Justice and Common Good:
The Problem of Moral Decline in Post-Soviet World
Donetsk, Ukraine, June 4-5, 2007
The Challenge
In the past few years there have witnessed a remarkable interest in moral and human dignity. This field, which was thought to be all but exhausted two decades ago in European tradition, has become the focus of great intellectual ferment in view of the post-Soviet decline in moral standards. This is reflected in the tendencies towards (1) a pragmatism oriented to economic benefits; (2) self-interest without stable moral values and attention to justice as interrelating law and morality, private and public; (3) the domination of strategic economic rationality over value-rational attitudes. This moral crisis is strengthening due to the rising vector of neo-corporativism resulting in the degradation of legal and family institutions as well as the Lebenswelt constituted of culture, persons, society. This brings about the reduction of public and private sphere of civil society and of civil, political, and social rights.
Response
In this context the socio-historical implementation of practical philosophy (Habermas, Ulman, Apel) directs attention to the intersubjectivity and the social dimension. The new global concerns suggest that this must be both universal in scope and rich with the distinctive creative freedom of each people. (1) On the one hand, universal moral standards are significant due to their influence on the European socio-cultural tradition of the formation of the personality (Burger) with imperatives of citizenship, communication, religious standards and civil society. (2) On the other hand, of utmost importance is the orientation as well to the specific cultural traditions and symbolic codes of the people of a nation which bear its values, commitments, social relations and sense of human dignity.
The task there is to combine the universal and local moralities to create a post-conventional morality based upon principles. This will be global in both its senses of extending to all and including the genius of each. Such morals is needed to encourage democratic practice, the broadening of the public and private spheres, and respect for both individual and collective dignity.
There will be the following topics for discussion:
1. Culture as a factor promoting and inhibiting common good. The interaction of exclusion and inclusion in post-soviet societies.
2. Contemporary post-soviet democracy in conditions of declining moral standards.
3. Morality as a factor influencing justice and enlarging citizen rights (civil, political, social).
4. Moral decline as a factor of exclusion of civil society groups.
5. Theoretical discussions of liberal, republicanist and communitarian philosophies on the correlation between private and public: Impact on today’s post-soviet world.
Contact:
Prof. Yaroslav Pasko
