Translated from Latin, the word "morality" means "that which concerns morals." This is the science of human behavior in society, acceptable and unacceptable methods of its action in certain situations, the goals of the existence of civilization as a whole and of each person individually. In a broad sense, morality is the science of good and evil.
In any society, there are written and unwritten rules that determine what can be done and what is strictly prohibited. These rules do not necessarily have legal force. Violating them is not always punished by the state and its structures, but can become an outcast in society. In these cases, they say that a person violated the moral principles accepted in his environment. A vivid example of the discrepancy between laws and moral principles is the duel with which representatives of the nobility in the past resolved many disputes. Legislation has banned such fights in many countries, however, refusing a duel in the eyes of this estate was often a more serious offense than breaking the law.
The concept of morality was formed in ancient Greece. Socrates called morality the science of man, as opposed to physics, which dealt with natural phenomena. This is the part of philosophy that tries to answer the question about the true destiny of man. This was tried by the ancient Greeks. According to the definition of Epicureans and hedonists, the true purpose of human existence is happiness. The Stoics worked out their concept and identified this goal as virtue. Their position was reflected in the views of philosophers of later eras - for example, Kant. The position of his "philosophy of duty" is based on the fact that a person cannot simply be happy, he must earn this happiness.
There are ideal and real morals, and the second does not always coincide with the first. For example, the ten commandments are the foundation of Christian morality. Ideally, every Christian should follow. However, numerous wars, including religious ones, were a clear violation of the ban on killing. In each warring country, other moral standards were adopted that were more in line with the needs of society in a particular era. It was they, in combination with the commandments, that were the real morality. Modern philosophers consider morality as a way to preserve a particular society. Its task is to reduce conflict. It is primarily regarded as a theory of communication.
The moral principles of each individual person are formed in the process of education. The child learns them primarily from parents and other people around him. In some cases, the assimilation of moral norms occurs in the process of adaptation of a person with already established views to another society. This problem is constantly faced, for example, by migrants.
Along with public morality, there is individual morality. Each person, committing a particular act, finds himself in a situation of choice. A variety of factors influence it. Submission to moral standards can be purely external when a person performs an action only because it is customary in his environment and his behavior will cause sympathy among others. Adam Smith defined such morality as the moral of feeling. But the impulse can be internal, when a good deed causes the perpetrator of his sense of harmony with himself. This is one of the principles of moral inspiration. According to Bergson, the act must be dictated by the person’s own nature.
In literary criticism, morality is often understood as the conclusion that follows from the description. For example, morality exists in a fable, and sometimes in a fairy tale, when in the final lines the author explains in plain text what he wanted to say with his work.
