After all, only thanks to them, politics is able to realize its moral potential.

But this does not mean the dissolution of morality in its policy, the loss of its control. There must always be a distance between politics and morality. After all, the identification of politics and morality conceals the threat of moralizing any politics (political processes of 1937, when purely political goals were presented as highly moral).

The dramatic experience of political life gives grounds to assert that morality is primary in relation to politics. Power and the consequences of its policies must be under constant moralitym control of society. Otherwise, the threat of policy distortion and its consequences is inevitable. In stable democracies, it is much easier to maintain a morally responsible relationship between government and society than in crisis situations. However, under any circumstances, references to practical expediency cannot justify dirty, immoral actions.

“Politics spoils characters not so much as political characters” (L. Ukrainka).

Political ethics is one of the modifications of ethical science, applied, “official” morality. Forming its own conceptual apparatus, its own principles and norms, political ethics is based on the methodological basis of the social sciences and humanities of society, man, politics, morality. It takes into account the achievements of the philosophical concept of personality and its socialization, political psychology and axiology, conflict and consensus.

The political palette of modern society, including Ukrainian, demonstrates different views on the purpose and content of political activity in the ethical aspect. There are many outspoken Machiavelli supporters or extremists among modern politicians. For a democratically minded politician, it is essential to recognize the priorities of the moral factor, humanistic orientation, mandatory consideration of the moral consequences of political decisions and actions.

The priority of the requirements of political ethics is due to the peculiarities of the situation in which the politician operates. A politician in power and a politician in opposition, a victorious and defeated politician, a professional politician and a person who is accidentally brought to the fairway of political life, use the principles of political morality in different ways. Therefore, political ethics contains specific recommendations for the behavior of politicians in different circumstances: ethics of struggle, ethics of success, ethics of defeat, ethics of expectation, ethics of opposition, ethics of compromise, and so on.

Peculiarities of a politician’s behavior also depend on the audience with which he interacts. But moral convictions cannot be rented out – people quickly recognize ostentatious ethics. An essential feature of modern political culture is the rejection of the monologue style of communication in favor of dialogic (political and moral pluralism). Political ethics requires the treatment of all subjects of socio-political life as equal, recognizes the legitimacy of their moral values. “Attack the problem, not the partners, treat the negotiations not as a competition, but as a process of finding a common solution, try to convince opponents of the fairness and validity of your position instead of just breaking their will” – such advice from American political scientists R. Fisher and S. Brown.

Mastering the ethics, methodology and technology of dialogue – a way to resolve social conflicts, an effective means of personal development of politicians. Participation in the dialogue implies a tolerant perception of the arguments of the other party, the ability to oppose their own. In mutual accusations, quarrels, spontaneous disputes, mostly uncontrollable emotions are revealed; in dialogue, discussion – intelligence, erudition, moderate thinking, the power of logic and persuasion.

A characteristic feature of political ethics is the focus on the timely detection of conflict situations, the willingness to emerge with dignity from any conflict. Political ethics is the science and art of using the means and methods of compromise technology. In the past, assessments of compromises as something unprincipled gave way to recognition of their importance as an effective form of reaching an agreement between the opposing parties.

Political ethics does not solve the problem of evil as such. A politician cannot ignore the fact that concessions in favor of one are usually associated with certain losses of the other. “A politician acts morally if good from his actions exaggerates evil. In general, he simply cannot do evil at all, he has to sacrifice some parts of good for the sake of others,” says political theorist O. Denisov. This far from certain opinion contains a rational grain: political activity, based on moral criteria, must take into account the negative aspects that accompany a political decision; if it is unable to solve the problem of evil, then at least it must anticipate the undesirable consequences, minimize them, compensate people for the losses from it.

Important in political ethics are the means of resolving conflict situations. According to estimates by the American professor D. Sharpe, there are up to two hundred methods of non-violent solution of political problems – non-violent protest and persuasion, refusal of social, economic, political cooperation, non-violent intervention and others.

Modern politics must have the whole arsenal of “political technology” to be able to flexibly and quickly use it in practice, given the new realities of public life, unusual problems that require new conceptual thinking. Such innovative approaches are offered by modern theorists of political life: the https://123helpme.me/buy-compare-and-contrast-essay/ position of “real pragmatism” (D. Bell, F.-W. Franken), “just inequality” (J. Rawls), “legitimate state” (X. Carracedo ); a “just state” according to which the ethical requirements that precede political life are “absolute”.

Political ethics is an open system of propositions, arguments, and views. It is characterized by flexibility, the ability to creatively update the rules. However, the main principles remain unchanged – the recognition of the importance and priority of moral factors in politics, the focus on such values ​​as freedom, rights, welfare. After all, only thanks to them, politics is able to realize its moral potential. At the beginning of the XXI century. the need for a humanistic, morally responsible policy becomes a universal need, an actuality of human civilization.

At the present stage and in Ukraine, there is a tendency to shift all responsibility for the fate of the nation to the government, which is evidence of insufficient political and historical awareness of its active bearers. The fallacy of this view is explained by the fact that state power today is eroded by corruption, clannish bureaucracy, its merging with shadow capital and crime. The ideal of civil society has become much more distant. All these problems are ethical in nature, give rise to distrust of the current government, complicate reforms.

Ukrainian political culture also demonstrates its inability to harmonize the social order, orderly institutional relations in the context of weakening traditional hierarchical power-legal relations. According to ideological parameters, it is still under the influence of the socialist ideal (equalization, collectivism, totalitarianism), while demonstrating a tendency to a certain deideologization. The political culture of modern Ukraine is a culture of marginal society (endowed with mutually exclusive features), which is manifested in the orientation of citizens to conflicting values: 33% believe that the capitalist system is most favorable for the republic, 25% – do not have a definite position, and only 42% that the western type of development does not suit them. This phenomenon is associated with ambivalent (bifurcated) social consciousness. Thus, instead of the internal mobilization of Ukrainian society, there is a kind of disorder.

Peculiarities of the political ethics of Ukrainian society are conditioned by the geographical position of our country on the so-called fault of cultures, socio-political orientations: if the central and western regions are oriented to European standards, then in the east Eurasian ones are more popular. In addition, if the goals and ideals of the Ukrainian public are close to the Western ones, then the way of life is closer to the Eastern one. Ukraine has always sought to participate in the European political game, but has often used methods of Eastern origin.

The political ethics of modern Ukrainian society is largely due to the uncontrollability of power, the priority of state goals over individual rights, the predominance of pragmatic considerations over systemic guarantees, the predominance of traditionalism over dynamism. For example, at the request of the European public in Ukraine, the death penalty was recently abolished. This is a really serious step not only in terms of political ethics, but also universal. But the head of the colony must seek funds for the life imprisonment of convicts.

Many examples of history show that Eastern politics focuses on power, force, and not on law or political ethics. Ukraine more often has to deal with such a policy, and, of course, in its political ethics can be found many “Asian” traces – authoritarianism, gerontocracy, patriarchy, secret diplomacy, propensity to use force, and so on.

In this regard, it is important to identify some contradictions between politics and morality, which breaks the integrity of political ethics in the public consciousness. These contradictions are the background on which political relations are formed in society.

The first is the moral and psychological contradiction between “desirable and real.” A very long gap between them almost always marks a split, an internal crisis of personality, and often cunning and deceit of the soul. The same happens if the people fail to organize their lives according to their own principles, to reconcile their desire with the social order. The phenomena of such disagreement were observed in the past, for example, when society did not wait for the fulfillment of Khrushchev’s promise “of the final construction of communism.”

They can be traced in the current Ukrainian history. Thus, the adoption of the new Constitution of Ukraine gave grounds for the assertion of the completion of the initial stage of formation of a democratic, social, legal state and the beginning of the transition to the next period – “implementation of the principles and norms of the Constitution in real life of society and state. ” in Ukraine “.