Applied ethics, i.e. the issue of norms and values in the choices of everyday life

Abstract

Valuation and evaluation are inevitable in life. They concern both making personal choices and assessing facts. In the world where we live, ethics seems to appear only when social issues such as abortion, euthanasia or the death penalty go to the discussion. Ethics, however, is not common in the issues of everyday life, in the choices that accompany us on every level of life. In both private and public life one can notice more and more blind momentum, more and more tasks but also we set the boundary between good and evil with greater difficulty. It seems that the diagnosis regarding the axiological crisis seems more and more accurate today. The common belief that it is allowed to do so because “everyone does it” is nothing more than a mindless imitation of social behavior or just plain ignorance of ethics. According to Seneca the thing which is not prohibited by the law is prohibited by shame, it seems that today the shame, which in this sentence was a synonym of “awareness” or “ethical sensitivity” ceased to exist. The aim of this article is a brief reflection on the ethics of contemporary man, on the way how he makes choices, and actually on the basis of what he should take. The inspiration for writing this text was the author’s personal experience, which indicates the lack of optimism in assessing the moral condition of a modern man.