CONSCIENCE IN PHILOSOPHICAL, ETHICAL AND DIDACTIC DIMENSIONS

Abstract

The article raises a problem of the need to rationalize a concept of conscience, explication of the essence of this ethical phenomenon and its adequate representation in the pedagogical process. The analysis of educational literature and a questionnaire survey of students of different classes and levels of education reveals the fact that students and textbook authors are aware of the axiological and sanctioning functions of conscience, but at the same time ambiguity and uncertainty in the criteria for moral evaluation of individual actions (whether society decides what is good and what is bad or the inner conviction of the individual), the emphasis in their understanding of the sanctioning function of conscience (moral reward or punishment) on the consequences of individual actions, which indicates an incomplete adequacy in the understanding of conscience and requires addition and clarification. The methodological basis for the analysis of the concept of conscience in philosophical, ethical and didactic dimensions includes works of Russian philosophers V.S. Solovyov, N.O. Lossky, N.A. Berdyaev, I.A. Ilyin; empirical methods are the discursive analysis of texts of textbooks on the discipline “Fundamentals of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics” and a questionnaire survey of school and college students.