The Development of Morality - Koneczny Feliks

80 pages. Koneczny claims that ethics is a science that deserves to be studies as all others. Ethical reactions may come from the heart but they need reason to be fruitfully employed. It is the Chinese who derive ethics from emotional assumptions. In the Latin civilization we base it on reason. Koneczny rejects the notion that morality is eternally unchangeable. It develops and he, as a historian, studied this development. It used to be acceptable to have slaves, now it is not. It used to be acceptable to have duels, now it is not. Revenge (vendetta) used to be considered a moral obligation, now it is forbidden. There is moral progress regardless whether in a particular society morality or immorality is dominant.There is no crime that would not be considered a virtue in some society, be it killing children and the aged, sexual license in honor of some deity, human sacrifices, cannibalism, polygamy, polyandry etc. Yet all develop in the direction of improvement. This requires a culture of action.

Table of Contents:
I. Treatment of the Problem
II. The General Coordinates of Ethics
III. Ethical Education
IV. Body and Soul
V. The Laws of Nature and of the Spirit
VI. Natural and Artificial Ethics
VII. In the Image and Likeness ...
IX. Health X. Prosperity
XI. Fine Arts
XII. Mathematics and Light Literature
XIII. Science
XIV. The Culture of Action
Literature Glossary of terms used by Koneczny
Index of Personal and Place