New Ethics as a Social Diagnosis

The object of the study is morality as a form of social consciousness, white its subject is the specific features of the manifestation of new ethics. The authors analyze the variety of phenomena included in the new ethics concept (each involves different groups of actors), and also identify the range of value judgments regarding this concept. The relevance of the topic stems from the need to determine the problem area of what is called new ethics. The questions raise: is the new ethics just a fashionable phrase or does this concept reflect important changes taking place in the life of modern society that affect the standards of behavior? Special attention, according to the authors, should be paid to the conclusions of E. Neumann, who wrote about the new ethics shortly after the Second World War, arguing for the individual right to a responsible ethical decision in the face of the impracticability of any old ethics prescriptions. A non-classical interpretation of the moral problem is suggesred by K. A. Svasyan, who emphasizes the personal-individual basis of viable morality. The new ethics as a principle of free choice can be seen as the opposite of the old ethics-prescriptive norms of behavior that are internalized at the cultural unconscious level in the process of individual socialization. A new ethical problem is emerging in a new — post-industrial, digital — era. This implies not only transformation of interpersonal communication skills, but also a changing (or disappearing) image of the working person. However, in some cases, the new ethics freedom to choose is limited to the adoption and implementation of new etiquette prescriptions. The result of the research is the recognition of the possible ontological status of the new ethics, which introduces new aspects of the changing social life of an individual into the moral problematic — not a person in general, but a specific here and now individual. The new ethics is considered not only as a protest against the impersonal cultural unconscious imposed by society, but also as an experience of individual and subjective reformatting of public morality. The ideas of human dignity and respect for the individual, which have long been discussed by moral philosophy, are moving from the theoretical sphere to the practical one. 

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