Most Famous Ethical Systems in the History of European Culture and Modernity
Nowadays, when speaking about a civilization, we mean the civilization of western Europe. Its dominant trait is science. How does the world change and evolve? What is for the humankind to come? Today we can be sure that all social and technological processes are accelerating. Their result is a more difficult, subtle and fragile world. Is the humankind ready to meet its incoming future the proper way? The modern problem is a disturbance of «technically-humanitarian» balance. The technology is fine. Human intellect develops irreversibly, it brings the development of science and technology, accelerates social and technological processes. As for the values validating the human traits of a person, the humanitarian component cannot be as dynamic as natural scientific knowledge. It is possible to distinguish in the human history the ethic of Antiquity virtues, the ethic of Renaissance duty and the ethics of Modernity’s responsibility. Nikomachean ethics by Aristotle is a metaphysical system based on a final reason. Aristotelian ethic system expresses a dominating, ecumenical appropriateness. Any process and any object or a human life mean the development determined by a final reason. In his ethic system, Aristotle divides such virtues in two types: 1) dianoethic or intellectual; 2) ethic or moral. Aristotle went further than Socrates and Plato. He interpreted virtues as an expression of human responsibility for his own destiny and happiness. In modern reality, when technological trends are in the forefront of social life, the intellectual-ethic system or Nikomachean ethics is in demand as never before.