Научная электронная библиотека
Монографии, изданные в издательстве Российской Академии Естествознания
Расширенная аннотация
With so many varieties of approaches to decision and to the decisions of problems themselves on values (including values, common to all mankind) and all the more in the conditions of present general, total, crisis state of countries and peoples, fraught with serious consequences for the fates of mankind, it is undoubtedly actual to understand correctly and in detail the meaning of values in general, and values, common to all mankind in particular.Every person, the society of any country, mankind as a whole always lived, live and will live only in particular this or that system of values of different degree of community, importance, stability and change. These values are divided for people into individual, group (of less or greater scope) and common to all mankind.
First of all, only real phenomena, which are cognizable, estimated, used consciously by people, society, mankind, may be true values. And on the contrary any supernatural, mystical, mythical, incognizable, fantastic, utopic, virtual and other phenomena can`t be true values.
Striving to explain the origin and existence of values by natural way and applying the principle of historism, the authors of the monograph come from normal needs of people, societies, mankind: initial natural, vital, and further - social-material and social-spiritual needs, superstructured over them. The principle of historism demands that it should be necessary to differ pre-history and the very history of the subject, prerequisites of its origin and existence and development of this subject. Direct prerequisites of initial human demands were their sources inherent to superior animals, coming forward as the needs for restoration and development of an organism, orientation in the environment, preservation and continuation of the generation, in sources of thinking activities, etc.
In the human society the needs are closely connected with production of material wealth and with conscious. Emotional understanding of the needs of their own by people comes in the form of wishes, which, turning from dim ones to definite, give birth to stimulus, motivation for actions conditioning the direction of human activities having a special purpose.
People carry out practical, cognitive, estimation, normative activity for searching, finding and creating means, ways, conditions, satisfying human needs. Such means, ways, conditions may be natural and social, material and spiritual, natural and artificial, preserved and reproduced, inexhaustible and limited. Satisfaction of needs is consumption, use of values, which usually restores the needs or creates the new ones, demanding the satisfaction in their turn. It results from this that it is necessary to store, reproduce, improve values and to invent new ones. In fact and logically comes the conclusion and definition of the notion «value» - namely: means, ways, conditions, capable separately or in complex to satisfy and satisfying normal vital material and spiritual needs of people (an individual, a group and community of people, mankind) are true values for them (see above).
It is these values but not wishes, stimulus, aims, interests, ideals, principles, norms, precepts, etc. that are true values.
The latter may serve or not serve the values, counteract searching, finding, defining, preserving, reproducing, improving, correct use of values, creation and invention of new values.
Value activity includes searching values, estimation of any cognizable and cognized subject, i.e. making clear for what purpose a given subject and its signs is of use, in what way and in what conditions these or those needs may be satisfied by them.
The authors consider that human needs are subdivided into natural, true, normal and into unnatural, perverted, pathological, abnormal and in their turn the first needs may be satisfied by both true values and pseudo-values, antivalues.
Not denying the division into values, pseudo-values and antivalues, but believing that the second and the third are not correct, the authors propose dividing everything into usefulness, uselessness and harmfulness. Values are included into usefulness without exhausting them, and into uselessness and harmfulness are included those phenomena that other scientists name pseudo-values and antivalues.
Coming out against confusing by some axiologists value orientation and values themselves, the authors differ them clearly. The first values exist only in human conscious and many of them depend on the will of their bearers, and the second values mostly exist without people`s will. All material and a great number of spiritual values are, in general, outside of human conscious and only a small part is connected with conscious (logical laws, memory, etc.)
The authors show on the material taken from the Bible that the precept
«Don`t kill» is now understood and discussed too broadly and abstractively. In reality it referred only to representatives of the Jewish people and even with correction: for definite actions it was possible and necessary to kill their own people. A number of theses put forward by many scientists are criticized, such as «A man is the major wealth of the society», «A man is the highest value», «A man is an absolute value», «A man is a purpose not means». In fact these ideals have not been realized in any society.
In the monograph it is shown that God, faith (religious), death, democracy, humanism, freedom, family, the sense of life, duty, responsibility, honor, conscience, nobility, charity, compassion, human rights and other things, explained by many authors as being values common to all mankind, in reality never belonged and do not belong now to these values. This is excitation, utopism, pipe-dreams, unfounded, groundless, declaration of private values and ideals for values common to all mankind. Such mistakes are due to the fact that there is discordance in literature in understanding what value is, by the influence of different ideological directions and personal preferences of the authors.
While disclosing the sense of term «common to all mankind» one should take into consideration three interconnected aspects as minimum:
1) common to all mankind (in a sense - common to all people) concerns each normal personality (from primitive man to contemporary one from baby to elderly person);
2) common to all mankind - as ever lasting eternal needs and importance for mankind as a whole (i.e. not summing but integral system formation);
3) common to all mankind - as being in the centre of attention of each state and its versatile policy.
With regard to these aspects we define the notation «common to all mankind» in the following way.
Values common to all mankind are real for people, universal, impassable, not contrary to legal laws and moral principles and norms, material and spiritual means, ways, conditions, capable to satisfy and satisfying human material and spiritual needs, and thus being obligatory necessary, wished, having everlasting considerable meaning for every personality, for mankind as a whole, for any state, expressing the interests of society of its country and its citizens.
Although such values belong to all people, mankind, to all states (communities) having interconnections, interactions, they have vital peculiarities. The authors consider that it is necessary to distinguish three types of values common to all mankind:
- common to all people,
- values common to all mankind,
- values common to states.
The system of values common to all people is initial among them.
Between values common to all people the most important, central, initial value is life, regarded as the basis of values of the first type. To this group of values we refer health as the most important medical value, well-being - as the most vital utilitarian value, creative work as value of activity, truth as the highest spiritual value, beauty as a most important aesthetic value, justice as the most significant moral - legal value and the happiness as the summit of psychological complex of values.
The second type of the system of values common to all mankind gives very important, necessary, favorable factors and conditions for mankind. Between them the initial fundamental values is peaceful coexistence (development) of mankind.
The importance of the other values was always vital for mankind, but especially absolute it became during the last century. These are the values superstructured over the initial value: clean, healthy air (atmosphere); clean fresh water, fertile soil, balanced flora and fauna, minerals, sources of energy. Without any of them mankind won`t be able to exist or to develop normally.
Every state is summoned to express the most important needs, demands, interests of the society, citizens of this country. The foundation and condition for other values for any state is its sovereignty (and state security, therefore).
The other important values, existing on this basis, are economy, medicine, mode of life, spiritual culture of the society, education and upbringing, science, order inside the country. They form the third group of values connected between each other and with values common to all mankind of the first and second type.
All other values which are mentioned in the press, at the discussions, etc. are not more than varieties or components, or particular cases mentioned by the authors and they are not of universal character (if not devised in general).
All values common to all mankind in contrast to individual, group, strata values have objective character, i.e. the fact that they are values for their subjects, not depending completely on the will of these subjects. They, together with corresponding value orientations, are imposed by the life itself, by vital activity, by nature and social environment.
Values common to all mankind are essence basis for the whole system of values. They greatly influence on all individual, group, strata values superstructured over them.
Values common to all people are eternal until there are people in the world; values common to states are also eternal as there are different states, expressing and serving the most important interests of their countries. Analogous to this the most important values to all mankind are eternal until the mankind exist.
Thus, all values common to mankind in its essence are universal, stable, intransient, everlasting (as mentioned above) but not absolute because they are such only in relation to people.
All fully individual, group, class, national, religious, party-ideological values are not common to all mankind, not intransient, everlasting, but belong to private, transient, temporal phenomena.
Between three groups of values common to all mankind considered there are rather complex varied relations and interactions.
Values common to all people (the first type) are such for every man first of all or personally for herself / himself. At this people often do not take into account or do not want take into account that other people have the same values. Therefore they kill, do physical and moral harm to other people, rob, play dirty, tell a lie, behave disgracefully, do injustice to other people, make them unhappy. It means that a man since his/her birth, in general, is an animal, therefore he/she at first, to a greater extent, is an egoist in his/her soul and behaves like an egoist. And only education and especially upbringing improve many people and direct them to the altruism direction, to collectivism, decency.
Values common to people in their types and manifestation are mostly diverse and dynamic (sorts of food, drinks, means for supporting health, etc.). The state influences greatly on values orientation of people, using economic, finance, political, legal, ideological, information means of influence.
People can change their value orientation quite thoughtfully, exchanging values for different types of not-values (alcohol, narcotics, gambling, pursuit for jewelry, prostitution, etc.), but not wishing or having not strength of will to come back to true value orientation.
Among values common to all mankind of all three types (levels) the fateful value is «existence and development of mankind» and therefore all other values have to be closed with it, to serve it because without existing mankind can`t be either people nor societies, nor states. But paradox is in the fact that most people in stormy and tiresome routine do not think over the values common to all mankind and their state.
The states themselves, their bureaucratic organs and officials see the people and mankind with their values common to all mankind as different combination of digits and graphs.
What are the values (the second type) for mankind is not considered values for a great number of people. They separately and by groups poison atmosphere (burning leaves, sweepings or exhausting gas from their own enterprise), reservoirs, soil (by pesticides, wastes from pig farms). They don`t save running water, poach, predatorily destroy forests, many types of grass, living creatures in reservoirs, in the fields, in forests, etc.
And in this aspect the people behave like egoists. They are indifferent to the values of the state.
But the mankind deal with values of the people indifferently too (to their life, health, well-being, happiness, etc.). The same can be said about the attitude of the state both to values common to all people and values common to all mankind.
It goes that values of each of three types are such ones first of all and mainly for corresponding social subjects (all concrete people, mankind as a whole, all concrete states) and unfortunately have no importance for other subjects. This is so sad, even terrible. But this is the fact. So, not taking care of each other, of values common to all mankind people, states, mankind move in «a friendly manner» from global crisis state to the direction of their destruction.
At the end of the monograph the authors consider the crisis state of the Russian society and mankind as a whole and possible measures for coming out both Russia and all the mankind from it.
It is necessary - they assure us - to explain and convince all the people (especially the youth) in the fact that values common to all mankind should be the basis of all true values, that between values common to all mankind the main values are common to the state in relation to values common to people, and values to all mankind are the main in regard the first and the second values, and to any private values. Freedom of every personality can`t be abstract, infinite. It must be and may be only in unity with its responsibility at the first, prevailing role of responsibility. The rights of the people can`t exist without their connection with responsibility, at initial, leading role of the latter, that any individual interests, aims can`t and should not come into the relation of incompatibility with interests and aims of the society of mankind.
The authors consider that the predominance of social property form (all people`s) instead of this or that private property and introduction of scientifically governed management, planning, controlling, regulating in economy development and other major spheres of the society will save the mankind, allowing people to rebuild a system of private value orientations, paying attention to the values common to all mankind, to solve global problems. These measures in particular will become the foundation of true equality of people, countries, real justice, humanism, unity, collectivism, internationalism, mutual aid, true globalism.