Good and evil are the central and fundamental concepts of moral consciousness. Moral consciousness is not limited to these concepts, but they define its core. In many ways, other concepts of morality are formed around them and about them – virtue and vice, justice, duty, conscience, freedom. With the development of the content of these concepts, morality itself develops. But the opposite can also be said: with the development of morality, moral consciousness, and ways of moral thinking, the concepts of good and evil become more clearly understood. The interpretation of the concepts of good and evil depends on how this process of moral development is understood. There are three most common approaches to the question of the origin and development of morality: religious, which ascribes morality to the divine principle, naturalistic, which deduces morality from the laws of nature, in particular, biological evolution, and social, which considers morality as one of the social, socio-cultural mechanisms that ensure the stability of society. In the first case, the concepts of good and evil are defined in their relation to the deity, in the second – to nature, and in the third – to society. This does not mean that good and evil are necessarily conceptually understood differently. Of course, at the discretion of the source of morality in public life, good and evil can depend on the interests of some social groups. But this means that good and evil are ideologized, and morality is used to justify a private public interest. More often, more precisely, in the vast majority of moral teachings, goodness is understood as that which contributes to the well-being of people, and of all people and each person. The question remains, where does a person’s desire to promote the well-being of others, to help and take care of. Let’s look at these approaches in more detail. According to one, the most ancient view, morality, as a law, is given to man by the gods or God. The law is given to people directly, by God himself or through intermediaries – heroes and prophets. Thus, the founder of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad, found the truth in divine revelation and expressed it in the Quran. Jesus Christ, the God of Christians, proclaimed new laws of life in the Sermon on the Mount, as well as in other sermons, teachings, and parables. In monotheistic religions, this is the only time when God openly appeared to people, lived and taught among them. But in Islam and Judaism, Jesus is recognized as a prophet, i.e. one of God’s chosen people, and thus the exclusivity of this case of personal transmission of the law by God to people is denied. Zarathustra (Greek Zoroaster, VII–VI centuries BC), the founder of the Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism, and Moses (XIII–XIII centuries BC), the founder of Judaism, are historical figures shrouded in myths and legends, the prophets through whom Ahura Mazda, the supreme god of the Zoroastrian pantheon and Yahweh– the Jewish God, transmitted their laws to people. If the divine truths were revealed to Muhammad in meditation, and to Buddha (the founder of Buddhism) in a state of nirvana, then the gods appeared to Zarathustra and Moses personally. The ancient Indian mythical forefather of Manu, the ancient Egyptian god Osiris, and the ancient Indian deities Viracocha and Quetzalcoatl not only brought divine wisdom to people in the form of knowledge, skills, and rules of life, but also lived among them, instilling in them the skills of a reasonable and proper life, or even resolutely forcing them to do so. The same man who lived with his people was the demigod-half-man, the ruler of Crete, Minos (c. XVI century BC), who established the laws that brought prosperity and world fame to Crete. The laws of Manu, the laws of Moses, and the laws of Zarathustra have come down to us almost in full, although, of course, not in their original form. From many indirect sources, we can get an idea of other ancient, prehistoric regulatory codes. All of them are more or less similar, if not in content, then in general spirit and are aimed at limiting tribal and tribal egoism, individual arbitrariness, suppression of spontaneous cruelty and the establishment of customs that protect peace in the community. With the development of spiritual culture, changes in the regulations concerned the circle of people towards whom it was necessary to show peacefulness and tolerance. Christ has already called for universal forgiveness and love for enemies. Another approach to the question of the origin of morality is that it is considered as an expression and development of natural tendencies, as an expression at a higher level of the same patterns that develop in the process of evolution in the animal world. According to this naturalistic point of view, morality solves the same problems by other means (social, cultural) that are solved by biological mechanisms at lower stages of life development. Procreation, caring for the weak and sick, mutual assistance, cooperation, solidarity, dedication – all these traits are widely found in the world of animals, especially higher and “social” (that is, living in a herd, pack). This point of view easily meets with sympathy and understanding among natural scientists and scientifically oriented social scientists, as well as among educated people. Although philosophers claim that moral judgments and decisions are mediated by reason, consciousness, and a sense of responsibility, in individual experience morality is given as if directly, it does not require reflection, special decisions, it seems to be known from the very beginning, almost from birth; it seems only dormant in a person and awakens at the right moment. Such mundane ideas about morality create conditions for susceptibility to biologizing theories, especially those supported by references to evolutionary genetics. However, they also fuel more and more attempts by biological scientists to explain morality from the standpoint of nature. What fuels these ideas? Let’s note two points. First, no matter how much they talk about the role of education in personality formation, the process of moral development of a personality remains elusive and, rather, even contradicts the efforts that are being made for the purpose of education, and at least in many ways independent of them. Secondly, in the behavior of animals, especially domestic, wild, and living in communities, there are many phenomena and stable addictions that are most easily “explained” from a moral point of view – as actions, as behavior caused by living together, aimed at maintaining this togetherness. These impressions are generally accepted: it is no coincidence that assumptions about the natural basis of human behavior and morality in general have been expressed throughout the history of social thought, with the exception of those periods when the dominance of theological views was exceptional. The evolutionary approach to ethics was formulated by the English philosopher Herbert Spencer. But the main ideas of this approach were expressed by the English biologist Charles Darwin, who specifically devoted two chapters of his fundamental work “The Origin of Man” to the problems of morality and its origin. In them, the position about the natural, biological prerequisites of morality really follows from the evolutionary theory based on the most extensive empirical material. To be blunt, Darwin did not discover any new ethical ideas; in the ethical content of his concept of the origin of morality, he does not go beyond the limits set by such English thinkers as David Hume, Adam Smith and other philosophers of that circle. However, having accepted well-known ethical ideas, he gave them a scientific justification. Darwin’s main ideas about the conditions of development and existence of morality can be summarized as follows: * Society exists due to the social instincts that animals (and humans) satisfy in the society of their own kind; hence the sympathy and services rendered to others. Darwin notes that animal services never apply to all individuals of their species and are limited only to members of one community. * Social instinct is transformed into morality due to the high development of mental abilities; therefore, not only instincts, but also the images of all past actions that arise on their basis, perform, so to speak, a controlling role, encouraging a person to act in order to maintain a common (social) life, and preventing the dominance of any other instincts. above the social ones. * Speech has become the strongest factor in human behavior, making it possible to formulate the demands of public opinion (community demands); but even here, approval and disapproval of certain actions are based on sympathies directly determined by social instinct. * Habit plays an important role in each individual; social instinct and sympathy are reinforced by habit. In these four propositions, Darwin formulated the essential postulates of a biological approach to explaining the premises and origin of morality.: a) the natural basis, b) high development of the psyche and intellectual functions compared to animals, c) the ability to articulate and develop speech, d) the reinforcing role of social mechanisms (which should include the ability to learn and reproduce). In a modified form, modern biological theories of morality based on the achievements of ethology (the science of animal behavior) and evolutionary genetics accept all these postulates. The idea that unites all ethical theories, despite the difference in the specific theoretical models used, is that humanity underwent a group selection for morality, in particular, for altruism. Let’s look at some of these models. Mutual altruism. As the name suggests, helping behavior both within a group and between representatives of different, that is, unrelated groups, as well as between representatives of different species, is mutual. In the course of adaptation and selection, individuals who provide assistance survive, since they are the first to be helped by other individuals in other situations. According to the observations of ethologists, for example, among anubis baboons, “altruistic” helpers most often turn out to be the object of help themselves. Similar data were obtained during a specially designed experiment with chimpanzees: they were able to adequately respond to human standards of cooperative or competitive interaction. The Russian geneticist V.P.Efroimson, who made a significant article in 1971: “The pedigree of altruism (Ethics from the standpoint of human evolutionary genetics)” (1) This is the observation of ethologist E.Mare, who has been directly studying the life of baboons in Africa for three years. A leopard was lying near the path along which a herd of baboons was moving to their caves. He was noticed. Two male baboons separated from the herd, climbed unnoticed onto the cliff above the leopard and jumped down at once. One grabbed the throat of the predator, and the other in the back. And although the leopard ripped open the belly of one with its hind paw and broke the spine of another with its front paws, one of the baboons managed to inflict a fatal wound on the leopard a moment before his death, biting through his jugular vein. The danger to the herd has been eliminated. Baboons’ behavior cannot be explained from the standpoint of “mutual altruism”: having sacrificed their lives for the sake of their relatives, altruistic baboons can no longer, on the principle of reciprocity, become the object of someone else’s help. It is impossible to interpret the behavior of baboons if we proceed from the classical evolutionary theory, according to which the mechanisms of adaptation of animals are oriented towards the survival of the individual. Classical evolutionary theory had its own socio-ethical implications: the principle of individual fitness was supposed to lead to the establishment of selfishness. The theory of individual fitness may explain assistance as an exchange of services, but it does not explain sacrificial assistance in animals. But the contradiction between the facts and the provisions of the theory was not hopeless – mutual assistance itself began to be considered as a factor of evolution. Another explanatory model of adaptation and survival indicates that the fitness of an individual is subordinated to the fitness of relatives, that is, the total fitness that natural selection is aimed at. This fitness is determined not by the survival of the individual, but by the preservation of the corresponding set of genes, the carrier of which is a group of relatives. Some individuals sacrifice themselves for the sake of their relatives, since half of their set of genes are found in their siblings, a quarter in their parents’ siblings, and an eighth in their cousins. This clarifies the meaning of what evolutionists call altruism.: this is an individual behavior that increases the possibilities of adaptation and reproduction of a related group, while the corresponding chances of an individual may decrease. It is not a question of the fitness of a group at all, but of a group of relatives. In other words, it is necessary to distinguish, as many evolutionists and ethologists insist, group selection and kinship selection. Thus, in the course of evolution, selection for altruism occurs: those groups survive whose individuals have a genetic structure that determines altruistic – helping, selfless, sacrificial – behavior. However, the concept of total fitness does not solve all the issues. For example, an individual with the “altruism gene” sacrifices himself to ensure the fitness of his relatives who possess this gene to a greater or lesser extent; however, this does not exclude the possibility that there are individuals in this group with the “altruism gene” who will use the “altruists”, providing themselves with better opportunities for survival and reproduction, and carriers of the “altruistic gene”, thus, are at greater risk. Cumulative fitness can be explained differently using another explanatory model proposed by the concept of the “selfish gene”. Fitness is considered in relation to a group of relatives, but at the same time, the main “agent” of selection in the process of evolution is not a population, not a group, and, of course, not an individual, but a certain set of genes characteristic of this related group. An individual is thus a “machine” for the survival of a gene, a genetic set. And this version of cumulative fitness does not explain many ethological problems. Altruism at the level of individual behavior actually appears to be genetic egoism: what kind of morality, even if undeveloped, “animal morality” can we talk about here? It is also important to note that a more technical, from a genetic-theoretical point of view, clarification in the interpretation of the problem of altruism blurs its ethical content. Can we talk about morality if a set of genes is a factor in altruistic behavior? The value of evolutionist and ethological programs and research results is beyond doubt. Numerous data from specific disciplines studying humans confirm that humans cannot be understood outside of their nature, outside of their biological characteristics. The significance of the results of scientific research in the field of evolutionary genetics and ethology lies in the fact that they allow us to see many similarities in animal and human behavior and, consequently, to take a fresh look at the specifics of human sociality. A person is not a tabula rasa (2) that is filled in the process of social education – from the moment of his birth, he is a carrier of specifically human biology, he is biologically prepared to assimilate the cultural and historical achievements of society. Moreover, the problem is not limited to the fact that nature is “humanized”, “socialized”, filled with social and cultural content; this content itself, as biologists show, follows from a long process of evolutionary development. However, all these themes and plots are the subject of anthropology, but not ethics. At the level of human biological and ethological research, morality defies comprehension. Here we can talk about forms of cooperation, cooperation, as well as competition and rivalry (which for a long time researchers of animal behavior, seeking to uncover the biological prerequisites of morality, did not pay due attention to), but not about altruism, not about morality. From the point of view of the evolutionary approach to morality, the latter appears in an extremely impoverished form: morality turns out to be reduced to adaptation and adaptation, altruism to cooperation, love to the developed biological need of any higher animal for affection. The evolutionary concept of altruism is quite specific: this is behavior, the only criterion for evaluating which are the results, namely, the fitness of an individual or group; the results that are achieved at the expense of the individual who shows altruism. Evolutionists refer to altruistic actions through which help is provided to others in a moment of danger, helping the weak (sick, injured, toddlers, old people), transferring their food, their tools and knowledge to others. At the same time, any actions of this kind, regardless of motivation, are recognized as altruistic. Meanwhile, as we have seen, the historical development of the ethical thought of mankind followed the path of clarifying the characteristic features of morality, moral decisions and actions. This is how the concept of altruism appeared, which does not mean any relationship of help and productive interaction, including those motivated by pleasure and benefit, but behavior that is selflessly oriented towards the benefit of another person. The interpretation of morality as a mechanism of adaptation is also unsatisfactory: the group (population) adapts to the environment, the individual to the group (population). It does not take into account that ensuring a shared lifestyle among insects and animals, between animals and humans, and even in diverse human communities – in a clan, in a family, in friendship, in a business partnership, in a corporation – are certainly different. In human communities, cooperation is mediated by important ideal (ideological, motivational) factors, and the nature of these factors is diverse (coercion, material necessity, economic interests, curiosity, solidarity, charity, humanity, etc.). Obviously, these differences are not taken into account by proponents of the evolutionary origin of morality. Morality can be explained from the point of view of adaptation theory. However, the content of morality is not limited to adaptability, and morality is not a special, much less the only form of adaptation. The ability to learn, for example, has a much greater adaptive potential than altruism. Adaptively, functional differentiation within the social groups of archaic society was also significant, in particular, the allocation of special functions performed by old priests, teachers, and mentors due to their experience and worldly wisdom. Equally important, adaptively “capacious” were the abilities to make tools, both technical, logical, spiritual, and creative, including social creativity. All this suggests that adaptability is not a specific feature of morality. In addition, homo sapiense, unlike all known species on Earth, is not so much an adaptable animal as a transformative one. It was the tremendous development of creative activity aimed at transforming the environment, creating a special, material environment, and creating a spiritual culture that revealed the breakthrough that made man a man. The emergence of human culture and morality has effectively neutralized the importance of biological adaptability. In addition to the fact that in naturalistic theories morality appears in an impoverished and distorted form, their authors simply do not undertake to comprehend not the behavioral, but the ideal side of morality. How, for example, to explain from a naturalistic point of view that in all cultural traditions, morality in its original forms – given, as we have seen, in the teachings of religious prophets and spiritual leaders – refers to man as the bearer of the spirit. Critics of religion, especially militant ones, accuse her of always insisting on moderation, or even suppression of the flesh. But in their own way and in their own language, rather addressed to an ordinary person, the spiritual teachers of mankind fulfilled the same mission as philosophy – they formed a spiritual, intelligent person, free from the elements of his corporeality; at least able to limit himself in his appetites. Many ancient myths reveal a person’s opposition to various forms of naturalness, inertia, and unintelligible habits and traditions. The myths about Osiris or Prometheus, who passed on knowledge and skills to people (Prometheus did this against the will of the higher gods of Olympus, for which he was severely punished) and thereby pulled them out of their state of natural savagery, are clear in this regard. But let’s look at the biblical story of Abraham from this point of view. Abraham, mentioned in Mesopotamian texts of the second half of the third millennium BC, is revered in Judaism, Christianity and Islam as the chosen one of God, the ancestor of Jews and Arabs. In the light of the topic under discussion, two of the most dramatic episodes from Abraham’s life deserve special attention. Abraham was a native of Southern Mesopotamia, a country where paganism persisted. Moreover, according to legend, his father was not just an idolater, one of many, but also a sculptor of idols. One day Yahweh appears to Abraham with the demand: “Go from your land, from your relatives, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you” (Gen. 12:1) – to preach the name of Yahweh. Abraham accepts this mission and travels around Palestine, spreading the true faith. But he begins by trying to convert his father, brother, and household, but is refused, for which his father’s house was burned down by heavenly fire. Although Abraham is a model of righteousness, he remained childless until a very old age, and only at the age of one hundred did God give him a son by his wife Sarah, who gave birth to a son at the age of ninety. Abraham dotes on his son Jacob. However, God, wanting to test him, commands him to offer Jacob as a burnt offering. And Abraham was already ready to fulfill this command of God when, at the last moment, an angel sent by God stopped the patriarch’s hand as he raised the dagger over Jacob, who was prepared for sacrifice. This episode is often interpreted by skeptics as an expression of God’s cruelty, and by believers as an expression of God’s mercy. However, the tradition of Abraham is filled with special symbolism, indicating that righteousness, or, what is the same in this case, moral perfection, is acquired by a person in liberation from natural bonds and attachments, whether filial or parental. A person fully realizes himself as a human being only by accepting as his goals those that elevate him above the circumstances of traditional and everyday life. Another view of the nature and source of morality is that morality is an exceptional social (socio-cultural) phenomenon that arises in the process of social development as a means of meeting certain needs of society. This approach to morality can be conventionally called sociological. From this point of view, the emergence of morality has historically been predetermined and mediated by the decomposition of the primitive community in the process of isolation of economic life, social differentiation and the formation of the first state institutions. However, there is another point of view, according to which morality arises in the depths of a primitive and even early primitive community. The point is whether we understand by morality any norms regulating relations between people (and such norms are indeed formed simultaneously with the formation of a person and the transition of a person from a state of savagery to barbarism) or special norms whose action is based on individual and independent choice and decision-making (and such methods of regulating behavior They are formed relatively late, during the period of decomposition of the tribal community, during the transition from barbarism to civilization). However, considering the emergence of morality as a stage in the formation of man and human society, it is important to understand what needs or goals of society and man morality meets. It is clear that its occurrence was a consequence of the ineffectiveness of existing mechanisms for regulating relationships and resolving conflicts. But it is necessary to understand what underlies this innovation, whether the continuity of regulations is preserved, and if not, what mediates the transition from the old to the new. In the era of the disintegration of the tribal system and the emergence of statehood (“civilization system”, “class society”), the life of society and the individual is changing in a number of ways. There is a social differentiation of the primitive community, a gradual division of labor, the individualization of human social existence, etc. With the dominance of the economic approach to understanding society and man, the division of labor is considered as the basis of all changes. Highlighting different points in the process of transition from a tribal society to a “civilization structure”, different authors essentially assume different images of morality: with an emphasis on social differentiation and the emergence of classes, morality approaches political ideology, while emphasizing the formation of cities (which at the dawn of ancient civilization were usually city-states, polis), morality approaches with the right. It is possible to assume such a point of view, according to which this crucial epoch will be considered from the point of view of changes in the nature of religious worship, namely, the transformation of some ancestral cults into state cults with obvious subsequent privileges for the respective cults. Then morality becomes closer to religion, and this rapprochement also has its own rational meaning. In the history of the origin of civilization, there was social differentiation, the formation of cities as socio-economic and political centers, and the gradual process of universalization of cults, which resulted in the emergence of world religions. From an ethical point of view, in this multi-layered process of transition from one type of society to another, it is important to identify the determining factor in the formation of morality. After all, this is the era of the emergence of not only morality, but also other, one might say, all the main institutions of society. The key to understanding morality is precisely the decomposition of the genus and the change (towards expansion) of the scale of human social existence. It was the disintegration of tribal society in itself, which resulted in a decrease in the importance of consanguinity and ties equated to them as a factor of social life, that became the determining condition for the emergence of what we call morality. This is indicated by a number of facts from the history of the language. The main social structures of primitive society were the clan, the phratry, the tribe, and the union of tribes (the people). According to historical ethnography, this structure is indispensable for all peoples at the stage of barbarism. It is significant that such important words from the moral lexicon as “kindness”, “love”, “brotherhood” in ancient languages and a number of modern ones are related or at least etymologically related to words that denoted the basic structures of primitive society. The Latin gens means “genus,” gentilis means “kinship,” and generosus means “kindness.” It’s the same in English: kinship – “kinship”. Phratry is an association of exogamous clans, but this word also meant brotherhood; the same synonymy is noted in the Iroquois language. Moreover, the Indo–European word “fratria” did not mean a kinship relationship (in Greek, the word “adelfos” was used to refer to a blood brother), but an organizational one: frater is a brother, that is, a member of the same phratry. In modern English, the commonwealth, the spiritual brotherhood is designated by the word “fraternity“, although the English “brother” (brother) is the same Indo–European root. It is also possible to trace the connection between phyle (tribe) and philia (love-affection, friendship). Somewhat apart from this row is a word from the lexicon of developed moral consciousness – “ethics”. The Greek word “ethica“, formed by Aristotle, etymologically goes back to ethos, which in the time of Aristotle denoted temperament, but Homer still retained the meaning of a common dwelling, a place of residence. Thus, we see that the words denoting human relations essential to morality are the root words representing the basic relations of primitive society. Such an expansion of the meaning of words could only occur in conditions of loosening, blurring of social ties, which these words traditionally denoted. It was not the hierarchization of the primitive community that led to its disintegration, but “socialization”, the transition from naturally formed ties to socially formed, purposeful ties, which was caused by a change and complication of the living conditions of the community. In the process of solving new tasks facing the community, it is differentiated and hierarchized. At the level of clan and phratry, this change in the nature of ties was also reflected in the fact that outsiders, newcomers, and people unrelated to the clan could become members of these communities. A special law allowing this was passed in Athens in the sixth century BC, but obviously the law only consolidated a long-standing practice. It is deeply natural that by the same time, researchers attribute the appearance of precepts in the form of instructions, which were perceived by subsequent ethical and philosophical thought as the fundamental imperatives of morality, expressing its essential, universal and absolute content. It’s about the golden rule and the commandment of love. An analysis of these formulas shows that they arise not just as a result of the decomposition of traditional public relations, but as a compensation for this decomposition. In general, the same can be said about morality: it is based on a system of values and social mechanisms that meet the needs of the individual, which in the primitive era were satisfied through family ties. These moral (historically and ethically more precisely, moral, potentially moral) formulas were undoubtedly addressed to a full–fledged member of the tribal organization and determined his attitude towards a new alien member of the community. The texts of the Old Testament confirm this. In the Book of Leviticus, the commandment of love is contrasted with a vindictive and malicious attitude towards “the sons of his people” (Leviticus 19:18), and in the following verse it characterizes precisely the attitude towards an outsider who has become a member of this community: “The stranger who sojourns with you, let him be to you the same as your native, love him as yourself: for you also were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:34). The ancient content of the commandment of love is hinted at by its English translation: “Love thy neihbour <…>”, which literally means: “Love your neighbor” and its Armenian text, in which “neighbor” is translated by the word “enger”, which was closest to the Hebrew original: like the Hebrew “re’eha”, it means “comrade”, “friend”. It is no coincidence that Christ needed to specifically explain to his listeners that anyone can be a neighbor, even a stranger, for example, a Samaritan. The justification of this understanding of the original forms of moral imperatives is also confirmed by the fact that in a tribal society, mutual assistance relationships (and this has been variously attested by social anthropology) are mainly related to close kinship ties. This conclusion is quite consistent with the difference that the archaic society adhered to in assessing murder: the killing of a kinsman, but not a foreigner, was subject to a generic curse, and the initial prohibitions on murder specifically concerned the killing of a clan. Traces of this double standard are found, for example, in the Roman history of the period of the first kings, as evidenced by the memorable reaction of the Romans to the murder of Horace, the glorious conqueror of the Curiatii, his own sister, who shed tears for the deceased groom of the Curiatii family: the national hero was threatened with the death penalty on the day of his victory (3). Thus, it can be concluded that it was the norms that regulated relations within the genus. (which, as we have seen, at a late stage of the development of the tribal society did not coincide with the relations between blood relatives) were the real (though not the only) basis of moral institutions. However, it’s not just about the breakdown of family ties. The need for a special regulator of human relationships was also conditioned by the isolation of individuals within the genus. Strictly speaking, the decomposition of the genus was predetermined by its differentiation, the mutual isolation of its members. At this stage of development, there is a mutual isolation of individuals, or rather, families (as group subjects of social life) within the community. It seems that this stage is reflected in Hesiod’s poem “Labors and Days”. Many researchers find in this poem evidence of the consciousness of radical, fatal changes experienced by society. At the same time, the subject of attention is Hesiod’s legend about the change of generations from the “golden age” to the “iron Age”, the chain of which constitutes the legendary history of the human race. The historian of ethics finds in this myth a poetically expressed understanding, albeit an intuitive one, of the antithesis of what is due and what is. However, what Hesiod saw as symptoms of crisis and decay was apparently perceived by researchers only as moralistic lamentations, an empirical fixation of what lies on the surface of social mores. Meanwhile, it is characteristic how Hesiod begins the list of “heavy worries” that the gods gave to the people of the Iron Age: he puts the spoiling of interpersonal relations, relations between relatives, and the violation of the norms of communication developed by archaic society in the first place. After all, Hesiod’s brother, a lazy and greedy Persian, managed to win a lawsuit with him over the revision of the inheritance due to the fact that he managed to bribe the kings-judges who administered the court. In the future, the Persian could not wisely dispose of his unjust inheritance and squandered it. All this suggests that the society of Hesiod’s time was no longer dominated by kinship relations, but by relationships mediated by purchase and sale. In the old days, Hesiod could have avoided misfortune, even having such a wayward brother as the Persian, since it was not the sale and acquisition, but only inheritance by kinship that determined the right to land. The possibility of selling the ancestral (family) allotment predetermined Hesiod’s misfortune. Changes in the nature of property and in the possibility of disposing of it led to the corrosion of traditional relations in the tribal community, its transformation into a political society. It should be noted that already in the era of early tribal society, norms governing relations between strangers and non-relatives were formed. This is the experience of relations between different phratries, between representatives of different tribes and unions (leagues). The laws of Moses were precisely given to regulate relations between separate clans, whose property community has been completely abolished and, conversely, the difference between mine and yours is clearly fixed. At one point in his travels in Palestine, Abraham says to his nephew Lot: “Let there be no strife between me and you, and between your shepherds and my shepherds, for we are relatives. Isn’t the whole earth in front of you? Separate yourself from me” (Gen. 13:8-9). These words reflect the common phenomenon of clan division in tribal societies when there is an excess of numbers and when it is possible to develop new pastures or arable land. But they also point to the perceived need for a legitimate distinction between ours and someone else’s, according to which the prohibition on intrusion into the lives of others was reinforced by the commandments.: do not kill, do not steal, do not commit adultery, which presupposed the destruction of everyone’s right to everything. It is characteristic that the golden rule is initially developed in the relations between groups – clans, then tribes, and only during the period of differentiation of society and the transformation of clans into families, it is transferred to the relations between individuals. In the conditions of fixed isolation between strangers, their relations were regulated by special customs, namely, the exchange of gifts and hospitality. Let’s think about it: what is the point of talking about the origin of morality in the process of decomposition of the structures of tribal society and at the same time linking it with such ideas that, even without being realized, organically intertwined as stereotypes of ordinary behavior into the fabric of life of the tribal community? Or, in other words, why are behavioral norms that were reproduced by force of natural necessity in an archaic society subject to special regulation with the advent of civilization, moreover, ritualized and sanctified by religion? The fact is that for a community, cohesion, mutual support, collectivism, equality is not a matter of goodwill or well–mannered character, but a matter of its life and death, it is a matter of communal “production” and reproduction. With the isolation of the individual, with the splitting of his interests, with the displacement of family relations to the periphery of public life, two plans of human life are formed – private, in the family circle or for oneself, and public, public, in the circle of associates, partners, for a supranational organization. With the dominance of separate interests and from a position of separate interest, cohesion and mutual support seem to be superfluous, if not harmful. However, in one form or another, these behavioral forms are necessary in any society not only to solve social problems, but also to meet the individual needs of a person to be included in various kinds of communities. This is where specific spiritual formations arise that promote unity and cohesion of people, at least starting with the recognition that there is no cohesion and unity in social reality, and their absence complicates, if not poisons, people’s lives. So, morality arises in the process of the decomposition of the tribal society and the mutual isolation of people within the community. These institutions were designed to compensate for the loss of the role of the original family ties and at the same time restore and establish a community between people that would not depend on economic, social, political and other transitory factors. Unlike the ancestral society, community and unity between people (regardless of their social roles) were not generated by the very order of things of the new society.; The need for unity is recognized as such precisely because there is no unity anymore, and the lack of unity is experienced as incompleteness, as imperfection of public relations. Therefore, the idea of unity, no matter how they are realized and formulated, initially turns out to be the opposite of the social order. Taking into account these conditions for the formation of morality, it is possible to understand the important function of the concepts of good and evil as central ethical and moral concepts. They indicate that there is something valuable in life besides pleasant and useful things. These are sympathy, solidarity, kinship of souls, care, love. It is through them that a person’s unity with other people is realized. However, this does not exhaust morality, and the whole content of goodness does not come down to this. The ideal of unity also asserts a person’s loyalty to himself and, in this sense, unity with himself. Sympathy, solidarity or love turn out to be a real blessing when they unite whole souls and sincere natures. The ideal of unity also asserts a person’s devotion to this ideal itself as the highest standard. Sympathy, solidarity, or love really turn out to be a blessing when a person, attracted by these feelings, seeks to embody them in a perfect relationship with another person. This quality of human existence in the world is difficult and never given once and for all. Each person, to the extent that he recognizes for himself the highest criterion of perfection and accepts it as a practical principle, must affirm this quality of his life in every decision and in every act. This is the only way good is realized – in opposition to evil. Source: https://iphras.ru/enc_eth/137.html