Lecture
Individual ethics - a branch of ethics concerned only with the individual, as opposed to social ethics (see Social ethics). Individual ethics regards the group or community as something incidental, secondary in relation to human nature, which is called upon to assert its individuality and morality against external social dependencies.
Social ethics denotes the doctrine of the social goals and values of contemporary society, i.e. the normative justification of group, institutional and corporate relations. It includes political ethics, economic ethics, discursive ethics, institutional ethics, and others.
Social ethics took shape in the West as a reaction to the development of the socialist camp after the Second World War, and especially after the collapse of the ideological confrontation between the two political systems.
fig. the place and role of social ethics
Social ethics bears responsibility for how social institutions operate and how mediated interpersonal communication is carried out. Any social institution can either help people or serve as an obstacle to them. In this sense, a huge amount of the evil committed (corruption, embezzlement, poverty, environmental pollution, terrorism, family breakdown) depends on the social system, on the social order, and has the character of «structural evil». The basic concepts of social ethics are: social institution, structural evil, social justice, social responsibility.
Social institution. A social institution is a normative system, passed down from generation to generation, that regulates relations between people and arises from those relations. An example of a social institution is the school as a system of laws, norms, rules of behaviour and communication. The main task of social institutions is to ensure the stable regulation of social interactions of various types.
The functioning of a social institution depends on its organisation, i.e. on the social structure, which must ensure the fulfilment of certain tasks, and on the system of norms, functions and duties that are assigned and distributed within that social structure. For example, if the institution of the school has the goal of educating and raising children, then the main goal of the institution of family and marriage is to regulate relations between the sexes. If political institutions (the state, parties) aim to regulate relations between parties as representatives of various social strata, as well as between states, then the institution of the market aims to regulate relations of exchange and consumption.
Traditional society relied on institutions such as the family, the church and religion, while modern society (modernity) placed emphasis on ideology, and socially oriented society (postmodernity) relies on social ethics. As society becomes more complex, the role of social institutions grows, their task being to regulate certain social interactions over an extended period.
Well-organised social institutions ensure the stability of society. The ever-increasing anonymity of social communication and social interaction requires a greater degree of reliability. This too means an increased role for social institutions as mechanisms that promote joint activity among people. Good institutions provide orientation for the activity of acting agents and compensate for a deficit of morality. The question of a «good social order» is the question of appropriate institutions, i.e. ones that serve the purpose of structural good.
Institutions reflect the «ethical programme» of the state. In every society, according to philosophers, there exist five groups of social institutions:
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