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Subject "Fundamentals of secular ethics". Expert opinions

The presentation “Final lesson on the subject “Fundamentals of Secular Ethics”” is intended for a general lesson on secular ethics in 4th grade. The lesson is structured in a game form; the proposed tasks allow you to repeat and reinforce the key concepts of the course (conscience, morality, ethics, etc.). This lesson will help the teacher effectively complete the course on secular ethics. The material is focused on the textbook by R.N. Buneeva, publishing house Ballas, but the proposed tasks are universal in nature and can be used in different situations.

The purpose of the lesson: the formation of the concepts of “spirituality” and “morality” as the main regulator of human behavior. Forming an understanding of the role of spiritual and moral values in the fate of man and humanity.
Acquaintance with the activities of one of the spiritual leaders of the Russian people - Sergius of Radonezh and his role in the unification of Rus'.
The results of the lesson should be:
Understanding the difference between spiritual and material values, the ability to explain why morality arose, and understand its significance in the life of every person.
Lesson type: learning new material. The presentation slides follow the lesson steps exactly. The development includes individual worksheets, handouts for students and material with information for the teacher.

Subject: Metasubject

Target audience: for 4th grade

Target:
formation in younger teenagers of motivation for conscious moral behavior based on knowledge and respect for the cultural and religious traditions of the multinational people of Russia, as well as for dialogue with representatives of other cultures and worldviews.
Tasks:
- acquaintance of students with the basics of secular ethics;
- development of the younger teenager’s ideas about the importance of moral norms and values for a decent life for the individual, family, and society;
- generalization of knowledge, concepts and ideas about spiritual culture and morality received by students in primary school, and the formation of their value-semantic worldview foundations, ensuring a holistic perception of national history and culture when studying humanitarian subjects at the primary school level.
Author's program on the subject “Fundamentals of religious cultures and secular ethics”, developed by A.Ya. Danilyuk

Target audience: for 4th grade

This development includes a complete outline of a lesson on the basics of secular ethics in grade 4 on the topic “Conscience” and a presentation for it. The purpose of the lesson is to form an idea of conscience as a moral category, and the planned results are the development of independence and personal responsibility for one’s actions based on ideas about conscience and moral standards.
The abstract was developed based on the textbook Danilyuk A.Ya. Fundamentals of the spiritual and moral culture of the peoples of Russia. O-75 basics of religious cultures and secular ethics. Fundamentals of secular ethics. 4-5 grades [text] / Danilyuk A.Ya.: textbook. for general education institutions. - M.: Education, 2012.-63 p.: ill.-ISBN 978-5-09-026774-8

Target audience: for 4th grade

Synopsis and presentation for the lesson on the basics of secular ethics "Why does a family need traditions?" This development is intended to help teachers teaching “Fundamentals of Secular Ethics” conduct their lessons more effectively. The development meets the new requirements of the Federal State Educational Standard. The psychological characteristics of students are taken into account, there are tasks of different directions, joint work with parents, the beginning of project activities, and electronic physical education for the eyes are provided. Due to their large size, video clips cannot be downloaded, but they can be viewed or downloaded; the corresponding links are available. The outline contains all the necessary explanations.

Target audience: for 4th grade

Purpose and objectives of the lesson:
help students understand the sense of conscience as one of the moral and ethical values in society, teach them to relate the concepts of “shame” and “conscience”
Subject results: mastery of concepts: conscience, shame, repentance, feelings, will.
Types of activities: conversation, commented reading, oral narrative on a topic, working with illustrative material, independent work with sources of information, preparing a creative conversation with family members
Equipment:
(multimedia presentation) laptop, textbook, handouts, F. Chopin. Nocturne No. 20.

Repetition of covered material.
Discussion of homework results

Remember the topic of the first lesson.

Interview game:

What heroes of Russia do you know?
What are their services to the fatherland?
What Russian writers, artists, composers do you know and why are they famous?
Are there any among your relatives who have done a lot for the Motherland?
Who is this, what are their merits?

Read the proverbs and complete them

Think about the meaning of proverbs

What new did you learn in class?

What is the human spiritual world?

The spiritual world of a person is knowledge, information contained in books, works of art and cinema, relationships between people.

What are cultural traditions?

Cultural traditions are the wealth of our multinational country. They are based on such eternal values as goodness, honor, justice, mercy.

Why do they exist?

If a person follows them, he will not get lost in a complex world, will be able to distinguish good from bad, and will learn how to make his inner world clean, bright and joyful.

Name a few traditions accepted in your family.

What values underlie your family's traditions?

Basic Concepts

In ancient Greece, all sciences were called philosophy.

« Philo" - Love, " Sofia" - wisdom. It turns out that philosophy- love of wisdom.

Aristotle believed that ethics is part of philosophy.

Ethics studies morality.

Morality- these are habits, customs, rules of behavior. All together, this can be called the word “morals”, from which the word “morality” comes from in Russian.

The words “morality” and “morality” are synonymous.

People are different

Every person has positive and negative traits. Most people are honest, hardworking, caring, capable of love and friendship. However, there are also those who lie, steal, are rude, and offend the weak.

Why do some people do good deeds, while others do evil to themselves and others?

Choice

What do you need to do to become kind yourself and so that there are as many good people as possible?
Should a person who has done good be rewarded?
How to reward?
How to make people's lives better?

Choice

In everyday life, we often find ourselves in a situation of choosing one or another action, action, style of behavior.

What should you do:

The answers to these and many other similar questions are not always given to us easily and simply.

How to proceed? Every day a person is faced with the need to make a choice.

In order to make the right decision, and most importantly, to make your moral choice, which you would not have to regret later, you need to have clear ideas about moral values, or, as the ancient Greeks called them, about “ethical virtues.”

Moral choice

In addition, you must have such qualities as responsibility and will, because ultimately your action is always a choice between good and evil.

And we also need to keep in mind that moral choice must be free in its manifestation, since even the most beautiful act, committed under duress, has no moral value.

Well, you have to be honest, kind, hardworking, in general, you have to remain a person...

Secular ethics presupposes

Secular ethics assumes that a person himself can determine

what is good and what is evil,
that it depends on the person himself whether he will become good or bad,
that a person himself must be responsible for his actions to other people.

We can say that ethics helps a person to independently perform virtuous actions and build relationships with people, and therefore become a better person.

Consolidation of what has been learned

What is ethics?
What does “secular ethics” mean and what does it imply?
Who was the founder of the science of Ethics?
What does the word "morality" mean?
What does secular ethics help us understand?

Check of knowledge

Work in pairs

Take a test based on the lesson materials to test yourself (see Additional Lesson Material).

Creative task

Choose synonyms for the words Motherland, Russia, Fatherland, patriot, flag, president, spiritual values.

Present your answers in table form.

Conversation at home

What will you tell your family members about what it is? morality, morality, ethics?
How will you explain the concept to family members and friends? secular ethics?

Illustrative materials used in the preparation of this publication:

RIA News",

OOO “Image Library” / Fotobank.ru,

LLC "Lori"

Fundamentals of religious cultures and secular ethics. Fundamentals O 75 of secular ethics. Grades 4-5: textbook for general education. institutions. - M.: Education, 2010. - 63 p. : ill. -

ISBN 978 5 09 024068 0.

The textbook introduces students to the basics of secular ethics. What is good and evil, virtue and vice, altruism and selfishness? What does it mean to be moral? Secular ethics will help schoolchildren understand these and other issues. Students will learn about what a true friend is, honor and dignity, shame and conscience, etiquette, and much more.

Secular ethics will provide knowledge that will help students independently perform moral actions, and therefore make their lives and the lives of other people better.

	Russia is our Motherland. . . . . . . . . .
	What is secular ethics? . . . . . . . .
	Culture and morality. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
	Features of morality. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

	Good and evil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

	Virtue and vice. . . . . . . . . . . . .
	Freedom and moral choice of the person
	century. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
	Freedom and responsibility. . . . . . . .
	Moral duty. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
	Justice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
	Altruism and egoism. . . . . . . . . . . . .
	Friendship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
	What does it mean to be moral? . . . . .
Lessons 16-17. Summarizing. . . . . . . . . . . .
	Rod and family are the source of moral
	relationships. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
	Moral action. . . . . . . . . .
	The Golden Rule of Morality. . .
	Shame, guilt and apology. . . . . . . . . .
	Honor and dignity. . . . . . . . . . . . .
	Conscience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

	Moral ideals. . . . . . . . . . . .
	Models of morality in culture
	Tour of the Fatherland. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
	Etiquette. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
	Family holidays. . . . . . . . . . . . .
	Human life is the highest morality
	natural value. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
	Love and respect for the Fatherland. . .

What is the spiritual world of man?

What are cultural traditions and why do they exist?

Russia is our Motherland

We live in a wonderful country, whose name is the Russian Federation, or, in short, Russia. Say this word out loud

And you will feel the light, space, spirituality in its sound...

We respectfully call our country the FATHERLAND, because our fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, great-grandfathers of our great-grandfathers and their ancestors studied, worked and defended their land in order to preserve Russia for future generations. We lovingly call our country HOMELAND, because we were born and live in it.

The world around us is endless and diverse. Things, objects among which a person lives, natural phenomena - this is the material world. But there is another world - the spiritual. The spiritual world is knowledge and information contained in books, works of art and cinema, relationships between people, etc. At school you get acquainted with this world by studying Russian, native and foreign languages, mathematics and computer science, literary reading , fine arts and much more. This world is also called the world of culture.

Not only is man in the spiritual world, but this world is also reflected in man

And forms his inner world, which almost all religions of the world define as the human soul. In this inner world of a person live memories, images of dear people, everything that he believes in and strives for.

A person, depending on the state of his inner world, can be happy or sad, calm or anxious

FUNDAMENTALS OF SECULAR ETHICS Lesson 1

nym, create something new and necessary for people, or indulge in despondency and melancholy. What does this depend on? It depends on what you fill your inner world with and how you build relationships with other people.

Both in the inner and outer world there is high and low, light and dark, beautiful and ugly, favorable for a person and dangerous for him. There is good and evil, love and hatred, honor and dishonor, mercy and cruelty, truth and lies. A person has the right to determine for himself what to choose from this, how to feed his soul. And this choice is never easy.

How not to destroy your inner world? You began to study the subject “Fundamentals of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics” in order to get answers to these questions that are important for every person.

IN The spiritual world has its own roads. They are called traditions. Our ancestors walked along them.Cultural traditions- this is the wealth of our multinational country. Religious cultures and moral and ethical norms occupy a special place among them. All of them are based on such eternal values as goodness, honor, justice, mercy. If a person follows them, he will not get lost in a complex world, will be able to distinguish good from bad, and will learn how to make his inner world clean, bright and joyful.

IN Our country is inhabited by people who know and carefully preserve different traditions. They often speak different languages, but they understand each other well and together they form one friendly family of the peoples of Russia.

And in this family we treat every tradition with respect and care. We are all different, but we all live, work, study and are proud of our Motherland.

Consult with your parents and name several traditions accepted in your family.

What values underlie your family's traditions?

What is ethics?

What does secular ethics mean and what does it imply?

What is secular ethics

Ethics is a science that examines actions and relationships between people from the point of view of ideas about good and evil. The founder of this science was the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (IV century BC), who introduced the term itself into the titles of his works. In Ancient Greece, all sciences were called philosophy. The word “philosophy” consists of the Greek words “philo” - love and “sophia” - wisdom. It turns out that philosophy is the love of wisdom. Aristotle believed that ethics is part of philosophy.

Ethics studies morality. The word "morality" originated in ancient Rome and means "at

Raphael. Athens school

FUNDAMENTALS OF SECULAR ETHICS Lesson 2

habits”, “customs”, “rules of behavior”. All together, this can be called the word “morals”, from which the word “morality” comes from in Russian. Therefore, the words “morality” and “morality” are synonymous.

Ethics is not simply the study of how people behave and why they do what they do. It helps to understand what morality is and how it is achieved.

Why do some people do good deeds, while others do evil to themselves and others? What do you need to do to become kind yourself and to have as many good people as possible? How to reward a person who has done good? How not to do evil? How to make people's lives better? Ethics helps answer all these questions.

There are religious and secular ethics. The word “secular” means “worldly”, “civil”. Secular ethics assumes that a person himself can determine what is good and what is evil; that it depends on the person himself whether he will become good or bad; that a person himself must be responsible for his actions to other people.

We can say that ethics helps a person independently perform virtuous acts and build relationships with people, and therefore become a better person.

The fresco by Raphael (1483-1520) “The School of Athens” also has another name - “Philosophical Conversations”. On it the artist depicted great thinkers who lived in other times and in other countries. He gave some of them the features of his contemporaries. For example, in the center of the fresco we see the figure of Plato, who has the features of the great artist Leonardo da Vinci. To his right stands Aristotle, holding his book of Ethics in his hand.

Aristotle

Who was the founder of Eti ka science?

What does the word "morality" mean?

What does secular ethics help us understand?

What does the word "culture" mean?

Why is culture called second nature?

How did morality arise?

Weaving an Uzbek carpet

Culture and morality

The concept of culture appeared in Ancient Greece and translated from Latin meant “cultivation of the land.” It was assumed that field care was not just cultivating the land, but also caring for it.

The word “culture” entered the Russian language in the middle of the 19th century. It was used in two meanings: 1) arable farming, farming; 2) education.

Traditional tea fair

FUNDAMENTALS OF SECULAR ETHICS Lesson 3

culture. These cultures exist together, enriching each other. Therefore, it is very important to study the culture not only of your country, your people, but also of other countries and peoples.

Culture includes objects of human labor (material culture), as well as ideas, values and ideals, traditions and customs, norms and rules (spiritual culture).

There are many different types of spiritual culture. For example, political culture is the ideals and life values of people in a state, legal culture is the laws by which people live in society and which are binding on everyone without exception. A special type of spiritual culture is morality - a system of norms and values regulating people’s behavior.

Morality arose when people were especially aware that some actions help to live, while others interfere. For example, if you help each other, life becomes easier. But if you are lazy, quarrel, or cheat, then people’s lives become worse. Gradually, ideas about good and bad, good and evil began to take shape. As a result, a need arose to support (encourage) good (kind) deeds and prohibit bad (evil) deeds. In addition, it became necessary to pass on the knowledge of good and evil to future generations. This knowledge gradually turned into norms of behavior. These moral standards are associated with requirements that are understandable to everyone: respect parents, keep promises, help those in need, do not steal, do not kill, etc. And always, at all times, cowardice, betrayal, greed, cruelty, slander, City Hall

Eastern ornament

Look at the illustrations on this spread. Elements of what national cultures are represented on them?

Give examples of material and spiritual culture.

Explain why morality arose.

Together with your parents, draw up a set (list) of moral norms (rules) accepted in your family.

What are the features of morality?

Is there a single list of moral rules?

Who should take care of compliance with moral standards in society.

Features of morality

You already know that morality is a system of norms and values that regulate people's behavior. But there are many different values and norms in society. What are the features of morality?

Moral norms (rules) are not written down anywhere. However, this does not mean that you cannot read about them anywhere. There are works of scientists, literary works and films, the characters of which find themselves in various situations of moral choice, as well as religious books.

Most state laws, including the main law of the Russian state, which is the Constitution of the Russian Federation, are based on moral standards. In addition, there are parents and teachers who teach their children to observe moral standards (rules).

The laws adopted by the State Duma of the Russian Federation are based on moral standards

basics RELIGIOUS CULTURES AND SECULAR

ethics basics SOCIAL

ethics

4-5 CLASSES

Tutorial

for educational institutions

Moscow "Enlightenment" 2010

Content

Lesson 1.Russia is our Motherland

Lesson 2.What is secular ethics

Lesson 3.Culture and morality

Lesson 4.Features of morality

Lesson5. Good and evil

Lesson6. Good and evil

Lesson 7.Virtue and Vice

Lesson 8.Virtue and Vice

Lesson 9.Freedom and moral choice of man

Lesson 10.Freedom and responsibility

Lesson 11 . Moral duty

Lesson 12.Justice

Lesson 13.Altruism and egoism

Lesson 14.Friendship

Lesson 15.What does it mean to be moral?

Lessons 16-17.Summarizing

Lesson 18.Clan and family are the source of moral relations

Lesson 19.Moral action

Lesson 20.Golden Rule of Morality

Lesson 21. Shame, guilt and apology

Lesson 22.Honor and dignity

Lesson 23.Conscience

Lesson 24.Moral ideals

Lesson 25.Moral ideals

Lesson 26.Models of morality in the culture of the Fatherland

Lesson 27Etiquette

Lesson 28Family holidays

Lesson 29Human life is the highest moral value

Lesson 30.Love and respect for the Fatherland

Lesson 1 - Russia is our Motherland

We live in a wonderful country, whose name is the Russian Federation, or, for short, Russia. Say this word out loud, and you will feel in its sound light, expanse, space, spirituality...

The world around us is endless and diverse. Things, objects among which a person lives, natural phenomena - this is the material world. But there is another world - the spiritual one. The spiritual world is knowledge and information contained in books, works of art and cinema, relationships between people, etc. At school you get acquainted with this world by studying Russian, native and foreign languages, mathematics and computer science, literary reading, fine arts and much more. This world is also called the world of culture.

Not only is a person in the spiritual world, but this world is reflected in a person and forms his inner world, which almost all religions of the world define as the human soul. In this inner world of a person live memories, images of dear people, everything that he believes in and strives for.

A person, depending on the state of his inner world, can be happy or sad, be calm or anxious, create something new and necessary for people, or indulge in despondency and melancholy.

What does this depend on? It depends on what you fill your inner world with and how you build relationships with other people.

The spiritual world has its own roads. They are called traditions. Our ancestors walked along them. Cultural traditions are the wealth of our multinational country. A special place among them is occupied by religious cultures and moral and ethical standards. All of them are based on such eternal values as goodness, honor, justice, mercy. If a person follows them, he will not get lost in a complex world, will be able to distinguish good from bad, and will learn how to make his inner world clean, bright and joyful.

In our country there are people who know and carefully preserve different traditions. They often speak different languages, but they understand each other well and together they form one friendly family of the peoples of Russia.

And in this family we treat every tradition with respect and care. We are all different, but we all live, work, study and are proud of our Motherland.

Lesson 1 – What is secular ethics

Ethics is a science that examines actions and relationships between people from the point of view of ideas about good and evil. The founder of this science was the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (IV century BC), who introduced the term itself into the titles of his works. In Ancient Greece, all sciences were called philosophy. The word "philosophy" is composed of the Greek words "philo" - love and "sophia" - wisdom. It turns out that philosophy is the love of wisdom. Aristotle believed that ethics is a part of philosophy.

Ethics studies morality. The word “morality” originated in Ancient Rome and means “customs”, “rules of behavior”. All together, this can be called the word “morals”, from which the word “morality” originated in the Russian language.”

Therefore, the words “morality” and “morality” are synonymous.

Ethics is not simply the study of how people behave and why they act the way they do. It helps to understand what morality is and how it is achieved.

Why do some people do good deeds, while others do evil to themselves and others? What do you need to do to become kind yourself and so that there are as many good people as possible? How to reward a person who has done good? How not to do evil? How to make people's lives better? Ethics helps answer all these questions.

We can say that ethics helps a person to independently perform virtuous actions and build relationships with people, and therefore become a better person.

Lesson 3 – Culture and Morality

The word “culture” entered the Russian language in the middle of the 19th century. It was used in two meanings: 1) arable farming, farming; 2) education.

Culture is sometimes called second nature. Unlike natural nature, which can exist without humans, culture is created by the work of many people who continue to support, develop, and enrich it. Moreover, unlike nature, culture does not exist in the singular. Each nation at different times created and is now creating its own culture. These cultures exist together enriching each other. Therefore, it is very important to study the culture of not only your own country, your people, but also other countries and peoples.

Culture includes objects of human labor (material culture), as well as ideas, ideas, values and ideals, traditions and customs, norms and rules (spiritual culture).

There are many different types of spiritual culture.

For example, political culture is the ideals and life values of people in a state, legal culture is the laws by which people live in society and which are binding on everyone, without exception. A special type of spiritual culture is morality - a system of norms and values regulating people’s behavior.

Morality arose when people realized that some actions help to live, while others interfere. For example, if you help each other, life becomes easier. But whether she is lazy, quarrels, or deceives, people’s lives become worse. Gradually, ideas about good and bad, good and evil began to take shape. As a result, there was a need to support (encourage good (kind) deeds and prohibit bad (evil) deeds. In addition, it became (necessary to pass on knowledge about good and evil to subsequent generations. This knowledge gradually turned into norms of behavior. These moral norms are associated with understandable demands: respect parents, keep promises, help those in need, do not steal, do not kill, etc. And always, at all times, cowardice, betrayal, greed, cruelty, slander, hypocrisy were condemned.

Lesson 4 – Features of morality

YouYou already know that morality is a system of norms and values that regulate people’s behavior. But there are many different values and norms in society. What are the features of morality?

Moral norms (rules) are not written down anywhere.However, this does not mean that you cannot read about them anywhere. There are works of scientists, literary works and films, the characters of which find themselves in various situations of moral choice, as well as religious books.

The laws adopted by the State Duma of the Russian Federation are based on moral standards

Moral standards have no documentationnogodesign, i.e. there is no single set of |list) of moral standards. A person himself must, by reading books, observing the laws of the state in which he lives, listening to parents and teachers, learn to distinguish good from evil, good from bad. Exploring the world and communicating with other people, a person learns to choose moral standards, following which he will make the lives of the people around him, and therefore his own life, better.

There are special organizations in society that make sure that people follow the rules and regulations. These are the prosecutor's office, courts, police. They make sure people don't break laws. If people violate them, life in society will become worse.

There is nothing like that in morality - no “moral organizations”, no special “moral guardians”, “moral watchdogs”.Allpeople make their contribution to the maintenance of morality and moral educationtion.Parents and relatives in the family, teachers at school, and friends take care of the good, kind behavior of children. For adults, employees are people with whom they work. And of course, the man himself.

This means that it largely depends on each person what moral standards he himself follows and what morality is in the society in which he lives. If people are indifferent and do not pay attention to the bad deeds of others, then there will be more bad deeds. Impunity increases evil in the world. At the same time, the main thing is not to judge the other, but to help him become better. Then there will be more good people.

Lesson 5 – Good and Evil

"D"good" and "evil" are the main moral concepts in life. It is these concepts that guide people in their actions. From the point of view of good and evil, a person evaluates both his actions and the actions of other people. Thanks to the fact that people understand what good and evil are, they can maintain good relations with each other and prohibit and prevent quarrels, violence, and cruelty. Let us take a closer look at what good is and what evil is.

Goodis a moral value that relates to human activity, a pattern of people’s actions and relationships between them. To perform moral (good) actions consciously, disinterestedly, and not with an expectation of benefit or reward - means to do good.

If a person committed an act in order to receive praise or a reward, this does not mean that the act is bad, but it cannot be called morally good, because it was not done selfishly. Also, those actions that are performed out of fear of punishment cannot be called good.

So, good is:

- actions that help overcome disunity between people, contribute to the establishment of humanity (philanthropy, mutual understanding and mutual respect);

- actions that help the person himself and the people around him to develop.

For example, if you let a classmate copy your homework, this does not mean doing a good deed. After all, the one who cheated will not know the lesson better. It would be a good idea to help him understand the task so that he can do it himself.

Often for ethics it is more important to find out not what is good, but what is evil. Sometimes it is more important to prevent evil from happening than to do good.

Evil is the opposite of good and is what morality seeks to eliminate and correct. Evil can exist in different actions of people. Here are the most common examples of the manifestation of evil:

- deliberate humiliation of other people, which most often manifests itself in disrespect and intolerance towards them;

- deception, because of which those who are deceived commit wrong actions;

- violence that suppresses a person’s freedom, depriving him of the ability to be independent, or makes him unkind.

As the opposite of good, evil destroys the relationships and cooperation of people, spreads hostility between them, and impedes the development of human abilities. Evil deeds bring misfortune and suffering to people. Therefore, preventing evil and fighting it are important tasks of human moral behavior.

Lesson 6 – Good and Evil

In the course of historical development, society and culture changed. Ideas about good and evil also changed.

For example, in ancient times there was a custom to sacrifice animals and even people to the gods. And this was not considered a bad thing. On the contrary, people thought they were doing good. After all, by doing so they wanted to appease the gods so that they would help them get a good harvest, have a successful hunt, etc.

For many thousands of years, slavery existed in the world, when some people were owned by others. Slave owners forced slaves to work for themselves, fed them poorly, and could severely beat or even kill them. Slaves worked without receiving any payment or even gratitude for their work.

For hundreds of years, serfdom existed in Russia and other countries. The peasants, like a thing, belonged to their master. Often cruel landowners mocked the peasants and punished them for any offense.

There have been many cases in the history of mankind when some people killed others because they had a different skin color, because they thought differently, simply because they were different. And this was not condemned by society. There are many examples of how ideas about good and evil have changed.

Time passed, society developed, human life changed. People began to think more about how to make their lives and the lives of the entire society better, and they learned to do so.

Today everyone knows that people cannot be sacrificed or killed either in order to appease the gods or for any other purposes, that no one can be kept in slavery and forced to work without payment and gratitude for their work, that one cannot kill, insult and humiliate other people because of their skin color, because they have different thoughts and beliefs.

Nowadays, people should take care of the elderly and sick, try to live in peace and harmony, and not violate moral standards. If they do not do this, then they are condemned, considered immoral, or immoral.

Of course, this does not mean that everything has become good in the world, that there are no disasters and suffering. There are also wars, famines, and diseases. However, people become better and find the strength to fight evil. And knowledge of good and evil helps them in this. Thanks to this, people strive for a peaceful life, friendship, mutual assistance, and try to take care of each other.

Lesson 7 – Virtue and Vice

Virtue and vice are two opposing characteristics of a person by which other people evaluate him.

By doing good deeds, a person learns to be kind and becomes virtuous. What is virtue?

Virtue expresses a person’s desire for good, the desire to be like a moral person who is a model for him. Such role models can be parents, a teacher, a friend, astronauts, polar explorers, military personnel, athletes, artists, literary characters (heroes, musketeers, knights). By trying to be like these moral models, a person learns to be virtuous.

In addition, virtue is a separate positive quality of a person. For example, hard work, efficiency, responsibility, friendliness, politeness, ability to empathize, sympathize, etc.

Actions that result in harm to oneself or others are called vices. A vice can also be called a reprehensible defect in a person, a character trait that disgraces him. For example, greed, laziness, deceit, boasting, arrogance, etc.

A moral person knows what good and evil are. He consciously performs virtuous actions, avoiding vicious ones.

What should you do to become virtuous?

The moral development of a person as an individual occurs throughout his life.

From early childhood, a person communicates with other people, observes their actions, and takes an example from them. Sometimes a person makes mistakes and does bad things. However, gradually, through trial and error, listening to the opinions of the people around him, comparing his actions with their actions, a person learns to live in society. He learns to be virtuous, acquires positive personality traits, that is, he improves morally.

The first step to virtuous behavior is recognizing the value of other people. What does it mean? This means that in his actions a person cannot be guided only by his interests and beliefs,

he must respect the interests and beliefs of other people, listen to their opinions.

The path to virtue is difficult and long. Some people think it’s easier to live the way only they want. But then this person must be prepared for the fact that those around him will avoid communicating with him, will not want to be friends with him, or love him.

Of course, no person can ever become completely virtuous, but one must strive for this, try to act virtuously and avoid vicious behavior.

Lesson 8 – Virtue and Vice

There are many virtues and vices. The most famous understanding and division of virtues in ethics was proposed by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. He believed that virtue is the ability to do the best in everything. And such virtue is in the middle between two vices: excess and deficiency. For a better understanding, let's give examples.

Extravagance - generosity - stinginess.

Generosity is the middle ground between extravagance and stinginess. Generosity as a virtue expresses a person's attitude towards material things. In this case, extravagance is an excess, and stinginess is a deficiency.

It is bad when a person is stingy and does not share with those who need it, but it is not better to be wasteful either. It would seem good when a person does not spare anything for others, he distributes what he has to everyone without exception at the first request. But sooner or later, a person who really needs it may turn to him, but it will no longer be possible to help him. Being generous means being able to give people what they really need, when they need it.

Harmfulness - friendliness - servility.

Friendliness is the middle ground between servility and harmfulness and nonsense. Friendliness as a virtue expresses the degree of sincerity in relationships between people. Excess in this case is harmful, nonsense. The disadvantage is servility. An obsequious person wants to please everyone, flatters and pleases everyone. If servility is combined with the desire to gain one's own benefit, then the result is sycophancy. Friendliness as a virtue is the ability to maintain relationships with other people without forgetting self-esteem, i.e. self-respect. This feeling does not allow a person to humiliate himself, respond to rudeness with rudeness, etc.

Reckless courage - courage - cowardice.

Courage is the middle ground between cowardice and reckless, thoughtless courage. A courageous person correctly assesses danger, helping others and himself. The excess in this case is reckless courage, and the deficiency is cowardice.

There are many other virtues and vices. But there are no uniform rules that can be learned to become virtuous. Therefore, each person must correctly assess a specific situation in order to do a good deed. It is this action that will be virtuous.

Lesson 9 – Freedom and moral choice of a person

Featureof a person as a living being is that he has freedom. Freedom is the ability of a person to determine his behavior taking into account the laws of nature and society.

Animals are not free in their actions; they are guided by instinct. Predators such as the lion and wolf cannot help but kill other animals. The desire to kill is inherent in them by nature - otherwise they will not survive. In man, too, much depends on nature. For example, he cannot choose whether to breathe or not breathe. However, he can choose how to act towards other people.

The concept of moral choice is closely related to the concept of freedom. Moral choice is a choice between different ways of behavior, between the norms that a person follows, between different ideals that he strives for. Ultimately it is a choice between good and evil.

There are a lot of situations of moral choice in which a person finds himself throughout his life. Let's look at some of them.

The choice between moral and immoral behavior primarily depends on the persistence of following the virtues, which constitute a person’s character. Therefore, we can say that moral choice is the result of strength of character. Exactly

It depends on a person whether he will become morally good or evil, whether he will follow the path of virtue or the path of vice.

Often a person must choose between his own interests and the interests of other people. It is believed that a virtuous person should follow the interests of others. Living together, people should help each other, even sometimes to the detriment of their own interests and desires. However, not all people are virtuous, and sometimes their interests may contradict moral standards.

For example, one person wants to steal or deceive someone and asks a friend to help him. In this case, the moral choice requires the friend not only not to help, but also to prevent the thief or fraudster from doing what he intended. A person cannot ignore the opinions of other people. However, if he is convinced of his moral rightness, then he makes a choice in favor of defending his position.

People are bound to each other by a variety of responsibilities, one of which is difficult to fulfill without violating the other. How, for example, can one keep a promise to keep a trusted secret if concealing it could harm other people? Therefore, it is important to make only promises that can definitely be fulfilled without harm to others.

An acute situation of moral choice is sometimes called a moral conflict. A moral conflict is when the pursuit of one moral value destroys another, perhaps no less valuable. When resolving a moral conflict, it is very important to make not just the right, but the virtuous choice.

Lesson 10 – Freedom and Responsibility

Human freedom is always associated with responsibility. Responsibility is a character trait of a person and his actions, which indicates that a person is responsible for his own free choice.

Responsible behavior of an individual is possible only under certain conditions.

First, a person is responsible only for those actions that are the result of his free choice. A person is not responsible for what he did not do, or for what does not depend on him.

For example, if a person was pushed and, falling, caused harm to someone, then he cannot be blamed and is not responsible for this. The one who pushed should be held accountable for the harm caused, because he might not have done it.

Secondly, an important condition when assessing the responsibility of an act and the person who committed it is intentionality.

What is intentionality? This is when an action is performed consciously. Intentional help is valued much more than accidental help.

Intentional harm is worse than unintentional harm. But a person must also bear responsibility for unintentionally causing harm.

Thirdly, a person must be aware of the consequences of his actions.

For example, when throwing something out of a window (and this is already immoral), a person did not think that he might hit a passerby and injure him. However, this does not mean that he is not responsible for this.

Therefore, before doing something, a person should think: “What consequences will my action lead to?”, “Will I harm someone?” The ability to ask oneself such questions is an internal responsibility of a person. It testifies to his responsibility to himself and other people.

When talking about responsibility, it is important to understand who and what is included in the responsibility relationship. First of all, this is the one who is responsible, that is, the person who made his conscious free moral choice, then the one or those to whom the person is responsible, and finally, what the person is responsible for.

Of course, everyone's responsibility is different. It depends on age and on what place a person occupies in society. Parents are responsible for their children, and children are responsible for the tasks assigned to them. Teachers are responsible for how students learn, and students are responsible for how they learn. The more people depend on a person, the greater the degree of his responsibility.

People are responsible not only for each other, but also for everything that surrounds them, including nature. This meaning of moral responsibility is very close to the concept of care.

Let's give an example. The tourists left behind garbage at a rest stop in the forest and did not put out the fire. All this causes great harm to nature. Responsible people don't do that. They care about nature and about those people who will come here after them. Real tourists will definitely leave their resting place in perfect order.

Lesson 11 – Moral duty

Moral, virtuous behavior is impossible without a person understanding his duty. Duty is a person’s awareness of the need to fulfill moral standards. In moral duty, external cultural norms turn into a personal task for each person. A man of duty fulfills existing norms not under coercion, but on the basis of his convictions. Duty is closely related to freedom and responsibility. Through understanding and awareness of his duty, a person freely and voluntarily assumes obligations towards himself and others. Therefore, moral duty is sometimes called moral duties. What moral duties does a person have?

The obligation to fulfill the moral standards established in society. Thus, a virtuous person fulfills the norm “don’t lie” not because he is afraid of punishment, but because he is convinced that telling the truth is his duty. A virtuous person helps another not in anticipation of reward or gratitude, but because he feels obligated to do so.

The duty to respect other people and their rights. Every person has the right to freely express their opinion. And other people must respect this right. However, this does not mean that you should always agree with the opinions of others. Each person has his own beliefs and opinions. And you cannot persecute, humiliate, condemn or insult a person, much less force him to renounce his beliefs if they do not coincide with yours. The only exceptions are those rights that everyone must respect. If these beliefs do not contradict the rights of other people, then no one can prevent a person from exercising his rights.

In addition, there are many responsibilities that people voluntarily take on. So, by making a promise to do something, a person takes on the responsibility to keep it. If the promise was given freely, that is, without coercion or deception, then it must be fulfilled.

A person’s moral duties include selfless help to other people. Previously, there was talk of moral responsibility as caring for others. Selflessly helping other people when they need it is a person's moral duty.

Gratitude is also a moral duty. When one person helps another in accordance with his moral duty, without counting on material gratitude, then you can thank him by saying “thank you” and be ready to help him when needed.

There are many other responsibilities associated with human relationships. There is a parental duty to take care of children. There is a duty to care for the sick and elderly. There is a professional duty that is associated with fulfilling the duties of a job. There is a patriotic duty, which is expressed in protecting one’s Motherland and caring for its prosperity.

The most important thing in moral duty is not blind compliance with existing norms and requirements in society, but conscious and voluntary adherence to them.

Lesson 12 – Justice

Justice plays an important role in relations between people. Every person wants to be treated fairly. What is justice?

Justice is a moral rule that regulates relations between people in the distribution of benefits, rewards and punishments, income, etc. n. Aristotle called justice a perfect virtue.

There are different ideas about justice. For example, in the 19th century. nobles occupied a high position in society. They were revered primarily for their noble birth and wealth, and not for their merits or outstanding abilities. And this was considered morally justified and fair.

Some nations used to consider the rule “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” to be fair. And today in some places there is a custom of blood feud. However, in modern society, most people consider this unfair and take measures to eradicate this wild custom.

Students also often think about fairness. Was I given a fair mark? Did the parents punish the wrongdoing fairly?

Here are the main signs by which justice can be judged.

A sign of proportionality, which means that an action should be assessed according to its merits. For a good, virtuous act, a person deserves reward, praise, honor and respect. He must be fairly punished for his bad deed. A person must know why he received a reward or punishment.

The sign of equalization, or “equal for equal,” requires equality of labor and payment, the value of a thing and its price, harm and its compensation. It is unfair if equally performing students receive different grades for the same knowledge. But it’s also unfair when the same grades are given for different knowledge.

What moral rules must be followed to treat others fairly?

Avoid evil in your actions (humiliation, deception and violence).

Strive to fight vices and shortcomings, and not with people who have them.

Recognize that other people are right, doubt your own unconditional rightness.

Be ready to meet the other person halfway, looking at the situation from his point of view.

Strive to find a solution that would suit everyone.

Justice requires respect for the rights of other people and does not allow attacks on a person’s personality and dignity. Justice is largely aimed at fulfilling a person’s duties to other people and to himself.

In contrast, injustice harms not only those to whom it is directed, but also the one who creates it. By committing unfair acts, a person loses the ability to correctly evaluate himself. Thus, he turns out to be unable to see his moral shortcomings and cannot correct them.

Lesson 13 – Altruism and egoism

Often people's actions are morally assessed as altruistic or selfish. At the same time, selfish actions are condemned, and altruistic ones are encouraged. Sometimes you can hear an angry “Don’t be selfish!” or a surprised “Yes, you are an altruist!” So what are altruism and egoism?

The word "altruism" comes from the Latin wordalter- another. Therefore, in a broad sense, altruism is any action aimed at the benefit of another, be it a person or society. In a more precise sense, altruism is a moral, life position that requires a person to perform selfless acts for the sake of other people or for the sake of common goals.

An altruist wants everyone to feel good. However, his desires do not always coincide with the desires and actions of other people. Why do people still perform altruistic acts?

Often a person helps others only because he can do it. He feels the strength in himself that he can spend on good deeds. Sympathizing with the grief, suffering and need of others, a person freely gives his strength to people, regardless of the possible consequences for himself. Altruism is opposed to egoism.

Selfishness is actions aimed at satisfying personal interests, including to the detriment of the interests of other people or society. “Everything is for me, everything is for me” - this is the principle of the egoist. He can easily violate moral norms and neglect social values.

One should distinguish between extreme and moderate (reasonable) egoism. Extreme selfishness manifests itself in the form of conceit, disrespect for other people, disregard for their dignity and rights. People around you are perceived only as a means to achieve their own goals.

Another thing is reasonable egoism. Reasonable egoism is the ability of a person, pursuing his own interests, to promote the common good. A reasonable egoist understands that he can satisfy his interests only by caring about the people around him and the society in which he lives.

Being opposites, altruism and egoism can successfully complement each other. The point is that, for all its moral appeal, altruism is not without its drawbacks. Thus, altruistic actions aimed at the benefit of those “distant” and helping random people are more valued. This happens because in such actions the selflessness of the altruist is most obvious. However, excessive love for the “distant” can lead to oblivion of the “neighbors”. And in this case, the idea of virtue as a mean between two extremes is appropriate. This middle ground is reasonable egoism.

Lesson 14 – Friendship

Living in society, a person is in different relationships with other people. These can be family relationships between parents and children, brothers and sisters, work relationships, relationships between teachers and students, between classmates, neighborly relationships, etc. From a moral point of view, all of them must be virtuous, built on the basis of mutual assistance and mutual respect. But even if the relationship turns out to be just that, a person can be lonely if he has no friends.

Friendship is a relationship based on mutual affection and personal interests. Lasting friendship is possible only if certain rules are observed, the main ones of which are respect for each other and the ability to admit one’s mistakes. Friendship is also caring for a friend, a willingness to help without demanding anything in return.

One of the hallmarks of friendship is selectivity. A person does not choose his neighbors or classmates, he is not obliged to be friends with them, just smooth and friendly relations are enough. A person chooses his friends himself. It is no coincidence that they say:

"Tell me who your friend is and I will tell you who you are."

Another distinctive feature of friendship is selflessness. This is the lack of desire for personal gain, profit. Friends just enjoy helping each other in everything. True friends do not wait to be called for help, but offer it themselves. Friends share with each other the best they have.

Friends are united by mutual sympathy and common interests. These are people who are close in spirit, behavior and hobbies. But this does not mean that there are no differences between friends. There are differences, but they only enrich friendship and make it even more interesting.

Who should you choose as your friends? How to find out if your friend is real? After all, you won’t give him a test. This way you can offend a person with mistrust and lose a friend. There is no clear answer to this question. But from an ethical point of view, we can say that it is safer to be friends with a good, virtuous person who you can rely on. The more reliable a person is, the more friends he has.

Lesson 15 – What it means to be moral

Whatdoes it mean to be moral? Humanity has always sought an answer to this question, which is both important and difficult. There have been many mistakes along the way, but also many achievements. And even though there is no final answer yet, every person, through his life and his behavior, makes a feasible contribution to the search for it.

As already mentioned, ethics presupposes that people themselves can determine what good and evil are. Good and evil do not just exist in people’s lives and manifest themselves in actions, they are created by people. Morality is the result of human transformative activity, an integral part of culture. Yes, man created evil. And there have been many examples of evil (humiliation of human dignity, deception and violence) in the history of mankind. It exists both in the modern world and in our lives. But good was also created by people. They try to organize their lives in such a way that relationships between them are built on the basis of cooperation and not hostility. This means that the existence of evil depends on people themselves. And if people make an effort, then there will be less evil in society, and more good.

It depends on the person whether he is good or bad. Virtue is a conscious choice of the best in actions in relation to other people. A person can become kind on his own.

A person must be responsible for his actions to other people and receive a well-deserved assessment from others. A person is free, which means that the future life of himself and the people around him depends on his actions and moral choices. A person must be held accountable for his actions and be fairly rewarded or punished. The ability to recognize merit, justice in relations between people is the most important part of moral behavior.

A person fulfills existing moral norms not under coercion, but on the basis of his convictions. Through understanding and awareness of his duty, he freely and voluntarily assumes obligations towards himself and others. And if existing norms contradict a person’s duty and convictions, he always retains the right to defend his convictions and make efforts to change existing norms. The main thing is that this is done in accordance with the ideals of goodness, with respect for the rights of others.

Secular ethics does not provide ready-made answers to all questions. Its task is to draw conclusions from the historical experience of mankind, leaving behind each person the right and opportunity to use this knowledge to make independent decisions and moral choices.

Lesson 16 – 17 Summing up

Dear friends!

The school year is ending. You have learned a lot about what secular ethics is, what it studies, what basic concepts are included in this science, what it can help you with, etc.

The study of the basics of secular ethics will continue in the first quarter of 5th grade.

To consolidate the material you have covered, we suggest you prepare a short creative work before the summer holidays.

Select one of the topics below. Consult with your parents, grandparents, or a friend on how best to write and format your work.

If necessary, use your home library, the Internet, or go to the school library. Find books on your topic. They will help you discover it more deeply.

Write the text, choose illustrations or draw them yourself. Then read your work to family and friends. Listen to their opinions.

Correct the text if you think their advice and suggestions are useful and their comments are fair.

Topics of creative works

"Russia is my Motherland"

"Good people are everywhere..."

“I want to tell you about a kind person”

"Good and evil in Russian folk tales"

“The virtuous heroes of the fairy tales of G.-H. Andersen, C. Perrault" (optional)

“Virtue and vice in A. N. Tolstoy’s fairy tale “The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Pinocchio”

“This is what a true, faithful friend means”

“You are forever responsible for those you have tamed (A. de Saint-Exupéry)”

To test yourself and find out whether you have mastered the material well, use the following questions:

1. What is ethics?

2. How did morality arise and what are its features?

3. What is good and what is evil? Give examples.

4. What kind of person can be called virtuous? Give examples.

5. How did the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle understand virtue?

6. What is human freedom?

7. What is moral choice?

8. What is friendship?

9. What does it mean to be moral?

These topics can be discussed with classmates or with parents, grandparents, older brothers and sisters, or a friend.

Lesson 18 – Clan and family – the source of moral relations

God and family are the first associations of people. They arose many thousands of years ago and are still of great importance to humans. A clan is people who consider themselves descendants of a common ancestor on their mother's or father's side.

A long time ago, various family symbols arose, such as surnames. In ancient times, the founder of a clan was sometimes considered not to be a person, but a legendary or mythical creature, animal or beast, for example a wolf, bear, hare. Hence the surnames: Volkovs, Medvedevs, Zaitsevs. The symbol of the clan could be the ancestral land, the ancestral patron spirits, and the ancestral names, flags, and coats of arms. On clan and family coats of arms, everything that the clan and family is especially proud of is symbolically depicted.

Kinship is not only by birth. Sometimes families adopt other people's children. Then adopted children and parents become close relatives.

The more ancient the people, the more complex the system of kinship - pedigree. It determines a person’s place in the family, helps him build special family moral relationships with loved ones. These relationships are based on the understanding that the lives of relatives are of great value. Family relationships are most often built on the mutual love of parents and children, older and younger generations. Love makes people feel valued.

Family helps a person understand his place among other people. It was in the family circle that people began to distinguish and respect special unequal relationships (hierarchy, subordination), without which society cannot exist. Seniors (not only by age, but also by position) perform more important, responsible roles. A person is forced to understand the extent of his significance in each specific life situation. A clear understanding and fulfillment of your role in the family allows you to feel like a full member, a respected person: father, mother, son, daughter, grandson.

Family roles involve the performance of certain important, sometimes difficult, responsibilities. This includes raising children, taking care of their education, earning a livelihood, etc.

Family roles and responsibilities are fluid. Traditionally, the head of the family is considered to be a man. He solves the most important issues. However, in some families this role is performed by a woman. There are families where there are two heads - husband and wife. In this case, everyone is authoritative in their own business. Children play the most important role in the family. They are helpers and advisers, and often inspirers and performers of good deeds.

The main task of the clan and family is to give birth to children, raise and educate them, creating favorable living conditions. The joy of the birth of a child and the grief of a person’s death are experienced most acutely by relatives. These feelings led humanity to the idea of the value of life.

Lesson 19 – Moral action

What is an action? How to evaluate it? How to manage your actions? These questions are central to ethics.

An act is a direct expression of morality, that is, an act shows whether a person is moral or not. In most cases, actions are actions, but sometimes they can be abstentions from actions. Moreover, not every action is an act.

A moral act is only that action of a person that he performs, guided by moral ideas and values. This is a conscious action with a specific purpose. Such an act expresses the moral attitude of one person towards another. A moral act has special characteristics. Let's highlight five of them.

1. Motive of the action. When considering any action, it is important to decide why it was done. If there is at least some answer to this question, then there is a motive that prompts a person to act.

2. The purpose of the act, i.e. the person’s intentions. Knowing a person's intentions, you can understand his actions. Only an action that is able to answer the question “why?” is an action.

3. Means to achieve the goal. To evaluate a person’s actions from a moral point of view, you need to know what consequences they led to. Here the main question arises - the question of the relationship between ends and means. There is an expression: “The end justifies the means.” What does it mean? That any means are good to achieve a goal? Any?

Let's look at this with an example. The student really wanted to give his grandfather a fishing rod for his birthday, but he didn’t have enough money to buy it. In the school hallway, a boy found a wallet with money. And instead of giving the wallet to the owner, he took the money for himself and bought a fishing rod. The boy had a good goal - he wanted to please his grandfather. But the means of achieving this goal (appropriation of other people's money) was immoral.

Therefore, in morality, when considering an action, the goal is very important, it takes first place. But when performing actions, the means are more important. They can make an action moral, ethical or, conversely, immoral, immoral.

4. The action itself. To consider an action from a moral point of view, you need to know the circumstances in which the person acted: whether he acted voluntarily or under duress. Only a voluntary act, when a person could have acted differently, but chose precisely these actions, speaks of his morality. In addition, sometimes it is important where, when, and how a person acted.

5. The result of the action. This is what man acted for. The result can be positive or negative, as the action can be beneficial or harmful.

One can only speculate about what the result might be.

Lesson 20 – The Golden Rule of Morality

It is sometimes difficult for a person to decide what to do in each specific situation. Humanity has always sought and continues to seek ways to make the right choice and justify an action. One of these methods is the golden rule of morality. They began to call it that in the 18th century. But in fact, this rule as a way of controlling behavior developed much earlier. It is found in many formulations, for example, in the teachings of the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius, the ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician Thales, the Roman philosopher Seneca, etc. Let us give two of its most famous interpretations.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

“Don’t treat others the way you wouldn’t want them to treat you.”

The Golden Rule of Morality is the most general principle for justifying morality. With its help, humanity has tried to develop a universal way of choosing an action.

This is the huge positive role of the golden rule in the development of morality. It forces a person to foresee the consequences of his actions. However, this rule does not answer the question: “What in a particular case is good and what is evil?” A person must decide this himself on the basis of his own beliefs and the rules of morality accepted in society.

How to apply the golden rule in life? First, you should evaluate the consequences of the action in thoughts and feelings. An action that one wants or needs to perform should be double-checked in relation to the person to whom the action is directed, i.e., try to take his place.

Think about what it would be like for me if they did this to me. Then answer the question: “Would I want someone to do this to me?” If the answer is “no,” then the action cannot be performed.

Lesson 21 - Shame, Guilt and Apology

Shame is a severe, depressed mental state of a person that appears after people around him condemn his behavior. The reasons for condemnation are usually violations of moral standards and betrayal of moral ideals. It is shame that allows a person to acutely feel his connection with other people. This feeling orients a person towards the moral norms existing in society.

Shame can be a form of social influence on a person. For example, a student is shamed in front of the whole class for offending a weak person. Shame can be caused by ridicule, ridicule, it can arise during punishment, including corporal punishment.

There are many reasons for experiencing shame. This is a discrepancy with high moral standards, an inability to demonstrate the qualities necessary in a particular situation: determination, honesty, endurance, etc.

Shame protects you from bad deeds, but sometimes it also keeps you from doing good things. There is a concept of “false shame”. It is related to

erroneous ideas about morality. For example, while listening to an explanation of new material, a student did not understand something, but was embarrassed to ask again. He was ashamed that everyone understood, but he didn’t. This is, of course, false shame. Shame can be associated with experiences such as resentment, fear, guilt.

Guilt is a person’s experience of not meeting standards, of not fulfilling a duty to oneself. Guilt is the opposite of shame. Shame is responsibility for an offense towards others, guilt is responsibility towards oneself. Shame and guilt shape a person's conscience. If these feelings are not developed, the person is unscrupulous. Guilt is a very difficult experience. It seriously affects a person’s psyche, sometimes preventing him from living in peace. Overcoming feelings of guilt comes with repentance, that is, with regret about what happened. To repent means to make a moral decision not to repeat your mistakes, to change your behavior.

To get rid of guilt, you need to apologize to the person you offended. Sometimes this is not easy to do, but it is necessary. When apologizing, you can say: “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you,” “I didn't think it would offend you,” “I'm very sorry that this happened. I promise it will never happen again." Asking for forgiveness is not at all a sign of weakness or humiliation. On the contrary, this is a sign of a strong person, capable of committing an act and restoring good relationships.

Forgiveness helps overcome feelings of guilt. Forgiveness must occur by the free will of the offended and injured. To be able to forgive means to be generous, that is, to have high spiritual qualities.

Lesson 22 - Honor and Dignity

How do others perceive me? What is my position among people? Do they value me as a person? These and similar questions can be answered by such important moral characteristics of a person as honor and dignity. They help determine a person's moral worth.

Honor is the moral qualities of a person worthy of respect and pride, it is a person’s good name, his unblemished reputation, etc.

If a person keeps his word, does not betray his friends, does not betray his moral principles, and always comes to the aid of the weak, then they say about him “a man of honor.”

Dignity is awareness of one's rights, one's moral value and self-respect. Dignity has become the right of every person to moral respect. This means that regardless of age, gender, nationality, wealth and everything else, a person is worthy of respect because he is moral: he lives honestly, distinguishes good from evil, does not commit immoral acts, and is capable of being fair.

Dignity expresses people's idea of equality. The task of each person is not to diminish the dignity of others and not to lose his own.

Dignity helps a person to be confident and aware of his own worth. About a person who behaves with restraint, politely, calmly, they say: “This is a worthy person.” Dignity allows you to avoid mutual insults.

Honor and dignity are necessary in those moments when you have to choose what to do. It is these qualities that will prevent a person from committing an immoral act and will help him avoid enmity, revenge and mutual insults, because he respects himself and others.

Lesson 23 – Conscience

The first onewho tried to understand what conscience is was the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus. At that time, the word “conscience” did not yet exist, and Democritus wrote that this experience was related to shame, but was different from it. Shame is a difficult experience of shame in front of other people for one’s behavior, and conscience is shame in front of oneself.

Conscience is the experience of condemnation or approval of one’s own action, even if it is only intended. It torments a person regardless of whether others know about his action or not. This experience can arise simultaneously with the action, after it, and when remembering it. According to the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus, one should be ashamed not only of bad deeds, but even of speeches and thoughts about them.

Many philosophers believed that a person is born conscientious. Modern ethics argues that conscience develops and is nurtured in real life conditions.

Conscience forces a person to reflect on his actions and evaluate them critically. She reminds him of duties, duty, responsibility. Conscience ignores cunning excuses, verbose proofs of one’s own innocence. She silently and relentlessly forces a person to tell himself the truth. Conscience is our inner judge.

The voice of conscience is accompanied by two main feelings: satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Satisfaction comes from a calm, clear conscience - the reward for moral efforts. A person realizes that he generally copes with his moral responsibilities, that he has no significant violations of duty or deviations from moral rules. This feeling gives him balance and calm. peoples - this also includes the history of wars. There is no nation that does not have brave, courageous defenders of the Fatherland. In Ancient Rus' these were heroes.

Everyone, of course, knows the heroes Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich. Epics and fairy tales were written about their exploits and strength. Artists depicted them in their paintings.

The courage, courage, resourcefulness, fortitude and physical strength of the heroes more than once saved Russia from foreign invaders. Bogatyrs had a great influence on modern moral ideas about warriors.

The great merit of the heroes is that they introduced certain rules in the use of force and proclaimed the rules of a fair fight.

The most important virtue of a military squad is loyalty. This is loyalty to an oath, an oath, a word given to comrades in arms.

The heroes attached particular importance to the concept of honor. Weapons, armor, a horse, a certain place at the table at a feast were symbols of honor and respect. Only victory without cunning and meanness did honor to the warriors and glorified them.

Lesson 25 - Moral ideals

Knightsin the Middle Ages (XII-XIV centuries) in Western Europe they were warriors who served in the armies of lords (landowners). Knights received lands from their lords on the condition that they acquire a horse, expensive weapons (sword, armor, shield) and, when necessary, defend the lands of their master.

The knights received a special knightly education and participated in tournaments. The knight had to have such moral qualities as fidelity to duty, courage, determination, a noble, romantic attitude towards a woman (serving a beautiful lady), etc.

Based on the knightly moral model in the 19th century. the image of a gentleman was formed.

Originally, a gentleman was considered a man of noble birth. Then they began to call an educated and well-mannered man, respectable (worthy, respectable) and balanced (even prim and imperturbable). Gentlemen were distinguished by their ability to keep their word (gentleman's agreement), an emphatically polite attitude towards women, punctuality, and elegance in dress.

True to his word is one of the main virtues of a gentleman. He always kept his promises and never broke his word, so gentleman's agreements were considered absolutely decent in business situations.

The gentleman understood various issues and had a broad outlook. For example, such a true gentleman as Sherlock Holmes knew and was able to do more than the professional detectives of Scotland Yard.

Another important feature of a gentleman is his special patriotism. He was interested in politics, saw social problems and thought about their solution from the position of the state. This was a statesman.

Lady - originally a married woman of the aristocratic circle.

Later, lady began to be called an educated, well-mannered woman who follows strict moral rules in life. In addition, she has a balanced, reserved character, kind, friendly, and elegant. The ladies did charity work and helped orphans.

Nowadays, knight, gentleman and lady have become household names. They are usually called people whose behavior and ethical values correspond to these images.

Lesson 26 - Images of morality in the culture of the Fatherland

Patriotism is one of the oldest qualities and ideas of moral consciousness. Patriotism is love for the Motherland, adherence to the traditions of our fathers, respect for the customs and moral values of previous generations.

A patriot is a person who loves his homeland, his people, who is ready to make sacrifices, labor and military feats for them. Without the patriotism of all the peoples of Russia, victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 would have been impossible.

The peoples of Russia have always glorified the warrior - the defender of the Fatherland. Warriors were endowed with various virtues and were moral ideals for everyone, because they defended their native land, their people, not sparing their lives.

Collectivism is another important feature of the morality of Russians. Collectivism is cooperation and mutual assistance.Collectivistcares about the interests of the team, sometimes to the detriment of his own.

From childhood, a person learns to live in a group. First, this is a kindergarten team, a school team - a class, then a student or production team.

In Russia, it is customary to take everything that happens to the team to heart. According to traditional Russian ideas, it is more difficult for a person to achieve everything on his own without the support of family, friends, work collective, and the country as a whole. The feeling of one’s strength at the expense of the power of the people has always allowed a person to be proud of “his own” and to feel his own dignity from belonging to a strong team. These samples have been produced for many hundreds of years. And every person basically knows how to behave politely. Knows that you need to greet, say “please” and “thank you”, that you can’t talk with your mouth full, etc. There are many other rules in etiquette. Let's look at some of them.

The choice of clothes, or rather, a suit. This choice depends on the time of year, tastes, financial capabilities of a person and fashion. But from the point of view of etiquette, the main thing is the appropriateness of clothing. A business suit is required for work, and a tracksuit for physical education. Discos and theaters require elegant clothes, but also different ones.

Great importance is attached to speech in etiquette. A person must be able to control its volume, tone, tempo and content. The volume of speech should be such that only the person to whom it is addressed can hear everything.

Forcing a person to listen with tension is as impolite as shouting. One word or the same phrase can be pronounced in different tones: friendly, irritated, good-natured, affectionate, angry, dismissive, etc. The meaning of words changes depending on the tone. Etiquette prohibits offensive, humiliating tone of speech. The pace of speech should be leisurely.

The most important aspect of speech is its content, i.e. what we are talking about. It is not customary to ask a person what nationality he is, how much he earns, and there is no need to tell anyone except a doctor about his illnesses. One should not speak ill of those who are absent.

Speech is the most important way of communication between people. Don't be afraid to start a conversation first with an unfamiliar boy or girl. You can simply say: “Hi! My name is Ivan".

There are many rules of etiquette. But the basis for all rules is the same - common sense and respect for other people. Everyone can be sure: people who do not know you closely, do not know what a wonderful person you are, will judge you by your behavior, appearance, manners and speech. The rules of etiquette are specific, valuable and accessible to everyone. Knowledge of these rules is not inherited. People must learn the rules of etiquette.

Lesson 28 - Family holidays

Creating the most favorable conditions for their lives, ancient people had to work hard: cultivate the land, build houses, hunt, etc. To make their work easier, they asked for support, help and protection from various forces of nature. People turned to the heavenly bodies (sun, stars), elements (wind, rivers and oceans), later to spirits, and then to gods. They brought gifts to them, sang and danced, and uttered words of praise. For this purpose, people were freed from work on certain days. This is how the holidays arose.

Holidays celebrated everything new: the onset of spring, the new year, birthdays, wedding days. On such days, everyone gathered together to feel support, mutual assistance, and the joy that each of them was not alone.

March 8 - International Women's Day,

May 9 - Victory Day of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, June 12 - Russia Day, November 4 - National Unity Day, etc.), public (Teacher's Day, City Day), family (birthdays, weddings) . They are celebrated both officially, solemnly, and with homely warmth. And only family holidays combine both.

Each holiday has its own order - a ritual. The oldest tradition of offering gifts to deities is preserved in gifts. A beautifully packaged gift bought from the heart speaks of attention, friendship and love. When choosing a gift, you need to take into account the character, hobbies and tastes of the person for whom it is intended.

To make the holiday a success, you need not only to feed the guests, but also to make sure that they have fun. However, fun should be kept in moderation. Too noisy, aggressive and offensive behavior will ruin any, even the most wonderful holiday. The holiday spirit is fragile. It is necessary that the holidays bring only joy to people and leave pleasant memories.

Lesson 29 - Human life is the highest moral value

Values are everything that is of great importance to a person. We value our country, its traditions, relationships with parents and friends, our home, clothes, books and much more. However, the highest value for a person is his life.

Only by living can a person rejoice and be sad, have fun and be sad, love and make friends. All plans are connected with life. They will become a reality only if a person lives. Every life is unique, inimitable. A peaceful life is especially valuable when there is no war, there are close people, health, success, interesting and important things to do. Making life like this is the task of the state, society and every person.

Not only a happy life is valuable, but also a life full of suffering and troubles. It provides invaluable experience of how to endure suffering, survive the loss of loved ones and other misfortunes, how to deal with illnesses, etc.

In life, a person makes many discoveries for himself and others. In the process of life, a person establishes himself as an individual, is proud of his achievements, and tries to build his own life. This is perhaps the most interesting activity in the world!

The life of every person is of great value to his loved ones, relatives and friends. She gives them joy, pride, love. Their hopes for the future are connected with it.

Human life has special value. Only he could create a world of culture. It is people who can build amazingly beautiful cities and villages, develop new varieties of plants and new breeds of animals, create cars, sew clothes, etc. All this makes us value the life of any person, protect and protect all life on Earth.

Lesson 30 - Love and respect for the fatherland

Dear friends!

You have become acquainted with the great spiritual heritage that, for many centuries, one generation of our compatriots passed on to another. You learned about religion, spiritual ideals, moral standards of our ancestors, what they believed in, how they lived, supporting each other and helping each other.

“Believe that everything was not in vain: our songs, our fairy tales, our incredible victories, our suffering - do not give this for a sniff of tobacco... We knew how to live. Remember this. Be human!" - such a will was left to us by the outstanding writer and actor V. M. Shukshin.

In the VII-X centuries. in the space from the Volga to the Dnieper there was a state of Khazaria, many of whose inhabitants professed Judaism. In the 8th century In the city of Derbent (Dagestan), the first mosque was built, with which the history of Islam in our country began. In 988, Prince Vladimir baptized Rus' - Orthodoxy came to our land. In the 17th century Our state included Buryats and Kalmyks, who brought Buddhism with them. Since the 18th century In Russia, non-religious culture began to spread widely and a tradition of secular ethics began to form. This is how the spiritual traditions of Russia took shape.

Our culture grew and strengthened, nourished by different spiritual traditions. Traditions are like roots. The more roots and the deeper they are, the stronger the tree trunk and the thicker its crown.

We are all united by love - for our family, for loved ones, for our small and large Motherland, for our Russia.

Love is the basis of our life. Every person wants to be loved. But if he stops only at this feeling, then he turns into an egoist and self-lover. True love begins with selfless love for your neighbor: for mom and dad, for brother and sister, for friends, for classmates.

The value of love is not that you are loved, but that you are able to love others.

The great Russian writer N.V. Gogol wrote in a letter to his sister: “You complain that no one loves you, but what do we care whether someone loves us or not? Our business: do we love?” Love is when you can lay down your life for “your friends.”

Your parents and other close people love you without demanding anything in return. You love your family, your friends, without demanding rewards for it. We love our Motherland just because we have it.

Love is service. Service is manifested primarily in deeds for the benefit of people, for the benefit of our Motherland.

The Fatherland is all of us. Think about what you can do for others. Start small: clean your apartment, help a classmate with his studies, protect your baby, clean up your yard with friends, plant trees and take care of them. Make the world around you cleaner, kinder, fairer, and you will make yourself better, you will feel how love grows in the world.

From small deeds great love for one's neighbor, family, people, and Russia is born. We call all this patriotism.

Where does Russia begin? It starts with your love, with what you are willing to do for it.

Expert opinion of the Moscow Bureau of Human Rights on the comprehensive training course “Fundamentals of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics”

On April 1, 2011, an experiment began in 19 regions of Russia to introduce a new subject in schools - “Spiritual and moral education” (SEM). As part of this subject, a course consisting of six main “content modules” is offered for study in the 4th and 5th grades:

· Fundamentals of Orthodox culture

· Fundamentals of Islamic Culture

· Fundamentals of Buddhist Culture

· Fundamentals of Jewish culture

· Foundations of world religious cultures

· Fundamentals of secular ethics.

Each of these modules is devoted to a separate textbook, published by the Prosveshcheniye publishing house in mass circulation and colorfully illustrated. The textbooks “Book for Teachers” and “Book for Parents” stand out, explaining the meaning of the proposed educational course in historical and substantive terms.

Each of the manuals gives its own definition of culture and religion, but nowhere is it defined what “religious culture” is. Any culture is rooted in religion. This is recognized by everyone except the anonymous authors of “Fundamentals of Secular Ethics.” Therefore, it would be better to talk not about “religious culture”, but about the cultural tradition characteristic of a particular religion and a particular country.

Textbooks devoted to the presentation of the fundamentals of Orthodoxy, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism provide a lot of useful and interesting information. The best option for introducing children to various religious teachings would be for them to study the foundations of world religions. This corresponds to the best and most objective of the proposed teaching aids - “Fundamentals of World Religious Cultures”. It introduces the history of the origins of the world's religions, their basic principles, their sacred books and cultural traditions. This, of course, would help to instill religious tolerance in schoolchildren and expand their cultural horizons. As for the “Fundamentals of Secular Ethics,” this is a manual full of factual errors and obvious absurdities (interpretation of shame, preference for “reasonable egoism” over altruism, the statement that “moral norms (rules) are not written down anywhere,” etc.) , is simply unacceptable for study in its current form, in addition, the module under review is not attributable to authorship.

The “Book for Teachers” contains a lot of useful information about the religions of the world, religion and society, and the religious situation in Russia. This is mostly good reference material. The glossaries attached to the different sections are especially informative. However, the book is not without serious errors: the statement that “religion is an ideology” (p. 24), the assertion (in the spirit of Soviet atheism) that the specificity of religion is that it mystifies the earthly roots of private, historically changeable interests (p. 25), or an accusation formulated in the same atheistic spirit: “Some religions use rituals to consolidate religious ideas in the minds of believers and strengthen faith in omnipotent forces” (p. 28). What religions have a different attitude towards rituals? Apparently, the author(s) considers the ritual practices of all religions criminal. On page 17, Academician Pavlov is called a “deeply religious” person. Meanwhile, Pavlov openly called himself an unbeliever. But under Soviet rule, he defended the right of believers to practice Orthodoxy. There are other “blunders” that should be noted. It is insulting for one of the Christian denominations to claim that the Protestant ethic “over time ... turned out to be unnecessary” (p. 16). The traditional (albeit with reservations) opposition between science and religion is archaic (p. 18). Unfortunately, many such examples can be given. Is it worth imposing such primitive and unrealistic ideas on teachers?

An experiment on introducing “spiritual and moral education” into the school curriculum, i.e. studying one of the religions, currently covers 4th and 5th grades and is designed for two years. What's next? The Russian Academy of Education plans to extend it to all schoolchildren in two years, from grades 1 to 11.

Expert assessment of the original layout of the textbook

“Fundamentals of secular ethics” 4-5 grades. (team of authors)"

Overall rating:

The proposed text of the module “Fundamentals of Secular Ethics” cannot be recommended as a textbook, and the very approach to determining the name of the subject, its place in the general course, substantive emphasis and organization of work on it raises bewilderment and great concern for the fate and quality of Russian education, Russian schools.

The issue of introducing this course was not discussed either publicly (not to mention a referendum or serious sociological surveys), or in the scientific and pedagogical community. The latter led to outright absurdities in its structure and content, to amateurism both in philosophical, ethical and pedagogical terms. The very combination of modules is absurd, among which the section on ethics is completely inappropriate. Ethics can be taught in school as an independent subject, but not as an artificial appendage to religious modules designed to create the illusion of political correctness. Already in the very name “Secular Ethics”, unprofessionalism and a kind of servility of those who stand behind it manifest themselves. In other words, both the title and the very presence of this section in the proposed course are unacceptable.

The content of the module “Secular Ethics” itself cannot be corrected and brought to an acceptable state by any editing. It has many theoretical shortcomings, but first of all, it is unacceptable due to the spiritual and ideological message it contains, expressing the desire to turn people into executors of certain social norms, and according to a set of dominant values, into a company of marching soldiers. No philosophical ethics, no morality can sanction such an approach. This text, in essence, has nothing to do with ethics as a field of philosophy and creates a false image of morality as a spiritual and practical phenomenon. Philosophy is aimed at developing the ability to think critically, to subject to rational analysis, including statements related to the field of morality, to doubt generally accepted verbal moralizing forms. The proposed text, on the contrary, focuses on uncritical perception, obedience, and submission. If we recall the formula of the recent past about the subordination of personal interests to public ones, then the course of “secular ethics” essentially turns into a course of “Soviet ethics”.

1. The name of the academic subject and the corresponding textbook seems inappropriate, if not unacceptable, for a number of reasons:

The term “secular ethics” is not accepted in modern philosophical literature, just as it does not have a historical and philosophical tradition. This is synonymous with ethics as a field of philosophical knowledge, emphasizing its difference from religious ethics, which consists in the fact that it explains morality without appeal to divine revelation and intervention. As academician A.A. writes Huseynov, “The phrase “secular ethics” does not have wide circulation and terminological status in the research literature. It is not found, in particular, in Russian, English, German philosophical and specialized ethical dictionaries. In the European tradition, moral theory, starting with Aristotle, has always been called ethics (moral philosophy), but never secular ethics. In Germany, the school subject offered as an alternative to theology is also not called secular ethics, but simply ethics. Another significant example: Tenzin Gyatso (the 14th Dalai Lama), who wrote a book on non-religious understandings of modern moral issues, called it “Ethics for the New Millennium,” considering the term “secular” unnecessary. I do not know any textbooks, lecture courses, or other systematizations called “secular ethics.” In Western literature, it is more common to use the term “secular humanism” in comparison and by analogy with “religious humanism” to denote non-religious moral practice and a non-religious approach to the problems of moral education. However, even in this case, secular humanism is generally considered equivalent to humanism.” I can add to this that the course on ethics, created at one time by the future Pope Cardinal K. Wojtyla (“Fundamentals of Ethics”, Lublin, 1983), was called precisely ethics, and not religious or secular ethics. Simply Ethics.

The term “secular ethics” also has no tradition in Russia. Since the term “ethics” entered Russian philosophical vocabulary (and this happened in the second half of the 19th century, and not in the 18th century, as written in the text of lesson 30, if the text refers not to ethics, but to morality, then it arises much earlier), it was used without the qualifying definition “secular”. Even in Russian religious philosophy the term “secular ethics” is not used. Here are some of the first notations:

K.D. Kavelin “Problems of Ethics”, 1885;

B.N. Chicherin “Science and religion on the principles of ethics”, 1879; “On the Principles of Ethics” 1897;

N.I. Kareev “Thoughts on the foundations of morality. Prolegomena on Ethics" 1905 (3rd ed.);

P.A. Kropotkin “Ethics: The Origin and Development of Morality”, 1922;

E.L. Radlov “Ethics”, 1922.

Another important argument is that in the history of thought there is no one-to-one correspondence between a particular type of explanation of morality in ethics and what norms and values it affirms. All ethical theories - both secular and religious - agree that morality is aimed at harmonizing relations between people and elevating the human personality. The highest moral demands they formulate also basically coincide. As A.A. writes Huseynov, “They all proceed from the value of individually responsible behavior and a caring, respectful attitude towards one’s neighbor. The main difference is that philosophical (scientific) ethics is focused on the autonomy of the will of the individual and a high degree of achievability of moral perfection of man and society, while religious ethics transfers the implementation of the moral ideal to the other world, and connects the human efforts necessary for this with the divine by grace." In other words, ethical systems differ, first of all, in the way they substantiate morality, but not in their normative and value content, which is the main content of the training course. Therefore, there is no reason to single it out on the basis of “secularism.” If you try to compare individual modules of the training course, you will not find in any of them such moral judgments, formulations of such moral norms that could not become the subject of ethical consideration and would not be affirmed in non-religious morality.

The interpretations of secular ethics voiced recently as non-church, but not non-religious, contradict the historical and philosophical tradition and distort the image of modern ethical thought. They only emphasize the already existing contradiction between the constitutionally enshrined separation of church and state and the introduction of the fundamentals of religious culture into the compulsory school curriculum.

This section could be called “Ethics”, “Fundamentals of Ethics”...

It is difficult for me to judge why, when determining the name and content of a school subject, the position of leading experts in this field was completely ignored, as well as why requirements and restrictions were imposed on this subject, expressing the most primitive ideas about ethics and morality. The most incomprehensible, strange and outrageous thing - if true - is the ban on the use of the word “humanism”. The consequences of this, in my opinion, unacceptable and unjustified approach are exclusively negative and cannot be eliminated with the help of separate editing.

2. The illustrations raise serious objections - they are clearly biased and limited in nature, in places they simply contradict the content of the ideas (for example, a lesson about the specifics of morality is illustrated with images of the State Duma). In addition, they present secular ethics as completely divorced from the history of culture, from those various subjects that became the subject of philosophical and ethical reflection. The illustrations are monotonous - scenes of charity, military service and sports are repeated many times. This creates a feeling of dominance, competition and belligerence. It is not clear why the main visual range is mainly reduced only to the realities of Russian life - this significantly impoverishes it.

The design of the general cover of the curriculum also raises objections: firstly, world religions are not directly related to ethnic characteristics, while the photograph of four children is clearly intended to symbolize the four religions through outwardly recognizable features. It is clear that the non-religious part of the course did not find any image for itself. I think that the proposed cover design does not correspond to the ideas of tolerance and cultural diversity, and visually imposes the idea of the existence of only four choices and only of a religious nature. Not to mention the simply erroneous connection of religion with external national traits.

3. The textbook is based on introducing students to basic ethical concepts, which, in my opinion, makes it difficult to understand.

4. Unfortunately, the emergency and scandalous way of preparing the text is incomprehensible, which led to the fact that the personal presence of the author is not felt in the texts. The conversation about morality, as a result, turns out to be formal, devoid of sincerity.

Page Remarks

1. (page 5). The paragraph is unsuccessful in content - secular ethics does not fit into the proposed series. In this textbook - completely justified - the word “ethics” refers to the area of philosophical knowledge about morality. It can hardly be argued that ethics in this sense occupies a special place in the spiritual traditions of Russia. Rather, the author implies the moral content of spiritual traditions. As a matter of fact, in this formulation the whole absurdity, illogicality and absurdity of finding ethics in the proposed series becomes obvious. Please note that the first lesson in two modules - on Buddhism and Judaism - has the best edition.

2. (page 6. paragraph 2). The conjunction “and” does not make sense. The term “morality” can be put in brackets.

3−4. (page 7). Ethics as philosophical knowledge about morality, first of all, is a reflection on morality, its norms, prohibitions, and what is valuable for a happy human life. Just as philosophy in general is critical of ordinary consciousness, ethics can be critical of accepted, generally accepted moral ideas and even of morality in general. It can teach a person the ability to think about morality, and protects him from moral self-deception. But it in itself cannot make a person moral. For her, the essential question is what is “better”, what is “good” for a person. In the text of the textbook, this question is completely removed; it is repeatedly repeated that ethics and morality (pp. 7, 11) help a person become better, while moral values and ethics determine what is “better.”

3. (page 7). Incorrect formulation: the idea is imposed that some people are moral, while others are liars, rude, etc. But morality, first of all, concerns a person’s attitude towards himself, towards his actions, thoughts, feelings, towards his own ability to create both good and evil. In general, the very division of people into good and evil is incorrect.

5. (page 8). The term culture is not of Greek, but of Latin origin. (The word “culture” first appears in the treatise on agriculture by Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder (234−149 BC), which was called De agri cultura).

6. The phrase “culture does not exist in the singular, unlike nature” (p. 8) is unfortunate. Nature is also diverse. (The Stoics are talking about something else.)

7, 10. (pp. 9, 10). An unsuccessful definition of morality is given (“a set of requirements, norms and rules of human behavior from the point of view of good and evil”) - morality is reduced to norms. (Morality in ethics is understood as a much richer phenomenon, including norms, values, qualities of character, etc.) The definition is strangely structured stylistically - norms and rules cannot be “from the point of view” (the same definition on p. 10).

8. It is completely unacceptable to reduce the positive and negative in morality to what helps or hinders life, makes life worse or better. Due to its incorrectness and primitiveness, this thesis is simply not subject to discussion.

9. (page 9). I cannot agree with the thesis that moral standards of behavior were created in order to “pass on the knowledge of good and evil to future generations.”

10. (page 10). Bad illustration.

11. (page 11). The assertion that following moral standards a person makes the lives of the people around him and his own life better, the “justifications” of morality repeated in other places by its usefulness, turning it into a means of improving life - all this reduces the justification of morality to utilitarian arguments. The secondary nature of the concepts of “a better life and a better person” in relation to moral values has already been said. It seems that the authors simply ignore one of the undoubted truths of both scientific and religious ethics that goodness has an intrinsic meaning and contains its own reward.

12. (page 11). One gets the impression that the author (essentially absent, vague, collective) does not risk entrusting decisions about moral issues to an individual. Therefore, he considers it possible to use the theoretically and pedagogically criminal phrase “monitor morality.”

13. (page 11). Impunity is also very frightening to the imaginary author. He would rather admit that each of us knows that there is good for the other and good in general - therefore each should help the other become better. Therefore, the student is asked to punish another, to condemn him (the clause that “to condemn is not the main thing” does not change the matter at all - after all, it is necessary to condemn).

14, 15. (pp. 12−13). Poor definitions of good and evil. Unacceptable reduction of goodness to actions. Page 14 - examples of slavery and serfdom are unsuccessful in illustrating changing ideas about good and evil. (The Christian commandment “thou shalt not kill” also existed during the period of serfdom). In addition, there are differences between morals, social practices, and ideas of good and evil.

16. (page 14). There is a misconception that people became more moral (this is already a problem) as a result of thinking about how to make life better.

17, 18. (pp. 16−17). Virtue and vice are qualities of character that are manifested in actions. (Incorrect - “by which other people evaluate her”). P. 16−17 - unsuccessful illustrations. In modern culture there are individuals who truly embody worthy causes. For example, Albert Schweitzer, Mother Teresa. One may recall the Russian doctor Haas, nicknamed the “holy doctor.” Illustrations for works of art, fairy tales, etc. are possible. You should not replace a person’s moral qualities with his professional achievements and the fulfillment of his constitutional duty - these are two different things. And such a substitution is constantly imposed through illustrations.

19. (p. 17). Vices are not actions, but qualities of character (on this page, as on many others, the absence of a single author is visible).

20. (page 19). Firstly, I would like to ask: should anyone live the way they want? Secondly, living your own way is not easier. It's easier to be an absolute conformist.

21. (page 20). Virtue for Aristotle is not a choice of an option, but simply an action in specific circumstances. Vices are NOT an excess or deficiency of virtue in Aristotle. (An excess of virtue is impossible.)

22. (page 21). The mistake is that in Aristotle (and in general in terms of meaning and logic) it is not duplicity, but nonsense.

23. (p. 21). There cannot be an excess of friendliness, an excess of virtue is impossible, according to Aristotle.

Page 43. Incorrect. The Golden Rule is not aimed at predicting the consequences of actions.

Page 62. Most of the text is unacceptable. The series looks anecdotal: Judaism - Islam - Orthodoxy - Buddhism - secular ethics - as elements of the spiritual tradition of Russia. We can only talk about the moral content of this spiritual tradition; secular ethics as philosophical knowledge does not fit into this series. The moral basis of the spiritual tradition was formed long before the emergence of world religions and existed in different, not only religious, forms. (As already mentioned, the term “ethics” has been used in Russian philosophy since the second half of the 19th century, and the term “secular ethics” has no tradition at all in Russian philosophical thought).

Senior Researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences,

Type