Sociology of moral is the science, studying socium worlds of values, conditioned by cultural and historical stratification of society; that is by productive activity, types of economical relationships, extent of ruling elite maturity. In the center of analysis of sociology of moral there are bearers of worlds of values – groups, structured according to the types of moral consciousness. Worlds of values determine the meaning of life, clear and close to everyone both in opened and closed society. Worlds of values, like a co-ordinate are superimposed onto social groups and social institutes. Dynamics of these types is superimposed onto social processes. This makes it possible to make conclusions about the borders of changing the moral consciousness of socium.
Being the special branch of sociological knowledge, the sociology of moral is searching for the object of analysis. The aspiration of science in the beginning of XX th century to penetrate into the worlds of values, moving people, naturally determined the origin of sociology of moral as one of the elements of the system of self-regulating processes of society. Problem of self-regulation becomes very essential when general orientations are lost.
In organic ages society tries to find the sense of universal (cosmic) problems fulfills communitary tasks of survival: self-preservation and self-development, but in transitional periods energy of interests shifts into the ethical worlds of searching of meanings. And the problem of personality is of supreme concern of philosophy and sociology. At the critical stages philosophical thinking concentrates not so much on working out the problems of being, as on formation; not so much on the problems of natural philosophy as on the problems of person; not so much on the problems of macrocosm as on the problems of microcosm; not so much on the problems of science and technology as on ethics and social problems. In the history of thinking Socrates and Luther, Rousseau and Kant, Smith and Marx, Nietzche and Spengler not only designated shifts of metaphysical questions, but they were the precursors of deep social movements, contributing to the change of worlds of values in society.
Social and historical approach makes it necessary to use the experience of the past and reasonable projections of the future.
Spiritual traditions, that appeared on the “breaks” of social and historical ages, experienced by others, should enter the renovated consciousness of nation. During these transitional ages new individual intensive labour ethics was created, inseparable right to liberty of conscience was revealed, the idea of accumulation of capital without stealing, i.e. accumulation by means of tenacious efforts and equivalent exchange was stated; laws, regulating relationships between personality and state were worked out; autonomous morality came into a practice; faith was stated as a disinterested tendency to good. We should say that in reality western society approaches the capitalism with “human face” and “socially orientated economy”. Wallerstein thinks that the XXI century the change from liberal forms of government to democratic will be the essence of dynamics of moral relationships in the countries, finishing their 500 years long capitalist stage of development.
The historical development of Russia, which was forced to develop by vigorous jerks of social, economical and cultural innovations, shows, that society always have to pay very high “social tribute” for historical changes. To make the cost of mistake less it is necessary to theoretically determine the historical place of the society, we live in, and only exact designation of co-ordinates will help to determine the direction of movement.
Shift in one element of the age – inside Russian society – naturally determined the change of all historical situation, The transition from triple to binary form of geopolitical forces is accomplished. So, strong takes from weak,. Nations and personalities, loosing the hope for independence, are doomed to go through breaking down of “supreme values”.
If policy rejects philosophy and moral and is carried out by the method of trials and mistakes this leads to contradiction of the role of ethics creation, which conditions slow, but steady self-distraction of social community. Ethics creation predominates over ethical chaos when contradictions are dynamically settled. It is successful only if organisation and self-government of society provide the possibility of self-preservation and self-development of ethnos. Question of the borders of transitional epochs has no distinct time limits because in such spiritual and cultural spheres as science, ideology and culture there are certain mobile borders, but they are different from that in the development of productive activity, ethnoses and civilisations.
Each of these periods being either different or similar to others, determines the main features of the worlds of values, conditioning the tendency of development in organic or transitional epoch.
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