Ethics as “Practical Philosophy”

Categories of Ethics and Concepts of Moral Consciousness

The Concept of Moral Duty. Conscience as a Controlling-Imperative Mechanism of Personal Moral Consciousness

Duty and conscience are deeply personal categories within the structure of moral consciousness.
Moral duty is the transformation of the demands of social morality into a personal imperative for the individual, which is voluntarily fulfilled. It is defined as the recognition by an individual of the necessity to conform to the will of society.

One of the most crucial characteristics of duty is its voluntary nature. Duty only becomes a truly moral phenomenon when adherence to its demands is undertaken freely. This involves our conscious and willing submission to a moral command, acknowledging the primacy of higher principles beyond our personal needs, desires, and plans. Depending on the level of awareness regarding the necessity, justice, and importance of duty, and the corresponding attitude toward it, the demands of duty may be met at different levels of voluntariness: from forced compliance or fear of public opinion to an inner compulsion driven by personal need. Of course, much depends on the situation, but true moral duty is the free pursuit of socially necessary requirements or personal obligations, independent of any external or internal coercion.

The fulfillment of duty is an end in itself. This means that a moral action may not necessarily yield a practical outcome, yet the conduct of the moral subject does not become any less significant because of it.
Moral duty inspires an active stance in individuals, fostering in them a sense of personal participation in everything that happens in the world and manifesting as the desire to contribute to the common good. Failure to fulfill duty leads to a sense of guilt, experienced through the pangs and remorse of conscience.

Historically, the content of moral duty has evolved—from the regulation of relations in pre-class societies by the "law of retaliation" (which proclaimed "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth") to the "Golden Rule of morality" in early-class societies, where a person’s duty was seen as refraining from causing harm to others, culminating in the "Categorical Imperative" formulated by Immanuel Kant in the 18th century, which further developed the ideas of the Golden Rule.

The precepts of the Categorical Imperative remain ethically relevant today. However, the profound changes in views on humanity and the world at the turn of the centuries, coupled with the global challenges and threats facing humankind, demand new foundations for the universalization of moral duty. For example, the prominent contemporary philosopher Hans Jonas, in his work The Imperative of Responsibility, formulates a renewed Categorical Imperative: "Act so that the effects of your action are not destructive to the possibilities of life in the future, or simply, do not harm the conditions for the continued existence of humanity on Earth."

Duty is regarded as a deep awareness of the necessity to perform just actions, serving as an instrument for affirming justice. Duty becomes a restrictive regulator, regardless of whether it is expressed in negative or positive forms. According to O.G. Drobnitsky, moral duty compels a person to subjectively submit to moral obligations out of moral, rather than external, motives.

However, in the history of modern ethical doctrines, there are alternative approaches to interpreting the concept of duty. T.E. Vasilevska points out that a gap constantly exists between the demands of duty and human actions, highlighting the abstractness and detachment of duty from life, as well as its dogmatism.

Evidently, reducing personal freedom to the execution of duty and viewing duty as the foundation of human actions limits the creative potential of the individual, orienting them toward mere conscientious performance while ignoring individuality. On the path of duty, it can often be difficult to arrive at responsible action. As D. Bonhoeffer notes, a person constrained by the boundaries of duty will never dare to act at their own risk and peril, even though only such an act can strike at the heart of evil and overcome it.

The absolutization of duty leads to a situation where obligations and adherence to norms become the dominant aspects of human behavior. Duty then serves to justify the imposition of various forms of violence on the autonomous individual. A person who sees their calling in blind adherence to duty may become its obedient slave. By absolutizing their dependence on duty, they may at times project this sense of obligation onto others, viewing duty as an instrument to impose their principles and views on others. Thus, duty may sometimes prove to be less effective as a constraint than it initially appears. The ethics of duty constitutes an abstract human being, devoid of individual characteristics, unconditionally subordinated to mandates.

In the modern world, duty as a value is increasingly losing its foothold. This is not so much due to a decline in moral standards as to the expansion of freedom for many. Duty is assigned the role of a self-limiting factor of freedom concerning existing orders, which may be threatened by individual arbitrariness. J. Grant associates this state of affairs primarily with the advent of technological civilization, where scientific achievements and modern technologies give rise to a worldview centered on human power.

Within the tradition of ethical thought, there are also discussions about duty not only toward others but toward oneself. Some authors see our duty to ourselves in achieving happiness and self-realization, arguing that neglecting one’s talents or missing opportunities to express and realize one’s potential constitutes a failure to fulfill one’s duty.

Often, the counterpart to duty is referred to as conscience, the more personal "inner voice" of moral action, an internal regulator of morality as a whole. Conscience is the ability for active self-awareness, self-assessment of one's personal relationship to the environment and the moral norms prevailing in society. By conscience, we mean the moral sense that allows us to evaluate the worth of our own actions.

In ancient texts, conscience is described through the concepts of "duty" and "shame." However, unlike shame, which is oriented toward the judgment of others, the judgment of conscience is self-assessment, where the main reference point is the "absolute" person, or for believers, God, or humanity in its fullest and best expressions.

Conscience, functioning as an internal regulator, operates as:

• an impetus, directing us to follow moral requirements and fostering a positive psychological disposition;
• a prohibition, acting as a deterrent factor, preemptively condemning us for a possible or intended action;
• a corrective component, adjusting actions during their execution;
• a moral evaluation of our deeds, generating corresponding moral experiences.

This evaluation is crucial, as conscience is shaped by the internalization of the moral demands of the environment and in some sense reflects their social character. Yet, conscience is primarily a personal assessment of events, an expression of our subjective attitude toward a morally evaluated phenomenon.

In conscience, decisions, actions, and evaluations are correlated not with the opinions and expectations of others but with a higher ideal, with duty. Conscience demands honesty "in the dark" (R.G. Apresean)—that is, being truthful when no one can monitor you, when what is hidden will not become known, when no one will learn of your potential dishonesty.

In everyday communication, phrases such as "clear conscience" or "peaceful conscience" are often used, understood to mean the awareness of fulfilling all one’s duties or realizing one’s possibilities in a particular situation. However, if we take these phrases literally, the state of a "clear" or "calmed" conscience is a reliable sign of a lack of conscience—not its absence, but rather a tendency to ignore its judgments.

Conscience represents a person's responsibility to themselves as the bearer of higher, universal values. However, conscience, as a means of self-assessment, is not absolute: it can be indulgent, for it is ours. It cannot be deceived, but it can be "persuaded," "lulled," and so forth, meaning that one cannot wholly rely on conscience. Nevertheless, it is through the self-assessment conducted by conscience that moral compromise or uncompromising stands manifest. Of course, there are situations that justify a person, but there are also circumstances that serve merely as an excuse for self-justification. In life, circumstances always present us with choices, and conscience should be the criterion for making those choices.

Conscience is an emotional phenomenon, expressing itself through deep negative experiences, self-reproach, anxiety, and concern over the morality and humanity of one’s behavior. As the judge of our lives, conscience speaks through remorse—shame for what has been done, for what was merely intended, for the consequences that might have been or were realized. It is regret, sympathy for the harmed, resentment for oneself, and shame for degraded dignity, whether one’s own or another’s. The pangs of conscience are the awareness of guilt, the realization of the immorality or "insufficient" morality of an action.

In any case, the intensity of these feelings and the degree of "remorse" depend on the nature of the act and the level of the individual’s consciousness, as well as their capacity and habit to justly and critically evaluate their own and others' behavior. The moral outcome of these experiences is repentance, the moral meaning of which is the harmonization of the relationship between duty and conscience. It is through the presence of conscience that individuals gain the ability to independently navigate and make moral decisions in complex situations of choice.