Publication Details

Abstract

Analysis of the relation of the scientific discipline to the object of research may be done from various aspects and on different theoretical levels. It is not the analysis and specification of individual aspects, qualities or manifestations of morale that is discussed in the study, but the possibility of grasping this phenomenon in its whole, the possibility of knowing it by means of its own theory. In fact it is questons of methodology that arediscussed here. The paper sets out from the critique of non-Marxist ethical theories which often commit methodological reductionism in the definitions of morale since they explain the whole morale on the ground of analysis of some of its aspects and ince they do not respect its more substantial relationships to social and historical mechanisms which determine this phenomenon in a fundamental way. Above all, the critique of ethical irrationalism, ethical formalism and social functionalism is discussed. The methodological basis of Marxist ethics is Marxist philosophy which supplies fundamental and general methodological starting points for analysis of morale. Morale, however, is a complex and many-dimensional social phenomenon which must be studied in the rich syncretism of other social phenomena and by methods of the particular sciences. The paper gives reasons for the necessity of such an approach towards analyzing and knowing of morale, as well as necessity of making clear the ethical notions and terms that have been used to the present. The purpose of the paper is to point out the necessity of deeper theoretical reflection of morale, the possibility of knowing it by means of its own ethical theory as an important socio-historical phenomenon.