’s views, scientific ideas, hypotheses and theories, works of art, moral and religious consciousness, spiritual communication of people and the resulting moral and psychological climate

· spiritual consumption

· spiritual relationships between people, as well as manifestations of their interpersonal spiritual communication, for example, on the basis of aesthetic, religious, moral relations.

spiritual production

2. Spiritual production is the activity of society in the production, preservation, exchange, distribution and consumption of ideas, ideas, ideals, scientific knowledge and other spiritual values. In the sphere of distribution and development of spiritual values, spiritual production covers education, moral and aesthetic education and other forms of familiarization with spiritual culture.

While there are a number of common points with material production, spiritual production has its own specifics. The subject of work in it is not only nature and natural substances, but also social progress in all the richness of its social connections, human thinking and human activity. Both the subject of spiritual production and the instruments of its activity are very unique. A special social stratum of professionals engaged in the creation of spiritual values ​​is being formed in society. For the most part, these are representatives of the intelligentsia. Spiritual production is the production of consciousness carried out by specialized groups of people professionally engaged in qualified mental labor. The result of spiritual production is ideas and theories, values, spiritual social relations and man himself as a spiritual being. The best examples of spiritual production, having received social assessment, are included in the fund of spiritual culture of society and become its property. By consuming spiritual values, a person is formed as a personality and in this capacity acts both as an object and as a subject of spiritual production. For spiritual formation, the system of education, upbringing, means of communicative influence, etc. are used. An important role is also played by the subject’s independent assimilation of spiritual values, self-education and self-education. Spiritual production, unlike material production, is of a universal, social nature, the products of spiritual production are available to everyone. Five loaves of bread cannot feed a thousand, but five ideas or masterpieces of art can satisfy the spiritual needs of a million people. However, it should be noted that the production of spiritual values ​​itself is always individual. An example would be that Nobel Prizes in science, teams of authors are not awarded. In general, great discoveries and creations are made by loners, because creativity is always unique and individual. Creativity is the main force of spiritual production, while in material production there are many such productive forces (raw materials, machines, labor, roads, etc.). Spiritual activity is valuable in itself, often has significance regardless of the result. So art exists for art's sake. Unlike material activity, for which it is not the creation that is valuable, but the possession of goods, in spiritual activity the creation itself is valuable. Functions of spiritual production: 1. Spiritual activity aimed at improving all means of society (economic, political, social) and the production of spiritual values.2. Production of applied and fundamental ideas, the production of the latter being the most important function.3. Production and dissemination of knowledge about these ideas in society.4. Production of public opinion. This function is closely related to the production and dissemination of knowledge, but it emphasizes the political and ideological aspect.5. Formation of spiritual needs, i.e. a person's inner urge to spiritual creativity and created spiritual values.

Types of spiritual production:

2. Art.

3. Religion.

Science as a type of spiritual production. Science 1) knowledge system; 2) social institution.

Science is a systematized knowledge of reality, reproducing its essential and natural aspects in the abstract and logical form of concepts, categories, laws, etc. Science creates an ideal world that reflects the laws of the objective world.

The main features of scientific knowledge:

• Systematic and logical
• Presence of idealized objects
• The need for methods, methodology and means of scientific knowledge
• Specialization, subjectivity, disciplinarity of scientific knowledge
• Availability special language science
• Rigor and objectivity of revealed truths
• Cumulativeness of scientific knowledge: accumulation, improvement, progressive development of science

Functions of science:

• Cognitive
• Explanatory
• Practical and effective (science provides a method for transforming the world, and also serves to introduce technologies and create equipment)
• Prognostic (for example, predicting natural anomalies)
• Worldview
• Social memory function

Differentiation and integration of scientific knowledge.

Differentiation of science– a process associated with an increase in the number of special sciences, the formation of new scientific disciplines, the formation of new scientific directions, approaches, concepts, theories. If in the time of Aristotle science was hardly divided into 20 areas of knowledge, now this division knows no boundaries. This was greatly facilitated by the discovery of the microscope and telescope. Physics was divided into mechanics, optics, electrodynamics, statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, hydrodynamics, etc. New sciences are also emerging, for example, genetics. Differentiation leads to progressive specialization of scientists, a lack of mutual understanding between representatives of various scientific fields and disciplines, which does not contribute to the progress of science.

Integration of science– a process associated with the unification of sciences based on the unity of various levels and fragments of the universe. Many sciences, for example, chemistry, physics, astronomy, etc., are united based on the study of elementary particles. Integration manifests itself as:

· Organization of research “at the intersection” of related scientific disciplines

· Development of “transdisciplinary” scientific methods that are important for many sciences (spectral analysis, computer experiment)

· Search for “unifying” theories and principles (for example, the theory of evolution)

· Development of theories that perform general methodological functions in natural science (cybernetics, synergetics)

· Complex nature of problem solving

Differentiation and integration are two complementary trends in science.

4. Art – this type of spiritual production, which is the creation of professionals (artists, musicians, poets, etc.), i.e. specialists in the field of aesthetics. The aesthetic is not only in art, it is spread throughout social reality and evokes special aesthetic feelings in people (for example, when admiring mountains). In art, the aesthetic is self-sufficient.

Initially, art was not a purely aesthetic activity; it served magic, religion and the transmission of social experience (rock paintings). In a class society, art becomes independent.

Art has social content, which is especially evident during crisis periods in the development of society. Late XIX V. – beginning of the 20th century characterized by the “dehumanization of art” (Ortega y Gasset’s term) - distancing from reality, expulsion from art of the immediacy of feelings, everything human, living. Art becomes inhuman, abstract, cold and ironic. Dehumanization affected all other spheres of public life.

Another example social nature art – totalitarian art of the 20th century. A striking example is the direction of socialist realism in the USSR, which was considered the main and only correct form of art. Totalitarian art becomes an instrument of politics, power, and ideology. The state monopolizes and controls the activities of artists; all styles of art not recognized by the official authorities are prohibited.

Functions of art:

1. Educational: works of art are a valuable source of information.

2. Educational: art has a profound impact on the ideological and moral development of a person, his improvement or decline.

3. Aesthetic: art provides aesthetic pleasure and pleasure, evokes certain emotions in a person (laughter, tears, etc.), which Aristotle called catharsis (purification of the soul). It also forms aesthetic consciousness, which makes a person human, instilling in him a sense of beauty.

5.Religion- This historical form worldview, social institution, as well as a type of spiritual production. Thanks to carefully developed principles and traditions, religion has become a bridge between the material and spiritual worlds. In the absence social justice it allows us to ensure and maintain order and stability in society. From the position social philosophy, religion forms a social worldview that allows you to be guided by it in everyday life - raising children, communicating with others, helping each other. Religion and religious mysteries, cults, sacraments are a form of socialization that introduces one to the traditions of a particular culture.

Being a social institution, religion has a certain structure:

1. Religious consciousness, including: a) religious ideology- a system of religious ideas, the development and propagation of which is carried out religious organizations represented by professional theologians and clergy; b) religious psychology– set religious ideas, feelings, moods, habits, traditions inherent in believers, which are formed under the influence of carriers of religious consciousness.

2. Religious cult– set symbolic action, with the help of which believers try to influence imaginary supernatural or real-life objects. The cult consists of rites, sacraments, rituals, sacrifices, services, mysteries, fasts, rituals, prayers, etc. The main function of a religious cult is to bring to the consciousness of believers certain religious ideas and meanings.

3. Religious organizations- associations of followers of a particular religion and the emergence on this basis of a community of beliefs and rituals. The main religious organization is church- an autonomous, strictly centralized institution, served by professional clergy (clergy). Religious organizations can also be sects- associations of believers who have broken with one or another official church who changed the foundations of its doctrine and cult or opposed themselves to the dominant religious trend. In sects, as a rule, there is no strict division into clergy and laity; missionary activity is actively carried out.

Functions of religion as a social institution:

1. Compensatory, consisting in the religious removal of social conflicts. Real oppression is overcome by freedom in spirit, social inequality is transformed into equality before God, disunity is replaced by “brotherhood in Christ,” the mortal turns out to be immortal, the world of evil and injustice is replaced by the “Kingdom of Heaven.” The compensatory function is especially clearly manifested in repentance and prayer. When they are performed, a special mental state of relief (satisfaction, joy, tranquility) occurs.

2. Regulatory– religious and moral ideas, religious activities and religious organizations act as regulators of people’s behavior.

3. Integrative– through the community of thoughts, actions, and feelings of believers, religion contributes to the unity and stability of society, as well as the formation of a new one.

4. Communicative– religion helps expand people’s opportunities and needs for communication.

Spiritual realm- this is the area of ​​​​creation and development of spiritual blessings. The elements of the spiritual sphere are spiritual needs as a source of spiritual activity of society, a means of carrying out spiritual production, as well as subjects of spiritual activity. Spiritual values ​​are the main element of the spiritual sphere - exist in the form of ideas and are materially embodied in the form of language, works of art etc.

are produced not things, but ideas, images, scientific and artistic values. True, these values ​​are one way or another materialized in physical things, carriers of these spiritual values, in books, paintings, sculptures or in modern electronic media. But still, the main thing in these objects is not their material side, but their spiritual content, the ideas, images, and feelings contained in them.

The spiritual sphere includes universities and laboratories, museums and theaters, art galleries and research institutes, magazines and newspapers, cultural monuments and national art treasures, etc. This sphere three main tasks. Science designed to discover new knowledge in technical and humanitarian fields, i.e., create avant-garde technologies, spaceship designs, decipher ancient texts, describe the laws of the universe, etc. Education is called upon transfer knowledge discovered by scientists to subsequent generations the most in an efficient way why schools and universities are created, latest programs and teaching methods, qualified teachers are trained.

Culture designed to create extra-scientific, namely, artistic values, store them in libraries, museums, and exhibit them in galleries. Culture should also include religion, which is the basis of the spiritual culture of any society.

The whole, as Aristotle taught, must be understood only as something more, something other than the simple sum of its constituent parts . For this reason, in order to understand society as a whole, it is necessary to study not only its parts, but also to identify special properties society as a whole. These are the following properties:

Amateur activity;

Self-organization;

Self-development;

Self-sufficiency. - this is the ability of a system, through its own activity, to create and recreate all the necessary conditions for its own existence, to produce everything necessary for collective life.

Self-sufficiency is the main difference between society and its constituent parts. None of the above types social activities cannot function independently; none of the individual social groups is able to survive alone or provide themselves with everything they need. Only society as a whole has this ability. Only the totality of all types of activities, all taken together and interconnected groups and their institutions create society as a whole as self-sufficient social system- a product of joint activity of people capable of creating, through their own efforts, all the necessary conditions for their existence

The connection between legal norms and socio-economic relations is clearly visible. Let's turn to the famous historical facts. In one of the first codes of laws Kievan Rus, which is commonly called “Russian Truth,” provides for various punishments for murder. In this case, the measure of punishment was determined primarily by a person’s place in the system of hierarchical relations, his belonging to a particular social stratum or group. Thus, the fine for killing a tiun (steward) was enormous: it was equal to the value of a herd of 80 oxen or 400 rams. The life of a stinker or serf was valued 16 times less.

Regarding social sphere , then here we can talk about its direct depending on the development of the material sphere where public wealth is created - schools, residential buildings, hospitals, sanatoriums and holiday homes are built, clothing, shoes, food, medicines are produced, i.e. everything that serves to satisfy the primary and most important needs of people. At the same time the state of the social sphere also affects material production, because the spiritual and physical well-being of people, the level of their upbringing and education and, consequently, their readiness to work in material production depend on it.

Spiritual sphere - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Spiritual Sphere" 2017, 2018.

The spiritual sphere of society coincides with spiritual culture (see 1.1) and, like other subsystems, has a complex structure. The spiritual sphere includes philosophy, religion, science, art, law, and morality. Features of political and legal consciousness were discussed in 7.3. Science was discussed in detail in 5.5.-5.10. Topic 1 is devoted to clarifying the characteristics of philosophy as an element of spiritual culture; religion - 1.7. This section will examine in detail art and morality and, accordingly, aesthetic and moral consciousness.

Morality - a historically established system of norms and rules of behavior, a set of established assessments in which generally accepted values ​​and meanings, ways of distinguishing between good and evil are expressed. The origins of morality should be sought in customs and traditions. It is important to note that morality is not fixed in laws, i.e., unlike politics and law, it is not institutional. Moral norms are unwritten laws that exist as an invisible regulatory network. The measure of retribution for compliance or violation of moral standards is approval or condemnation. The main function of morality is the regulation of behavior through evaluation. The ability to evaluate is based on a person’s ability to distinguish between good and evil, which is why the problem of distinguishing between good and evil is key issue morality.

Moral consciousness has its own structure, in which moral categories are distinguished, moral feelings, moral ideals. Moral norms are formed in the practice of communication between people; then, being internalized, they turn into internal beliefs, feelings and ideals that determine behavior and the assessment of this behavior. In historically changing forms of moral consciousness one can detect continuity: some norms are common to different eras and cultures. This stable set is called universal human values.

Quite common in philosophy is the position of moral relativism, which asserts the relativity of all moral norms without exception. Moral relativism reflects some objective processes occurring in society. For example, economic, political, social and cultural cataclysms, accompanied by changes in the main ideological guidelines, provoke a transformation of not only the form, but also the content of moral norms. However, at the same time, such rules as do not kill, do not cause suffering to others, be fair, etc. remain unchanged.

The internal tuning fork of moral consciousness is conscience - the subjective experience of compliance or non-compliance of one’s behavior with moral values. I. Kant believed that conscience is an internal consciousness of duty. Only behavior consistent with duty can be called moral. If a person outwardly acts in accordance with generally accepted norms, but at the same time benefits or experiences pleasure, then his actions cannot be called moral, argued German philosopher. The ethics of I. Kant is called the ethics of duty - rigorism.

Another German philosopher M. Heidegger calls conscience a call of care. Conscience returns a person from a state of abandonment and loss to a state of “being-with-others,” which, in turn, makes possible a person’s own free self-development.

The external expression of moral consciousness is public opinion. In modern democratic systems, public opinion becomes the most important political and social life. But on the other hand, the likelihood of its manipulation and use for the sake of private interests increases.

By thought ancient philosophers, beauty – the most adequate form of expression of being, an attribute of the cosmos. Beauty is synonymous with reason, and a world organized according to the laws of reason cannot be ugly. A person’s mind is an expression of his inner beauty, but in the ancient worldview, the idea of ​​external, physical beauty is also important.

Medieval philosophy pushed the value of external beauty to the periphery, focusing on the concept of internal beauty. Inner beauty is a consequence righteous life. Orthodox Christianity, especially during its ascent, prohibited theater and painting, which were associated with the idea of ​​external, physical beauty, as something contrary to ascetic morality and a righteous way of life.

The rehabilitation of the aesthetic principle occurred in the philosophy of the Renaissance, which turned to ancient ideals. It was during the Renaissance that aesthetics became a special section philosophical knowledge. Unlike ancient philosophers, Renaissance thinkers called the place of beauty not the world in itself, but art as the result of human creative activity. Art - ultimate reality, located outside of knowledge and morality, the unclouded world of the spirit, in which the thirst for creativity finds adequate expression. It is art that allows a person to express his essence, and therefore this essence should be sought in art.

In Renaissance philosophy, beauty began to be seen as an end in itself, thereby isolating itself from truth and goodness. IN later philosophy This position was adhered to by the German romantics A. Schopenhauer and F. Nietzsche. At the same time, concepts continue to exist in parallel, which assert unbreakable bond beauty and goodness, aesthetic and moral principles. This position was widespread in Russian philosophy of the 19th century. According to Russian philosophers, art is, first of all, a means of education and moral influence; the aesthetic principle, cleared of moral meanings, loses its properties and ceases to be a value.

In German classical philosophy a detailed aesthetic concept was proposed by I. Kant. The system of his critical philosophy turned out to be logically constructed and completed precisely when, between the world of nature and the world of freedom, he discovered the world of beauty. I. Kant came to the idea of ​​overcoming the dualism of science and morality by appealing to human artistic abilities. Reason constitutes the rules in the sphere of cognition, reason - in the sphere of behavior and morality, and the ability of aesthetic appreciation - in the sphere of beauty. The aesthetic has two hypostases: the beautiful, addressed to knowledge, and the sublime, addressed to morality. The beautiful is associated with a clear form, the sublime can be found in a formless object; the beautiful attracts, the sublime attracts and repels at the same time; the beautiful in itself is an object of pleasure, while it is impossible to receive pleasure from the sublime without “philosophizing.” Judgment of the sublime, according to I. Kant, requires culture in to a greater extent than a judgment about beauty. The presence of a moral law in the soul of every person creates the conditions for enjoying the sublime. I. Kant, thus, connects the aesthetic and the ethical, but, unlike Russian philosophers or Johann Wolfgang Goethe, he does not subordinate the aesthetic to the ethical.

Aesthetic consciousness is most concentratedly expressed in art. However, it can also manifest itself in other areas of human activity. For example, we talked about the epistemological principle of beauty as one of the regulators in the field of scientific and philosophical knowledge. Aesthetic consciousness is realized in religion and mythology. We can talk about aesthetic experiences about objects and natural phenomena or events in everyday life. However, only in art does aesthetic consciousness turn from a secondary element into the main goal. Beauty in art is both the content, the method, and the purpose of activity.

In art, a person creates a new, artistic reality, which, on the one hand, more or less plausibly reflects reality, but on the other, is a product of fiction and fantasy. Artistic reality is inexhaustible, which is why the same work of art can be understood and interpreted in different ways. Its content also cannot be expressed in rational concepts and judgments and is the subject of aesthetic experience.

Art, along with philosophy, performs a synthesizing function in culture, is a treasury of images and symbols in which values ​​and meanings that are significant to humans are expressed. In addition, it reflects diseases and incongruities faster and more clearly than philosophy or science. human life and thus can have a powerful mobilizing effect.