Moral Views Research Articles

Taking the moral high ground: Deontological and absolutist moral dilemma judgments convey self-righteousness

Individuals who reject sacrificial harm to maximize overall outcomes, consistent with deontological (vs. utilitarian) ethics, appear warmer, more moral, and more trustworthy. Yet, deontological judgments may not only convey emotional reactions, but also strict adherence to moral rules. We therefore hypothesized that people view deontologists as more morally absolutist and hence self-righteous—as perceiving themselves as morally superior. In addition, both deontologists and utilitarians who base their decisions on rules (vs. emotions) should appear more self-righteous. Four studies (N = 1254) tested these hypotheses. Participants perceived targets as more self-righteous when they rejected (vs. accepted) sacrificial harm in classic moral dilemmas where harm maximizes outcomes (i.e., deontological vs. utilitarian judgments), but not parallel cases where harm fails to maximize outcomes (Study 1). Preregistered Study 2 replicated the focal effect, additionally indicating mediation via perceptions of moral absolutism. Study 3 found that targets who reported basing their deontological judgments on rules, compared to emotional reactions or when processing information was absent, appeared particularly self-righteous. Preregistered Study 4 included both deontological and utilitarian targets and manipulated whether their judgments were based on rules versus emotion (specifically sadness). Grounding either moral position in rules conveyed self-righteousness, while communicating emotions was a remedy. Furthermore, participants perceived targets as more self-righteous the more targets deviated from their own moral beliefs. Studies 3 and 4 additionally examined participants' self-disclosure intentions. In sum, deontological dilemma judgments may convey an absolutist, rule-focused view of morality, but any judgment stemming from rules (in contrast to sadness) promotes self-righteousness perceptions.

The Ethics of Utilitarianism in a Circular Economy

In business competition, companies are required to be superior in creating added value for the products and services produced. However, within the limited availability of resources, companies must act wisely in managing business and achieving sustainable business objectives. This paper explains how a businessman can build their business by paying attention to morals. Ethical utilitarianism is an ethical view that emphasizes the goal of maximizing welfare for as many people as possible associated with the circular economy concept. A circular economy is an economic system that focuses on the efficient and responsible use of resources through the recycling, use, and renewal of resources. The study results show that ethical utilitarianism can be applied to circular economy principles and how these principles can bring significant economic and environmental benefits. This article also discusses some of the challenges and potential social injustices associated with implementing a circular economy and how to overcome them through a more inclusive approach.

Time to consider animal data governance: perspectives from neuroscience.

Scientific research relies mainly on multimodal, multidimensional big data generated from both animal and human organisms as well as technical data. However, unlike human data that is increasingly regulated at national, regional and international levels, regulatory frameworks that can govern the sharing and reuse of non-human animal data are yet to be established. Whereas the legal and ethical principles that shape animal data generation in many countries and regions differ, the generated data are shared beyond boundaries without any governance mechanism. This paper, through perspectives from neuroscience, shows conceptually and empirically that there is a need for animal data governance that is informed by ethical concerns. There is a plurality of ethical views on the use of animals in scientific research that data governance mechanisms need to consider. Semi-structured interviews were used for data collection. Overall, 13 interviews with 12 participants (10 males and 2 females) were conducted. The interviews were transcribed and stored in NviVo 12 where they were thematically analyzed. The participants shared the view that it is time to consider animal data governance due to factors such as differences in regulations, differences in ethical principles, values and beliefs and data quality concerns. They also provided insights on possible approaches to governance. We therefore conclude that a procedural approach to data governance is needed: an approach that does not prescribe a particular ethical position but allows for a quick understanding of ethical concerns and debate about how different positions differ to facilitate cross-cultural and international collaboration.

Doing Good to Be (Subtly) Bad: A Moral Licensing View on the Relations Between Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Instigated Incivility

ABSTRACT The present research examines the relations between OCB and interpersonal mistreatment from the lens of the Moral Balance Model, wherein good deeds provide moral credits that enable immoral behavior. We suggest that OCB may license engagement in morally equivalent forms of interpersonal mistreatment, such as instigated incivility, and not more immoral forms of mistreatment, such as interpersonally targeted counterproductive work behavior (CWB-I). Moreover, we posit that the licensing effects of OCB likely occur quickly, such as across a typical work week. Across two studies (N Study 1 = 209, N Study 2 = 192), we largely find support for our propositions. In our first study, using a rating task, we find that certain forms of instigated incivility are more theoretically suited for tests of OCB-related moral licensing when compared to CWB-I. Then, in our second study using a within-week time-lagged sample of service employees, we find that OCB at the beginning of the week relates to two kinds of instigated incivility (i.e. privacy invasion and exclusionary behavior) at the end of the week through moral credits gained at the middle of the week. As anticipated, these moral credits did not license engagement in CWB-I. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Habitual Leadership Ethics: Timelessness and Virtuous Leadership in the Jesuit Order

This paper is about the relationship between leadership, organisational morals, and temporality. We argue that engaging with questions of time and temporality may help us overcome the overly agentic view of organisational morals and leadership ethics that dominates extant literature. Our analysis of the role of time in organizational morals and leadership ethics starts from a virtue-based approach to leading large-scale moral endeavours. We ask: how can we account for organizational morality across generations and independently of the leader? To address this question, we studied the leadership model of the Jesuits, a Catholic Religious Order. Our case reveals that a virtue-based model of leadership does not necessarily imply that those who are selected to lead the organization are themselves virtuous, but that the processes underpinning the exercise of leadership are cyclical and repeated as truthfully as possible. Virtuous leadership, for the Jesuits, is therefore about the construction of an ideal type of leadership against which the processes which sustain it were designed. Our theoretical contribution is twofold. First, we propose an habitual understanding of moral forms of leadership, in which the procedural is constitutive of moral forms of organising; second, we explain how “timelessness”, understood as the quality of not changing as years go by, allowed the Jesuits to centre the processes which sustain their ethical model on the repetition, across space and time, of said processes, rather than on their outcome. We conclude that the search for virtue might be more relevant for large-scale moral endeavours than virtue itself.

Bridging ethics and epidemiology: Modelling ethical standards of health equity

Health inequities are differences in health that are ‘unjust’. Yet, despite competing ethical views about what counts as an ‘unjust difference in health’, theoretical insights from ethics have not been systematically integrated into epidemiological research. Using diabetes as an example, we explore the impact of adopting different ethical standards of health equity on population health outcomes. Specifically, we explore how the implementation of population-level weight-loss interventions using different ethical standards of equity impacts the intervention's implementation and resultant population health outcomes. We conducted a risk prediction modelling study using the nationally representative 2015-16 Canadian Community Health Survey (n = 75,044, 54% women). We used the Diabetes Population Risk Tool (DPoRT) to calculate individual-level 10-year diabetes risk. Hypothetical weight-loss interventions were modelled in individuals with overweight or obesity based on each ethical standard: 1) health sufficiency (reduce DPoRT risk below a high-risk threshold (16.5%); 2) health equality (equalize DPoRT risk to the low risk group (5%)); 3) social-health sufficiency (reduce DPoRT risk <16.5 in individuals with lower education); 4) social-health equality (equalize DPoRT risk to the level of individuals with high education). For each scenario, we calculated intervention impacts, diabetes cases prevented or delayed, and relative and absolute educational inequities in diabetes. Overall, we estimated that achieving health sufficiency (i.e., all individuals below the diabetes risk threshold) was more feasible than achieving health equality (i.e., diabetes risk equalized for all individuals), requiring smaller initial investments and fewer interventions; however, fewer diabetes cases were prevented or delayed. Further, targeting only diabetes inequalities related to education reduced the target population size and number of interventions required, but consequently resulted in even fewer diabetes cases prevented or delayed. Using diabetes as an example, we found that an explicit, ethically-informed definition of health equity is essential to guide population-level interventions that aim to reduce health inequities.

The Secular Moral Project and the Moral Argument for God: A Brief Synopsis History

This article provides an overview of the history of what is termed the secular moral project by providing a synopsis of the history of the moral argument for God’s existence and the various historical processes that have contributed to the secularization of ethics. I argue that three key thinkers propel the secular moral project forward from the middle of the 19th century into the 20th century: John Stuart Mill, whose ethical thinking in Utilitarianism serves as the background to all late 19th century secular ethical thinking, Henry Sidgwick, who, in the Methods, indisputably establishes the secular autonomy of ethics as a distinctive discipline (metaethics), and finally, G.E. Moore, whose work, the Principia Ethica, stands at the forefront of virtually all secular metaethical debates concerning naturalism and non-naturalism in the first half of the 20th century. Although secular metaethics continues to be the dominant ethical view of the academy, it is shown that theistic metaethics is a strong reemerging position in the early 21st century.

Утопический текст поэмы «Искендер-наме» Низами

The article focuses on the humanistic ideals of Nizami Ganjavi, reflecting his philosophical and ethical ideas of an ideal society and perfect power. The “internal” plot of “Iskander Nameh” – about the stay of Iskander (the eastern name of Alexander the Great) in a fertile country – is a utopian text in which Nizami’s views on the or-ganization of society and the role of the ruler in it are most systematically presented. The hero of Nizami’s po-em is a ruler who is concerned with the search for a just social order. The article discusses the textual factors of the plot of this work, comparing them with the accepted in the European tradition and used by the predecessors of Nizami, in particular, Firdovsi. It is emphasized that in the analyzed poem the oriental tradition develops in accordance with the poet’s and thinker’s philosophical and ethical views on the role of the ruler and just social relations in social life.

The Jiminy Advisor: Moral Agreements among Stakeholders Based on Norms and Argumentation

An autonomous system is constructed by a manufacturer, operates in a society subject to norms and laws, and interacts with end users. All of these actors are stakeholders affected by the behavior of the autonomous system. We address the challenge of how the ethical views of such stakeholders can be integrated in the behavior of an autonomous system. We propose an ethical recommendation component called Jiminy which uses techniques from normative systems and formal argumentation to reach moral agreements among stakeholders. A Jiminy represents the ethical views of each stakeholder by using normative systems, and has three ways of resolving moral dilemmas that involve the opinions of the stakeholders. First, the Jiminy considers how the arguments of the stakeholders relate to one another, which may already resolve the dilemma. Secondly, the Jiminy combines the normative systems of the stakeholders such that the combined expertise of the stakeholders may resolve the dilemma. Thirdly, and only if these two other methods have failed, the Jiminy uses context-sensitive rules to decide which of the stakeholders take preference over the others. At the abstract level, these three methods are characterized by adding arguments, adding attacks between arguments, and revising attacks between arguments. We show how a Jiminy can be used not only for ethical reasoning and collaborative decision-making, but also to provide explanations about ethical behavior.

Palliative sedation: autonomy, suffering, and euthanasia.

This contemporary and novel review of palliative sedation explores some of the distinctive ethical problems associated with that intervention. It is timely in light of recent reviews of palliative care guidelines on the topic and given the current public debates around the related but distinct practice of euthanasia. The main themes discussed are patient autonomy, the nature of suffering and how to alleviate it, and the relationship between palliative sedation and euthanasia. First, palliative sedation poses a significant problem for patient autonomy, both in terms of securing informed consent and in terms of the ongoing effect on individual well-being. Second, as an intervention to alleviate suffering, it is appropriate only in limited cases and counterproductive in others, for example, where an individual values their ongoing psychological or social agency more than the relief of pain or negative experience. Third, people's ethical views about palliative sedation are often coloured by their understanding of the legal and moral status of assisted dying and euthanasia; this is unhelpful and occludes the interesting and urgent ethical questions raised by palliative sedation as a distinct end-of-life intervention.

“Just teach them the law!”: the ethics of value inculcation within legal education

ABSTRACT To what extent should law teachers be permitted to advance controversial ethical, moral or political views as part of the LLB curriculum? This short paper grapples with that question by defending the ethical permissibility of such behaviour subject to the important proviso that it does not cause students “pedagogical harm”. In reaching this conclusion, three alternative views are considered and dismissed, each of which seeks either to eliminate value inculcation entirely or to restrict its scope to the moral-political values currently immanent within established law. The approach taken is argumentative, drawing upon analytical philosophy, with each contested and contestable view being presented in propositional form. Ultimately, it is concluded that value inculcation cannot be avoided within legal education and that, given this fact, the question becomes which values law teachers have a responsibility to advance. It is contended that this judgement, fraught though it might be for various reasons, is best left to individual teachers and that, for this reason among others, a permissive “no-harm” approach to value inculcation best justifies current pedagogical practices.

Opposite ethical views converge under the threat of catastrophic climate change

Climate policy is often described by economists as an intertemporal consumption trade-off: consume all you want today and face climate damages in the future, or sacrifice consumption today to implement costly climate policies that will bring future benefits through avoided climate damages. If one assumes enduring technological progress, a society that is more averse to intertemporal inequalities should postpone climate policies and let future, richer generations pay more. Growing evidence however suggests that the trade-off is more complex: abrupt, extreme, irreversible changes to the climate may cause discontinuities to socio-economic systems, possibly leading to a sharp decline of human population and consumption per capita. In this paper, we show that, when accounting for a very small risk of catastrophic climate change, it is optimal to pursue stringent climate policies to postpone the catastrophe. Our results conform with the well-known conclusion that tight carbon budgets are preferred when aversion towards inequalities between generations is low. However, by contrast with previous studies, we show that stringent policies are also optimal when inequality aversion is high. The non-monotonicity of the influence of inequality aversion is due to the fact that, for a given investment in abatement, a higher inequality aversion gives a smaller weight to avoided future non-catastrophic damages, but a larger weight to the catastrophic outcome. We also explore the role of population ethics, and show that the size of the optimal carbon budget decreases with the social preference for large populations, although this parameter plays almost no role at extreme levels of inequality aversion. Our result demonstrates that views from opposite sides of the ethical spectrum in terms of inequality aversion converge in terms of climate policy recommendations, warranting immediate climate action.

Межкультурный диалог: каким видится герой нашего времени из Москвы, Минска и Дели?

The international roundtable discussion on the problems of literary studies, comparative studies and intercultural communication “Delhi ‒ Minsk ‒ Moscow: The hero of our time in world and national literature” was held online on April 28, 2023. The organizers of the discussion on the subject were the Department of Foreign Literature of the Maxim Gorky Institute of Literature and Creative Writing, the Department of World Literature of the Institute of Philology of the Moscow State Pedagogical University and the Department of Translation Theory and Practice of the Faculty of Social and Cultural Communications of the Belarusian State University. The target audience of the online forum were teachers, graduate students and students of the above-mentioned universities, as well as literature teachers from the listed countries. The aim of the international roundtable was to identify the key features of the hero of our time in the global (world) and local (national) contexts. The participants of the roundtable were invited to discuss types, archetypes, timeless images, characters in world literature representing a mould from the hero of our time, to identify the dominant images of modern literature, to capture the universal in the variety of manifestations of human characters and the rich colours with which authors of different nationalities paint their characters, to see unfading patterns in the heroes of the past, to trace the transformation of notions about the ideal hero, the congruent in the dynamics of historical and social processes, religious, aesthetic and cultural attitudes. The scientific novelty of the study lies in a comprehensive analysis of protagonists in the literatures of the modern multipolar world, which develop under the influence of a number of geopolitical factors. As a result of the discussion, it was proved that the creation of the image of the hero of modern literature is inextricably linked with the author’s worldview, his/her social position and the system of ethical and aesthetic views, which leads to the dominance of certain types in modern literature, newly created images and recreated archetypes alike.

Этические императивы в историцистской перспективе: был ли Иисус Навин аморальным?

The present article is dedicated to the problem of moral evaluation of historical figures and events as illustrated by an example of one of the most prominent figures of biblical stories Jesus Navis. He is one of those figures who commits something obviously morally wrong, if seen from the point of view of the dominant modern morality, but still is a moral authority for many people due to his commitment to God, place in Sacred history and some other features. The author considers in the article the following question: may such persons and acts be ever evaluated in modern historical narratives? He presumes that to this question positive answer may be given without sticking to some kind of prejudice, and proposes an argument which combines a semantic thesis that from the truth of the proposition “x committed an immoral action a” does not necessarily follow the proposition “x acted immorally by doing a”, with the justification of the claim that only the first one is applicable to historical figures, given we don’t know the historical context well. It is also shown that this approach allows to resolve yet another old problem: that of an accurate representation of the past without full exclusion of evaluative statements.The present article is dedicated to the problem of moral evaluation of historical figures and events as illustrated by an example of one of the most prominent figures of biblical stories Jesus Navis. He is one of those figures who commits something obviously morally wrong, if seen from the point of view of the dominant modern morality, but still is a moral authority for many people due to his commitment to God, place in Sacred history and some other features. The author considers in the article the following question: may such persons and acts be ever evaluated in modern historical narratives? He presumes that to this question positive answer may be given without sticking to some kind of prejudice, and proposes an argument which combines a semantic thesis that from the truth of the proposition “x committed an immoral action a” does not necessarily follow the proposition “x acted immorally by doing a”, with the justification of the claim that only the first one is applicable to historical figures, given we don’t know the historical context well. It is also shown that this approach allows to resolve yet another old problem: that of an accurate representation of the past without full exclusion of evaluative statements.

Pemaknaan Tata Busana Persembahyangan Untuk Meningkatkan Pemahaman Nilai Etika Dalam Ajaran Hindu (Studi Kasus Masyarakat Hindu di DKI Jakarta)

This study examines the Meaning of worshiping clothes to Increase Understanding of Ethical Values in Hinduism (A Case Study of Hindu Society in DKI Jakarta). The worship phenomenon worn by Hindu society in general, and teenagers in particular turned out to cause some problems from the point of view of Hindu ethics. This study aims to determine the meaning problem related to the changes and shifts in ethical values and clothes aesthetics of prayer based on the Balinese customs inherited in the urban environment in DKI Jakarta. The method applied in this research is qualitative method. The theoretical frameworks used as the basis for data analysis are ethical theory mainly related to ethical education, aesthetic theory, and theory of symbol related to the symbolic meaning of the temple worshiping clothes to the temple. Based on data analysis, it can be concluded: (1) change and shift of ethical value of worshiping clothes to temple for teenagers in DKI Jakarta influenced by some dominant factors, among others: the development of popular mode, multiethnic urban culture, and just follow the trend, 2) the waning of the prayer-dress ethic education is related to Balinese customs, and (3) in spite of the change, but its essential meaning is still maintained because ethics values (aesthetics and propriety) and aesthetics (harmony, beauty) are still taught in the family environment and pasraman education at the tempels.

Confucius’s views on administration and communication

This article analyzes the formation of theoretical views on the nature, methods, and practice of the administrative and communication activities of public authorities in relation to the people of the state in the VI‒V centuries BC in Ancient China. Communication ideas are identified, first of all, on the basis of analysis of Confucius’ Lun Yu treatise. The adopted method of study here is a systemic approach and comparative historical analysis, allowing us to identify the elements associated with the views of the thinker and determine their significance in the history of the theory of administration and communication in Chinese documents. It shows the conditions of the political and economic life of Ancient China at that time, which promoted the emergence of the philosophical Confucian concepts of public administration and communication. It establishes the sequence and distinctive feature of the humanistic and moral, and ethical views of Confucius on the functioning of the communication models of a state, which are still relevant for the development of science and practice. The focus of the work is on the analysis of specific judgments of the thinker about the structure of communication in the administrative environment. It reveals the communicative content of the key elements of the cornerstone concept of his teachings ‒ Tao. The work considers the reasons for the propaganda of closed government and dosed information flows in the administrative field and in the communication of public officials with the masses. It analyzes the means proposed to make people (subjects) make proper decisions for the authorities in power. This task is still actively discussed in modern communication science. It also interprets some of Confucius’ statements that determine the moral and ethical framework of administrative communication and reveals the meaning of his communication model. It identifies the features of that ideal fragmented communication model as a sample limited for practical use by numerous objective conditions. It also specifies the time frame of the “Axial Age” in China’s history. And finally, it makes conclusions about the role and significance of Confucius’s views in the formation and development of the methods and ethics of communicative action in public administration in the historical and perspective aspects.

The Factors Influencing Behavioural Intention Fintech Lending (Paylater) Among Generation Z Indonesian Muslims and Islamic Consumption Ethics Views

&lt;p&gt;This study seeks to investigate and analyze the factors that influence Generation Z’s use of fintech lending (paylater) in Jakarta, West Java, East Java, Central Java, and North Sumatra. This study employs a descriptive quantitative methodology and questionnaire distribution. The study employed purposive sampling. This study included 200 Generation Z respondents who have utilized fintech lending (paylater) as respondents. The method of data analysis employs Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) and SmartPLS version 3.2.9 software. The variables performance expectation, social influence, hedonic motivation, and habit have a positive and significant effect on behavioral intention, whereas effort expectation, facilitating conditions, and price value do not. In addition to testing the UTAUT 2 model, this research was conducted on Generation Z, where few research results are discussing the use of fintech lending (paylater). Generation Z is the generation that currently dominates the population in Indonesia and will be the next generation of Indonesians; therefore, it is essential to determine what factors play a role in encouraging the use of fintech lending (paylater) among Generation Z.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Abstrak&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Penelitian ini tujuannya guna menyelidiki serta menganalisis faktor-faktor yang pengaruhi pemakaian fintech lending (paylater) generasi Z di Jakarta, Jawa Barat, Jawa Timur, Jawa Tengah, dan Sumatera Utara. Penelitian ini menggunakan metodologi kuantitatif deskriptif dan penyebaran kuesioner. Penelitian ini menggunakan purposive sampling. Penelitian ini melibatkan 200 responden generasi Z yang telah memanfaatkan fintech lending (paylater) sebagai responden. Metode analisis data memakai perangkat lunak PLS-SEM dan SmartPLS versi 3.2.9. Variabel ekspektasi kinerja, pengaruh sosial, motivasi hedonis, serta kebiasaan berpengaruh positif juga signifikan pada niat berperilaku, sedangkan ekspektasi upaya, kondisi fasilitasi, dan nilai harga tidak. Selain menguji model UTAUT 2, penelitian ini dilakukan pada generasi Z, dimana hasil penelitian yang membahas tentang penggunaan fintech lending (paylater) masih sedikit. Generasi Z merupakan generasi yang sekarang mendominasi jumlah penduduk di Indonesia dan akan menjadi generasi penerus bangsa Indonesia; Maka dari itu, penting agar tau faktor apa saja yang berperan untuk mendorong penggunaan fintech lending (paylater) di kalangan generasi Z. &lt;/em&gt;

Iris Murdoch’s Conception of Moral Development in Her Novel The Good Apprentice

The author juxtaposes two views of morality and the views of man they imply: one represented by behaviourist and existentialist approaches in theories of morality and the other proposed by Iris Murdoch, who stresses the ability to see and recognise morally significant characteristics. In Murdoch’s opinion, a person’s moral development consists in a change in the quality of consciousness as a result of the activity of attention in exploring moral reality. After contrasting these two views, the author confronts Murdoch’s approach with the conception of moral development understood along these lines as exemplified in a character of her novel The Good Apprentice. She also puts the problem of attention into the context of Murdoch’s conception of the transcendence of persons.

Social Entrepreneurship as a Family Resemblance Concept with Distinct Ethical Views

Almost 25 years after Dees’ article on the meaning of social entrepreneurship, conceptual controversy persists. Based on a qualitative analysis of 209 definitions of social entrepreneurship and respective academic articles, we argue that the concept follows a family resemblance structure and identify the 12 distinct attributes that comprehensively define it. Membership in social entrepreneurship is not defined by a case possessing a universally accepted set of criterial features but by carrying shared attributes with other cases. The family resemblance structure points to the persistent fallacy of using the same term to label different phenomena and cautions researchers against causal homogeneity assumptions among different conceptual subtypes. Assuming a descriptive stance, we shed light on how distinct ethical positions relate to different definitions of social entrepreneurship. Among the existing conceptual variety, we identify four prominent subtypes and find that ‘market-based’ conceptualizations relate to economism, the ‘social business’ subtype relates to rule utilitarian positions, ‘efficiency-driven’ definitions are associated with hedonistic act utilitarian views, and the ‘transformational impact’ subtype is akin to a eudemonic act utilitarian stance.

“Teaching” of Vladimir Monomakh as Synthesis of Ethical Traditions Byzantine Patristics and National Paganism

The research is devoted to the ethical views of Vladimir Monomakh, reflected in the “Teaching” of the Grand Duke. The author’s reflections concerning such fundamental moral categories as good and evil, virtue and vice, the meaning of life and death, free will, duty, happiness are considered and analyzed. A partial continuity of the Grand Duke’s views concerning the relationship to the categories of good and evil, as well as virtue and vice, with the Byzantine Christian tradition, in particular with regard to the “theory of three small deeds”, which is based on the theory of repentance of John Chrysostom, and the theory of “asceticism in the world”, based on the writings of Basil the Great. It is revealed that the ethical views of the Grand Duke do not fit into the strict paradigm of Christian medieval philosophy and theology. In this regard, the author of the article draws attention to the syncretic nature of the worldview of the author of the “Teaching”, expressed in a kind of worldview combining Christian and pre-Christian beliefs. In this vein, the specific understanding of the problems of the meaning of life, death, happiness by Vladimir Monomakh is analyzed, which is revealed when considering the peculiar attitude of the author of the “Teaching” to the sacred rites of prayer and burial. The author’s views on the category of duty in the universal and state terms, as well as the principles of practical behavior, are studied. According to the results of the research, the author of the article comes to the conclusion that the work of the Grand Duke is an ethical “micro-treatise”, the ideological content of which fully reflects the moral concept of the existence of the ancient Rus-sian man.