Ethics is science, and you need to consider it when you think about her main tasks. As we can see in the scientific field there are two levels , empirical and theoretical, which correspond to different forms of cognitive tasks and activities.
The empirical level Concerning research of empirical level here is performed by way of practical observation and experiment. It becomes clear that such an experiment could not exist in ethics, because it becomes a contradiction in the essence of morality. And it means that forms of study at the empirical level is limited to the supervision of individual and social being, which becomes as a result of moral reality.
At this level the main task is to detach facts that are associated with the moral life of human and society, collection, description, comparison, classification of real evidence and development of schemes which give an opportunity to organize the accumulated material. The empirical level becomes as a reliable foundation for the theoretical and normative ethics. History and sociology of morality create specific solutions of these problems. Of course there are complex of allied sciences: cultural studies and ethnography, semiotics of culture, psychology, art history and so on.
Research can certainly apply to the past. If you rely on ethnography, some monuments of literature, some texts of a certain era, then you can make a close portrait, which corresponds to the reality of the era, which help you understand the moral experience of humanity. As, for example, book of Osowska “the Knight and the bourgeoisie” . It describes the formation and development of moral values of the bourgeoisie and the behavior that is typical for this period of time. In Ukrainian, history there is a similar research regarding the description of morality to ancient peoples, it is the work of Oleksin “History of morality and moral doctrines”.
If we consider a theoretical level, it applies to independent activities. Research in this sphere has the main purpose of opening of the essence of event, which are learned, and realize this sense in the relevant concepts, terms. We can assert that in every period of the evolution of ethical knowledge have there own tasks at the theoretical level. Namely theoretical and standard ethics reflect on these objectives.
But what’s different may be the theme of these tasks ,thanks to them we can solve central problem of ethics: content, origin, and the argument of morality. We can distinguish the following main problems.
1. The main problem of methodological support in researching of the phenomenon of morality – is to find an appropriate to latest theoretical accumulation in the framework of philosophical knowledge and the practical query method of knowing it.
2. It is known that the traditional task of ethics is to assert a separate system of moral norms and values through satisfactory argument. The implementation of moral prescriptions, norms and values for a long time in human history created their introduction in the beginning of the absolute ( Tao, Logos, the Idea, God). To the secular mind, which is based on evidence which was demanded to find other sources of morality, which were the nature ( naturalistic concepts) and society ( sociological or socio-historical concept).
The modern period of development of ethical knowledge is characterized by a large number of theoretical preferences. They are trying to solve a problem appeal morality in communicative discourse, axiological, ontological, transcendental dimensions.
3. The safe and rational assertion is not less important task as the revision and rational confirmation traditionally – established (to a greater extent long-term credibility of the Marxist approach) point of view on the essence of morality as a form of social consciousness, as a system of norms and values to solve the problem exclusively in the field of personal relationships ( interpersonal and social scale).
Modern experimetn in the context of applied ethics, particularly bioethics and environmental ethics, become a turning point in changing the paradigm of the essence of morality, which is regarded as a certain mode of relationship of man to reality, in the coordinate system of Good and Evil.
4.Reflection on the ethical knowledge is an urgent need, that is solve problems metaethical level. First of all, it concerns the problem of drawing up ethical knowledge, in particular the determination of the status of applied ethics, it rely on normative and theoretical ethics. “The external circle”- it is abstractly identified problems that form the next group of tasks of ethics, in the application field,during the practical use of accumulated knowledge.
Currently we can observe a paradoxical situation, the essence of which is to mainstream the attention not only of representatives of various types of scientific knowledge, but also a wide public of the public to the phenomenon of morality mainly to the existing moral and evaluative normativity in social practice and the almost complete ignoring of these stakeholders systematized theoretical knowledge about morality, and hence ethics as a moral theory.
This kind of marginal philosophical ethics among practical knowledge ( ethics and, as mentioned, was defined by Aristotle as a practical science) that meets the needs of modern society it is possible for a particular assumption to explain the popularity and demand for professional and applied ethics, which directly gives practice of life means the codification of specific values and norms of moral requirements. The result of all is the large number of moral codes of individual types of human activity ( scientific, economic ) of different professions, corporate groups.
