Abstract

In recent years, Marxist ethicists have been turning with increasing frequency to the question of the structure of morality. This question has numerous aspects: the identification in morality of the principal aspects with differing ontological status; differentiation in morality of various components that, in their interaction, comprise the mechanism of normative regulation ; division of the object of ethical research into more specialized spheres of study; and construction of a system of categories in ethics that will in some way reflect the structure of morality. Definite viewpoints have already been expressed on all these questions; discussions and debates are under way. The author of the present article shall limit his task to one of the narrower questions - analysis of the structure of moral consciousness. This task includes the following factors: study of the conceptual structure of moral thought, its formal schema and constructs; establishment of the place of each of the forms of concepts in a single system of moral consciousness - their logical relation and connection, subordination, and sequence of incorporation into the system ; and certain questions of the historical shaping of the structure of moral consciousness and the genesis of its concepts