The 8th Congress of the Socialist Unity Party, which defined the principal tasks of the social sciences for the coming years, evoked vivid and creative discussions of the main research problems in Marxist-Leninist ethics among the ethicists of the German Democratic Republic. The considerable importance of ethics in the development of a socialist society is emphasized. The main problems studied now by the ethicists of the GDR include: 1) the development of a socialist personality with special emphasis on the impact (...) of economic factors in that process and studies on the personality and ethics of the socialist teacher; 2) the development of the moral consciousness of young people; 3) the struggle against bourgeois ethics and reformist ethical theories. (shrink)