IS ETHICS A SCIENCE?

The article is devoted to the consideration of the problem of the legitimacy of qualifying ethical knowledge as scientific. The relevance of the study is due, on the one hand, to the serious demand in the modern social existence of ethical guidelines, both moral and ethical in nature, and on the other hand, to the variability of the status of ethics in the system of scientific knowledge. In order to determine the reasons for the current situation, the article considers the dynamics of views on the historical transformations of the subject of ethics, the peculiarities of the attitude to moral activity and moral ideas in different historical eras. Particular attention is paid to the circumstances of the emergence of the term “ethics” itself and the specifics of its interpretations in a number of special works (Aristotle, P. Abelard, B. Spinoza, N. Hartmann). Modern versions of the interpretation of the term “ethics” are highlighted: the science of morality and ethics; philosophical doctrine of morality as a form of social consciousness; analogue of the concept of “morality”; synonym for the terms “morality” and “morality”; as equivalent to the concept of “etiquette”; in the form of individual authorial theoretical constructs that study the motivation of human behavior, the specifics of relationships between people and their life orientations, substantiating the most appropriate forms of coexistence; moral theories and philosophical trends of specific historical periods; systems of practical, applied interdisciplinary theoretical constructs concerning human behavior in social and natural spheres of existence; professional moral codes; regulatory requirements related to ensuring the safety of various types of activities. A correlation is made between general ideas about the essence, features, criteria and functions of any science and similar parameters characteristic of ethics. The claims of modern ethics to the status of a theoretical scientific system are assessed.