Cовесть: история познания, состояние в современной России, представления студентов

Abstract

The article reviews the history of research on conscience as a spiritual and moral phenomenon and various theoretical positions in the course of its cognition: intuitionism, evolutionism and empiricism, which, as science continues to develop, are reflected in theocentric, anthropocentric and sociocentric interpretations of the nature of conscience. It is shown that the entire phenomenon of conscience cannot be revealed within the framework of natural science, since conscience performs spiritual functions and has a contradictory, antinomical nature that determines the essential and situational diversity of its manifestations. The authors emphasize the urgency of studying morality and conscience, which indicate the moral state of society. The paper characterizes global trends in the transformation of conscience and morality in the postmodern era. The authors hypothesize that the state of morality and conscience is the most important indicator of the state of a particular culture. The paper discusses the problem of a significant decrease in the levels of morality and ethics, the state of conscience in the modern Russian society, which is characterized as social anomie. On the one hand, the authors observe that features of positive ideas about conscience are preserved among young people. On the other, research reveals a tendency among the young towards rejecting conscience which is regarded as an obstacle in the way of achieving success. This tendency may be observed most clearly in school-age children and, to a lesser extent, in university and college students. As an individual reaches maturity, the concept of conscience becomes more complete while retaining positive modality. The authors suggest that there is a need to develop the psychology of morality as an independent area of psychological science, which would contribute to both enforcing the positions of psychological science in the study of spiritual and moral problems, and solving many problems that arise in social practice.