Moral consciousness: structure, methods of formation and development

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

How does morality develop in children and adolescents? The structure of moral consciousness is built inside the subject even in childhood through the behavior of parents and grandmothers, as well as through the images of heroes from fairy tales. In a market economy, relations between people should not become completely commercial. How to prevent this?

It is imperative to teach children the moral norms of behavior in society, to develop an understanding of responsibility and diligence. But it is also important for adults to abide by the rules they teach their children.

Morality is also an objective assessment of human behavior and interaction in a group. But at the same time, it is a special consciousness.

The semantics of words is built on the rods of moral consciousness: life and death, meaning - meaninglessness, love - hate. Paying attention to the moral education of your child is the first-rate task of parents. And we'll seehow to do it right.

Moral consciousness is

Morality is a category that defines the human worldview regarding behavior in society or in private life. Consciousness is formed through speech. The word itself means "with knowledge". That is, the content of subjective consciousness is the knowledge that a person received from the environment or acquired through his work. Good is considered moral, but aggression, vindictiveness and envy have always been considered immoral. Where does this division come from?

Essentially, morality is a set of unspoken rules prescribed to each member of society. When a person, of his own free will, does what is required to be done for the good of society, he is called conscious or moral. Those individuals who refuse to obey social laws end up as outcasts. Choosing immorality as the main philosophy of life, people often end up in prisons.

A person cannot really live apart from society. The personality, grown by society, is obliged to serve the goals that the environment sets before him. Self-government is largely an illusion, since the individual is always subordinate to the whole. Moral public consciousness is the whole culture, which each era has its own values and its own characteristics. However, in every era, the development and improvement of one's consciousness and society was a moral choice, and the degradation of the individual and self-destruction was an immoral choice.

Structure

In the structure of morality, there arenorms of behavior and principles. In principle, 3 components of morality can be distinguished: moral consciousness, practice and attitudes.

Some principles are negotiated or prescribed. Others, such as truthfulness, determination, participation, kindness are desirable but not required. Since it is impossible to form all the virtues in oneself in a short human life, one should try to develop at least a couple of qualities in oneself to perfection.

First of all, you need to watch your appearance, avoid slovenliness. These are the prescriptions of any civilized society.

Philosophy of antiquity. Views on morality

Stoic philosophers taught with endurance to endure all suffering and learn from their mistakes. This school saw stoicism as the main virtue of humanity. The idealist philosopher Plato saw the whole world as a reflection of the spiritual world. Therefore, he believed that a person does not learn moral values in his life, but remembers them. In his spiritual disguise, he already knew them, just having been born, he forgot. Plato believed that all moral values of mankind come from God. And it is God who has all the virtues, man - only a small part of them.

Aristotle was a materialist. The direction of his mind was different. The philosopher considered morality as a measure, as the ability to limit oneself. Evil, in his opinion, is the absence of measure. Aristotle shared 2 forms - mental and universal forms of morality.

European thinkers have already used the concepts of religion to explain differencesbetween good and evil. From the teachings of enlightenment, the teachings of Hegel, Kant, Montaigne, Denis Diderot and other philosophers are known.

I. Kant's categorical imperative

According to Kant, man is the highest value. Everyone is free in his behavior just enough so as not to harm another person. Therefore, no one can use a person as a means to an end. This rule is the first law that a moral person must obey.

Second rule - everyone must treat others as he would like to be treated. This law is the golden rule of ethics that has always been and will always be relevant.

Individual and social consciousness

Methods for developing moral consciousness are ethical conversations, explanations and examples. Examples are individuals with experience and social merit - labor veterans, writers, cultural figures.

In schools, children are sometimes asked to write an essay on the topic of a moral act and an immoral one. When a person begins to think about these categories of philosophy, he will no longer act unconsciously in the future.

The structure of moral consciousness should already be formed in the subjective world of a teenager. Each person is a bearer of culture, and each one develops it with his own labor, passing on to the next generation an already modified, improved program of interaction in the world.

Forms of moral consciousness

In philosophy, consciousness determines the personal and the social. This means that there are two forms of moral consciousness: individual moral consciousness (definitions of one's essence) and general cultural consciousness.

Moral public consciousness also has several forms:

• public culture;
• political consciousness;
• scientific;
• work life and the concept of responsibility for one's future;
• legal consciousness.

All these forms of consciousness are formed gradually already at the senior school age. The qualities of character that a person develops in himself can be both good and bad.

If you do not talk with teenagers about the importance of ethics of behavior, about developing a conscience in yourself that will indicate to a person the right choice, then teenagers will not set themselves the goal of working on their bad qualities in the future.

Functions of morality

Moral behavior and moral consciousness is designed to regulate social relations. Morality should develop humanism in a person and the desire for self-improvement. After analyzing various views on the importance of moral consciousness in the life of an individual, we can distinguish 4 of its main functions:

1. Cognitive. Through the prism of his already formed principles, a person continues to learn this reality after graduation from school.
2. Educational - a person must develop their own attitude to life, to work, to relationships and learn to overcome difficulties.
3. Regulatory. Controlling your behaviorfriends, places of work, active contribution to the general activities of society - everything is regulated by the individual. Those questions of organizing life are essentially questions about where a person is directed, where he seeks happiness and what he believes in.
4. Estimated. An adult evaluates phenomena and makes decisions depending on what he considers right, acceptable, and what is categorically unacceptable.

Material success actually depends on morality. Anyone who believes that you can lose all your friends for the sake of your own success is deeply mistaken. Loners quickly break down under the pressure of circumstances without support. And if not, then the acquired successes cease to please them.

Why do we need moral values?

At all times that there is a human form of life, morality has existed, even if at first in the form of a taboo. The laws of living in a group require that the younger generation initially form concepts about values - friendship, support for loved ones, about the inadmissibility of killing one's own.

Animals have compassion for their neighbor, for example, elephants. They always mourn for that kindred who was killed. In humans, these values are also programmed, but fear for one's life, which is formed under adverse conditions in childhood, can make a person aggressive, that is, his instincts of aggression begin to prevail over the program for protecting relatives, since his own skin is always closer. But this behavior is not normal.

Moral values remain only an ideal if they are not made the principles of your life. Basedmoral principles built the spiritual life of man. When a person realizes what morality consists of and what social norms are for, he naturally becomes a worthy member of society and achieves success.

What are the moral values?

It is necessary that the child understands that it is good to be kind and sincere, so that he wants to be good.

But what qualities are considered moral:

• Compassion.
• Hard work.
• Kindness and sincerity.
• Determination.
• Will.
• Reliability.

A person with multiple moral values is respected in society. Of course, a liar is not expected at work, but a responsible and truthful employee is expected. And in a family, sincerity and dedication are needed. The moral consciousness of a person is an entirely practical requirement for him by the society in which he develops.

How to develop in a child?

Moral moral consciousness is primarily developed in the child by parents, showing what is moral and what is not, by their behavior. Then, when the child learns to read, he learns life through fairy tales, songs and cartoons. It is important all the time to watch what enters the child's brain and how he programs himself.

It makes no sense to expect a child to take care of himself in old age, if you do not instill in him respect for elders from childhood, if you do not teach him to take care of someone other than himself.

How to develop such consciousness in children? The formation of consciousness begins with the inculcationconcepts of good and evil. Gerda in the tale of the Snow Queen symbolizes a kind, conscious person. While the Snow Queen violates the free will of Kai, makes him her slave. Every time you read a fairy tale, you need to explain to the child what is good and what is not. And also ask him about what he understood and what character he sympathizes with. In such conversations, the first concept of goodness is formed.

Preschoolers, children aged 5-6 are just beginning to understand the consequences of their actions. And at this time they need to be taught to be independent, neat, purposeful. Parents before reaching school age need to give the child a stable inner core. He must know that he is required to develop self-control for a reason. This is what will help him to be collected in the classroom, get good grades and so on.

Development in high school students

The task of the moral education of a high school student is to develop an active life position, teaching a teenager to take responsibility and love work. Both mental and physical labor hardens a person, while inactivity and passivity give rise to weakness, lack of will and fears. All these nuances of adult life need to be explained to a teenager before he enters a university and begins to answer for himself.

Methods for the formation of moral consciousness are, first of all, communication and reading. Fiction reflects the core values that this generation lives by.

In most classic novels, the main characters are people with strong beliefs and values. Literature studied in high school is designed to develop in the child the very moral qualities that are in the hero. Now the value orientations are freedom of expression, humanism, tolerance, development of the mind and ingenuity.

Teachers and parents need to cooperate at this time. Schools need various trainings for parents, the work should be aimed at explaining to parents their role, the importance of their support. You can not waste time and let the situation take its course. It is during this period that a person himself begins to shape his life. He should already be able to build relationships with people and independently raise his cultural level in order to be an interesting conversationalist.

Necessary knowledge is now easy to find. But to know goodness and beauty is possible only in interaction with highly moral people.

Morality and spirituality. Difference

In fact, morality is not fully spirituality. This is a philosophical concept that relates to ethics. A person who grew up in a certain society absorbs moral foundations, perceives the categories of good and evil, and then, in adulthood, decides for himself whether to act according to the unspoken rules of morality or not.

Spirituality is a completely different concept. A spiritual person performs actions based on an understanding of the depth of things and out of love for others. According to Nikolai Berdyaev, spirituality is inseparable from the true, and the pathhuman - to reveal the truth within yourself.

The spiritual qualities of character are an even higher level of development. Such qualities can be considered patience, compassion for one's neighbor, humility and others.

Moral values today

Because of the philosophy of pleasure and permissiveness in the modern world, moral values are declining. Children cease to respect their parents, they expect only presents and money from them. Parents, in turn, love their children not for what they are, but for success in school and mental abilities. But in the future, such a trend threatens the extinction of society as such, its split and war. Growing up, a child with such values begins to divide people into useful and useless. This makes him callous, selfish and lonely.

When purely material values prevail over the consciousness of the unity of society and the well-being of the family, society falls into decay, and at the same time, every individual is defeated.

Fantastic literature largely influences our era. Now teenagers perceive the concepts of good and evil from fantasy epics and TV shows. All books and numerous TV series of our time create in young people a generalized image of a moral hero and anti-hero. That is, what you need to become in order to be accepted in society.

Based on these deep programs, they will build their field of activity and their personal lives. And since moral consciousness and moral values are now built on the plots of fantastic worlds, to predict how the image of the world will change in the future, and who will be considered moral, and whoimmoral, almost impossible.