There are two extremes in assessing love as a factor in life.

There are people who disdain it or consider it unnecessary for life. One can only feel sorry for them. They deprive themselves of a significant part of their lives. Most of these people somehow fall in love, get involved and have sex. But still, they do not value love and succumb to its charms, as if reluctantly, satisfying their love desires in the simplest, most primitive form. Meanwhile, love is the most powerful driving factor of life, thanks to which its other aspects and itself as a whole acquire meaning, are enriched, and colored with thousands of colors. Under the rays of love, everything appears in the best light, life itself not only takes on meaning, but also becomes a constant source of joy and pleasure. A loving person is predisposed to goodness, to harmonious relationships with other people, and in general with the whole world. A loving person certainly loves nature, animals, plants. A loving person loves himself, his body and soul, his love, wants to match it, its enchanting beauty-harmony, wants to be better, learn, improve indefinitely, create, build, dare, be worthy of the object of love (beloved or loved one).

Love has the greatest value due to the fact that it is one of the most powerful sources of positive emotions, pleasure and joy. And the importance of positive emotions is difficult to overestimate. They encourage, mobilize and, on the other hand, mitigate the effects of various stressors. If there are few positive emotions, then life gradually turns first into vegetation, an empty existence, and then into real hell.

Without love, without love pleasures, a person is deprived of a significant part of positive emotions. Because of this, he can become a misanthrope, a psychopath, quickly fade, become decrepit, grow old, etc.

If love serves evil, then this is an incidental circumstance for it. Love in itself is neither a vamp nor a killer... In most cases, it normal i.e. the way she is must be or occurs in most men and women.

Love itself within itself is a whole world, delightful and beautiful!

The other extreme in the assessment of love: its absolutization. This absolutization can be of a different nature. For young people, love can be equal to life, and they sometimes put the question bluntly: if there is no love, then it is not worth living (without love there is no life). There are so many dramas and tragedies because of this! How many suicides, crippled lives! Fiction is replete with similar stories. Let us recall, for example, Shakespeare’s famous tragedy “Romeo and Juliet” or Goethe’s “The Sorrows of Young Werther.” Love is worth living for, but it is not worth dying for.

Another absolutization of love: when for the sake of love a person sacrifices not his life, but other significant aspects of it, for example, his favorite activity, creativity... Immersion in love sometimes overshadows everything else. A person becomes a slave of love, turns into a sexual machine, into a rag, wastes his life on love affairs or becomes a scoundrel, a moral monster, a criminal, a murderer.

A kind of absolutization of love is also the preaching of universal love, when it is placed at the center of individual and social life. Above I criticized such an absolutization of love in Tolstoy’s works. I repeat, in addition to love for “others,” there is also a struggle with “others.” This is not necessarily a war of annihilation. It can be fair competition, healthy competition. This may be a struggle between the new and the old, the advanced against the obsolete. This can finally be a fight against evil, against the bearers of evil. Such a struggle with “others” is no less significant for life than love for “others”. Love is only one pole of life. Its other pole is struggle.

So, whoever pays too much attention to love usually becomes its victim. Immersion in love is as dangerous as running away from love. In general, it is very important, on the one hand, to recognize the vital importance of love, and on the other, not to overestimate its importance.

Love as self-worth

Love is relatively independent of both the lover and the beloved, that is, from the subject and object of love.

Its relative independence from the lover is manifested in the fact that it can take him by surprise or arise even against his will and reason.

Its independence from the object of love is manifested in the fact that a specific object may not be the best option and, moreover, as in the saying “love is evil, you will love a goat,” the object may simply be insignificant or dangerous for the lover.

So that love does not take a person by surprise and does not dictate its terms to him, he must prepare for it, gain experience, learn to recognize a possible love fever and those “loved ones” from whom he needs to stay away.

There are two extremes in assessing love as a factor in life.

There are people who disdain it or consider it unnecessary for life. One can only feel sorry for them. They deprive themselves of a significant part of their lives. Most of these people, one way or another, fall in love, get carried away and have sex. But still, they do not value love and succumb to its charms, as if reluctantly, satisfying their love desires in the simplest, most primitive form. Meanwhile, love is the most powerful driving factor of life, thanks to which its other aspects and itself as a whole acquire meaning, are enriched, and colored with thousands of colors. Under the rays of love, everything appears in the best light, life itself not only takes on meaning, but also becomes a constant source of joy and pleasure. A loving person is predisposed to goodness, to harmonious relationships with other people, and in general with the whole world. A loving person certainly loves nature, animals, plants. A loving person loves himself, his body and soul, his love, wants to match it, its enchanting beauty-harmony, wants to be better, learn, improve, create, build, dare, be worthy of the object of love (beloved or loved one). Love has the greatest value due to the fact that it is one of the most powerful sources of positive emotions, pleasure and joy. And the importance of positive emotions is difficult to overestimate. They encourage, mobilize and, on the other hand, mitigate the effects of various stressors. If there are few positive emotions, then life gradually turns first into vegetation, an empty existence, and then into real hell. Without love, without love pleasures, a person is deprived of a significant part of positive emotions. Because of this, he can become a misanthrope, a psychopath, quickly fade, become decrepit, grow old...

If love serves evil, then this is an incidental circumstance for it. Love in itself is neither a vamp nor a killer... It cannot be demonized or presented as some kind of sweet poison. In most cases, love is normal, that is, the way it should be or occurs in men and women.

Love itself within itself is a whole world, delightful and beautiful!

The other extreme in the assessment of love: its absolutization. This absolutization can be of a different nature. For young people, love can be equal to life, and they sometimes put the question bluntly: if there is no love, then it is not worth living (without love there is no life). There are so many dramas and tragedies because of this! How many crippled lives, suicides! Fiction is replete with similar stories. Let us recall, for example, Shakespeare’s tragedy “Romeo and Juliet”. Love is worth living for, but it is not worth dying for.

Another absolutization of love: when for the sake of love a person sacrifices not his life, but other significant aspects of it, for example, his favorite activity, creativity... Immersion in love sometimes overshadows everything else. A person becomes a slave of love, turns into a sexual machine, into a rag, wastes his life on love affairs or becomes a scoundrel, a moral monster, a criminal, a murderer.

A kind of absolutization of love is also the preaching of universal love, when it is placed at the center of individual and social life.

So, whoever pays too much attention to love usually becomes its victim. Immersion in love is as dangerous as running away from love. In general, it is very important, on the one hand, to recognize the vital importance of love, and on the other, not to overestimate its importance.

The intrinsic value of love. It must be borne in mind that love is relatively independent of both the lover and the beloved, that is, from the subject and object of love. Its relative independence from the lover is manifested in the fact that it can take him by surprise or arise even against his will and reason. Its independence from the object of love is manifested in the fact that a specific object may not be the best option and, moreover, as in the saying “love is evil, you will love a goat,” the object may simply be insignificant or dangerous for the lover. So that love does not take a person by surprise and does not dictate its terms to him, he must prepare for it, gain experience, learn to recognize a possible love fever and those “loved ones” from whom he needs to stay away.

The most attractive moral force throughout history has been love. Its power lies in the fact that it radically transforms a person and encourages him to strive for perfection with all the strength of his soul. Love in a broad sense is a moral and aesthetic feeling, expressed in a selfless and selfless desire for one’s object, in the need and readiness for self-giving. It is quite difficult to construct a hierarchy of moral values ​​of types of love. We can distinguish: 1) a general attitude towards love, i.e. openness to the world, the need for intimacy, the ability to care, pity, compassion, the moral value of which is in the elevation of the individual; 2) love for objects of a higher order - the Motherland, one’s people, which, combined with a sense of duty, honor, and responsibility, forms the basis of a moral worldview; 3) individual love for parents, children, man or woman, giving a special meaning to life for a specific person; 4) love for objects and processes, which has indirect moral value. Individual sexual love is interpersonal unity with another person. But love is not any unity, but a connection that presupposes the preservation of the integrity of the human personality; the power to overcome alienation between people. To love in a moral sense means first of all to give, and not to receive. But by sharing his life, a person spiritually enriches another. The ability to love by giving depends on the development of personality. This presupposes that a person must develop an attitude towards fruitful activity, overcoming the tendency to narcissism, meaningless pastime, hoarding and violence against others. Thus, in a moral sense, the value of sexual love is in how much it ennobles a person, and in what is the ratio of possession and giving in the process of love. Love is also diverse in its forms and content. The moral value of love is that it mobilizes all the forces of the individual. For example, passionate love is the reason for feats and works of genius, gives meaning to life and destroys the fear of death. But its peculiarity lies in its dynamism and fragility, in its obligatory connection with physical attraction, in its ability to deprive the individual of rational control over his consciousness and behavior. Social consciousness recognizes the power and significance of passionate love, but is wary of it, since it is passionate love that more often than other types of love leads a person to an internal conflict between duty and love, between attraction and conscience. There is love-friendship, which combines the signs of love and friendship and requires mutual understanding and support. Love-friendship arises as a development of passionate love or independently of it. The strength and value of love-friendship lies in its constancy and durability, the combination of rational and emotional foundations, and the lesser danger of destructive influence on the individual. You can also call love-care: maternal and paternal love, brotherly love, etc., meaning a deep sense of responsibility, care, respect, knowledge of another person, a desire to help him in life. In the history of the development of moral consciousness of human society, each type of love has its place. Since ancient times, there have been moral requirements to love one’s homeland, one’s people; in all cultures there is reverence for one’s parents; later, love for children turns out to be a moral value. The interpretation of individual sexual love in morality and art was also contradictory. Ancient society did not know love in our understanding of the word: the love-attachment of one person to another, man and woman. The family as a social group performed the tasks of economic support, ensuring the safety of its members and reproduction of the population. We can assume that in the culture of this society there was no such value as individual love, be it parental, brotherly or erotic love. And then, over the course of a long human history, family life and love experiences exist separately, marking either different age stages or different spheres of a person’s private life. A reflection of precisely this state of affairs can be seen in works of art of any era: marital love is presented as a habit or pretense that hides satiety, boredom and conflict. Love as a value and condition for marriage was established in the public worldview, culture and everyday consciousness by the end of the 19th century. It can be argued that in the 20th century. in Europe, America and Russia it became considered immoral to enter into loveless marriages. In Russia, such rulers of thought as Tolstoy, Turgenev, Chekhov tried to prove the vulgarity and immorality of a marriage built on calculation and necessity.

Introduction

1. Love as the highest value

1.1 Types of love

1.3 Theories of love

1.4 Moral meaning of love

2. The meaning of life

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Love is probably the most mysterious and most ambivalent of human feelings. Why do you suddenly begin to feel a strong craving for another person? Why is it this person you want to see, must see, cannot help but see? And why is it for others - it is not the main magnet of all, but something half-noticeable?

This can be answered, perhaps, only approximately, by comparison.

The purpose of this test is to understand the moral meaning of love and the meaning of life, using various sources, including philosophical ones.

1 Love as the highest value

Love is one of the most sublime feelings common to all humanity. Among all peoples at all times, it was glorified in literature, deified in mythology, heroized in epic, dramatized in tragedy. The theme of love has been considered by philosophers of all eras.

The philosophy and ethics of love began to take shape in ancient times. Love belongs to the most complex and multifaceted human relationships.

1.1 Types of love

Love is a feeling of attachment to the object of love, the need for connection and constant contact with it.

The moral foundations of such attachment differ depending on the object to which it is directed. Love is a feeling of attachment to the object of love, the need for connection and constant contact with it. The moral foundations of such attachment differ depending on the object to which it is directed.

Love can be viewed as:

love for the whole world, all people, the ability to show mercy (humanism);

love for God is a manifestation of the transcendental principle;

love for the fatherland and people underlies the worldview and manifests itself as a deep patriotic feeling;

love for parents, children and grandchildren is one of the manifestations of this feeling, which often becomes the meaning of a person’s life;

love for one’s work, passion for one’s profession as an all-consuming passion.

But, of course, what occupies most people’s minds is the feeling of love between a woman and a man. In the broadest sense of the word, love is a feeling that is expressed in a selfless and selfless desire for its object, in the need and readiness for self-giving.

1.2 Versions of the origin of love

People still speculate about how love arose: whether man brought it from the animal kingdom, from cave life, or whether it arose later and is a product of history. There are several approaches to the question of when love arose on earth.

According to one version, the phenomenon of love appeared about five thousand years ago. The wife of the Egyptian god Osiris, the goddess Isis, who resurrected her deceased husband with her love, is considered the ancestor of all lovers. Since then, love has firmly taken its place in the life of humanity, its culture and way of life.

Another version is based on the fact that in ancient times there was no love. Cave people lived in group marriages and did not know any love. As Schopenhauer writes in “The Metaphysics of Sexual Love”: “......in individual cognition it is reflected as a sexual instinct in general, without focusing on any specific individual of the other sex...”

Some believe that in ancient times there was no love, but only bodily eros, sexual desire. Only with the fall of antiquity and the period of barbarism on the wave of Christianity did a spiritual upsurge begin in society. Philosophy and art are developing, people's lifestyles are changing. One of the indicators of these changes is the emergence of chivalry, which became the patron and bearer of a developing culture and a special cult of love. This love was primarily spiritual, its Center was in the soul. However, these versions should hardly be accepted. Numerous documentary sources testify: love arose and became known to people from ancient times.

1.3 Theories of love

Each people, each nation in its own way understood and assessed and created its own philosophy of love, which reflected: the characteristics of the national culture, moral and ethical ideas, traditions and habits characteristic of a given culture. The European theory of love differs significantly from the Eastern one.

The Eastern cult of love, which appeared in Ancient India, proceeds from the fact that love is one of the main goals in life (along with wealth and knowledge). Love among the Hindus was connected with the world of human feelings and knowledge. Sensuality rose to the level of an ideal, acquiring spiritual content. The most famous treatise on love is the Kama Sutra.

In Arab countries there was a cult of bodily love. Among the Arabs, in the Arabian Nights fairy tales, it is shown that love is a holiday, a feast of all human sensations.

The ancient Greeks distinguished four types of love:

1) enthusiastic love, physical and spiritual passion, craving for possession of a loved one (eros);

2) love - friendship, a calmer feeling; united not only lovers, but also friends (philia);

3) altruistic, spiritual love, full of sacrifice and self-denial, condescension and forgiveness, similar to maternal love. This is the ideal of humane love for one's neighbor (agape);

4) love-tenderness, family love, full of attention to the beloved. It grew out of natural affection and emphasized the carnal and spiritual kinship of lovers (storge).

The myths of Ancient Greece say that the goddess of love Aphrodite in her retinue had the god Eros, who personified the beginning and end of love. He had: an arrow that gave birth to love, and an arrow that extinguished it.

For Pythagoras, love is the great principle of the world (cosmic) vital force, physical connection.

Starting with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, theories of spiritual love appeared. Love is a special state of the human soul and human relationships.

So in Plato there is a feeling that connects a person’s craving for beauty and the feeling of something missing, the desire to fill what a person does not have. In love, everyone finds their own, unique other self, in union with which harmony is achieved. According to Plato, the characteristics of a particular lover’s love are revealed not in what he feels, but in how he treats his lover and what reciprocal feelings he evokes.

In the Middle Ages, heavenly love, love for God, was opposed to earthly love.

“Carnal connections” were rejected, but sensual relationships between spouses were allowed as a condition for procreation.

During the Renaissance, human sensuality was poeticized. Interpreting that love is a thirst to taste pleasure from the object of desire; believing that love is inherent in everyone by nature and through it the foolish is equalized with the wise and man with the animal.

In modern times, Descartes shared the love:

on love - attachment - this is when the object of love is valued less than oneself;

love - friendship, when another is valued equally with oneself;

and love is reverence, when the object of love is valued more than oneself.

According to Kant, the motive of moral activity is not love, but duty; he spoke about the obligation to do good to another, regardless of the other’s attitude towards him.

Dostoevsky argued that in love a person has the opportunity for self-realization, for demonstrating an active, caring attitude towards people. He thought. That love is the metaphysical basis of morality. Vl. Soloviev (1853-1900) believed that the meaning of love is in overcoming selfishness, recognizing the value of another, that love leads to the flourishing of individual life. Love is such a coexistence of two personalities when the shortcomings of one will be compensated by the dignity of the other.

Soloviev distinguishes three types of love.

First, downward love, which gives more than it receives. This is parental love, which is based on pity and compassion; it includes the care of the strong for the weak, the elders for the younger.

Secondly, upward love, which receives more than it gives. This is the love of children for their parents, based on feelings of gratitude and reverence.

Thirdly, love, when both are balanced. The emotional basis of this type of love is the fullness of vital reciprocity, which is achieved in sexual love; here pity and reverence are combined with a feeling of shame and create a new spiritual appearance of a person.

Soloviev points out five possible ways for the development of love:

a) the false path of love - “hellish” - painful unrequited passion;

b) also the wrong path - “animal” - indiscriminate satisfaction of sexual desire;

c) the true path of love is marriage;

d) the fourth path of love is asceticism, renunciation of any relationship with a loved one;

e) the highest - the fifth path - is Divine love. when the main task of love is solved - to perpetuate the beloved, to save him from death and decay.

In the 20th century, the study and analysis of love and all its manifestations continues with psychoanalysis and anthropological philosophy, and jurists have compiled the “Family Code,” which outlines the rights and responsibilities of spouses.

But it is necessary to keep in mind that theoretical analysis and rationalistic approaches to the phenomenon of love are not able to reveal the innermost meaning of love, its secret and riddle.

No one can understand why this person loves this particular woman or this man.

1.4 Moral meaning of love

The love that connects a man and a woman is a complex set of human experiences and includes sensuality, which is based on a true biological principle, ennobled by moral culture, aesthetic taste and psychological attitudes of the individual. Love between a man and a woman as a moral feeling is based on biological attraction, but cannot be reduced to it. Love affirms another person as a unique being. A person accepts a loved one for who he is, as an absolute value, and sometimes reveals his best, hitherto unrealized possibilities. In this sense, love can mean: a) erotic or romantic (lyrical) experiences associated with sexual attraction and sexual relationships with another person; b) a special emotional connection between lovers or spouses; c) affection and care for a loved one and everything connected with him.

But a person in love needs not just a being of a different sex, but a being who has aesthetic appeal for him, intellectual and emotional psychological value, and a commonality of moral ideas.

Only as a result of the happy unification of all these components does a feeling of harmony in relationships, compatibility and relatedness of souls arise. Love brings bright joy, makes a person’s life pleasant and beautiful, gives birth to bright dreams, inspires and elevates.

Love is the greatest value. Love is a human condition, it is also a person’s right to love and be loved. Love manifests itself as a feeling of incredible inner need in another person. Love is the most vivid emotional need of a person, and, apparently, it expresses a person’s craving for a perfect life - a life that should be built according to the laws of beauty, goodness, freedom, justice.

At the same time, love also contains specific motives. They love for individual features, beautiful eyes, noses, etc. Abstract and concrete characteristics of love, generally speaking, contradict each other. This is her tragedy. The fact is that in a relationship with a loved one, thought apparently moves in the same way as in the ordinary process of cognition. Love begins with specific moments, ignites on the basis of the coincidence of some individual features of the loved one with a pre-formed and presented image in the consciousness or subconscious. Then the isolation of the essence of another person begins, in an abstract form inevitably accompanied by the idealization of this person. If this process is simultaneously accompanied by emotional responses, this leads to increased feelings and closer relationships. Subsequently, apparently, a movement begins from the abstract to the concrete; thought, as it were, begins to try on the abstract image it has formulated to reality. This is the most dangerous stage of love, which can be followed by disappointment - the more rapid and strong, the greater the degree of implementation of abstraction. With different spiritual development, mutual misunderstanding may arise due to different intellectual needs.

Psychologists believe that love lives and develops according to its own special laws, which include both periods of violent passions and periods of peaceful bliss and peace. Then comes the stage of addiction and often a decline and attenuation of emotional arousal. Therefore, in order not to fall into the terrible trap that love prepares, you should definitely strive for mutual spiritual development in love.

1.5 Pragmatic and metaphysical meaning of love

The pragmatic meaning of love, of course, is to enjoy another. Metaphysical elements of love are associated with embellishing the other, focusing on him or even deifying him.

But here it is important to emphasize that the pragmatic meaning, paradoxically, is lost if the metaphysical elements disappear. Complete elimination of metaphysical meaning eliminates this phenomenon.

As ethnographic studies have shown, ancient societies did not know the phenomenon of love in the mentioned metaphysical sense. People of this society did not understand how it was possible to suffer or even sacrifice life because of love. But the times of chivalry were a period of the romantic cult of love; the union of lovers was necessarily delayed, which led to tension in emotions and increased passion.

Ibn Sina tried to explain the strong emotions that accompany love as a disease and wrote methods of psychotherapeutic influence for cure. A. Schopenhauer argued that love is a great obstacle in life. He said: “….this passion leads to a madhouse.” In the Eastern tradition, strong love emotions were treated with caution. Considering that they are capable of unbalancing a person, thereby causing harm to health and distracting from other important matters.

Feuerbach used pragmatic elements of love in describing love. From his point of view, someone who loves to take care of another person simply for selfish reasons, without the happiness of this person, his own happiness will not be complete. Feuerbach's position presupposes a certain morality that stands before his rational egoism. From Feuerbach's point of view, caring about the object of love for purely pragmatic reasons, nevertheless, this object must be the same. This imposes certain moral obligations arising from the need to take into account each other’s weaknesses, forgive mutual shortcomings, and mutual support.

The pragmatic position is dangerous because in it the grounds of love turn out to be purely selfish. If selfishness, personal happiness and, ultimately, pleasure form the basis of love, there is a danger of rejecting love altogether as an unnecessary feeling, while preserving the other only as an object of one’s own pleasure. From everything it follows that if the pragmatic moment of love does not lose its metaphysical meaning, then this elevates a person in his personal merits, for which he can be loved. Love is a breakthrough to another person through a lot of obstacles. created by life. A necessary premise of love is respect for a person as a person, seeing him as a unique spiritual being. Here, metaphysical and pragmatic characteristics interact in the form of equal components, one of which strengthens the other in an avalanche-like manner. It seems that the feeling of love increases constantly until love itself is completely destroyed.

2. The meaning of life

In ancient times, questions arose in the human mind that were related to understanding the meaning of one’s existence and determining a person’s place in life. Who am I? Why am I? Who are we? Why am I living? What do I want from life? Every person thinks about this, everyone has their own scale of values, it is impossible to give specific advice here, because these questions are of a personal, even intimate nature, and therefore a person must decide on them independently, look for his own solution.

2.1 Basic concepts of the meaning of life

In any ethical system there are always ideas about the meaning of life. The meaning of life for Socrates is in the reasonable content of the “art of living”; for Plato, the concept of the meaning of life is associated with the idea of ​​the highest good. The meaning of life is in perfect activity - according to Aristotle. In keeping the commandments and striving for divine perfection - in Jesus Christ.

Quite conventionally, in the history of ethics we can distinguish three approaches to the question of the meaning of life: pessimistic, skeptical, optimistic. The pessimistic approach consists of denying any meaning to life. Life is perceived as a meaningless series of suffering, evil, illness, death. A pessimistic approach to the meaning of life often leads a person to a fatal step - suicide. Moreover, exalted romantic natures take their own lives in order to do something “out of spite”, to prove to parents, teachers, those around them their dignity, that they are right. This is cruelty and frivolity, first of all, in relation to oneself, in relation to one’s own unique and only real concrete life.

A skeptical approach to understanding the meaning of life is associated with the presence of doubt about the meaning and significance of earthly existence.

Skepticism is expressed in excessive caution, suspicion of everything unusual and peculiar; in fear of action, in inaction. In the absence of any activity.

An optimistic approach to the question of the meaning of life is expressed in the recognition of life as the highest value and the possibility of its realization. Optimism in the approach to understanding the meaning of life requires turning first of all to life itself, the sphere of basic human desires and interests. The meaning of life is to get maximum pleasure.

2.2 Meaning, meaning and purpose in life

Apparently, the most optimal approach to interpreting the meaning of life is the view that the meaning of human existence lies in love.

People consider love in general and the love of men and women in particular to be the meaning of their lives. It is believed that this point of view was first most fully formulated by L. Feuerbach. He believed that all people at all times and in all circumstances have an unconditional and obligatory right to happiness, but society is not able to satisfy this right equally for everyone. Only in love did Feuerbach see the only means of satisfying every person’s desire for happiness. Of course, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of love in a person’s life. However, the philosophy and ethics of the 19th century comes to the conclusion that love cannot be the only meaning of life - despite all the importance of love as the most important element of a person’s personal life. Modern philosophy, primarily psychoanalysis, makes it possible to clarify some socio-psychological mechanisms of the formation of an individual’s idea of ​​the meaning of life. Philosophers believe that a person’s desire to find and realize the meaning of life is an expression of a special kind of orienting need. This is an innate tendency. It is inherent in all people and is the main driver of behavior and personality development. The need to find and realize the meaning of life is formed under the influence of:

a) the conditions in which the child’s initial activity takes place: the child’s actions must correspond not only to specific practical actions, but also to the requirements that adults impose on the child;

b) the expectations of the individual himself regarding the results of his activities, practical experience;

c) requirements and expectations of the environment, group;

d) personal desire to be useful to others;

d) the individual’s requirements for himself.

A person must believe in the meaning that his actions have, and the meaning requires its implementation.

The meaning of a person’s life is determined by a system of certain higher values. These are values: transcendental, socio-cultural and personal life values.

Transcendental values ​​are ideas:

b) about the absolute principles that underlie the universe;

c) about the system of moral absolutes.

Transcendent values ​​allow a person to comprehend his life and death, give meaning to life, they unite people into society.

Socio-cultural values ​​are:

a) political ideals;

b) history of the country;

c) the culture of the country;

d) traditions, language, etc.

A person can see the meaning of his life in serving the Motherland and its culture.

The values ​​of a person’s personal life are:

a) idea of ​​health, healthy lifestyle;

b) the values ​​of creativity, the main way of implementation of which is work, as well as the success, fame, and prestige that accompanies it;

c) love and sensuality, family life, children.

Having meaning in life is a positive emotional state that is accompanied by:

presence of a goal;

awareness of one’s importance in relationships with other people;

acceptance of the existing world order, recognition of it as good;

awareness of one’s place in the world, one’s calling.

At the same time, finding meaning does not mean realizing it. A person will never know until his last breath whether he has truly succeeded in realizing the meaning of his life.

There is a distinction between the meaning of life and meaningfulness.

Meaning presupposes an objective assessment, a meaningful criterion.

Meaningfulness is a subjective attitude towards one’s life, awareness of its meaning.

Realizing the meaning of your life means finding “your place in the sun.” The concept of purpose is closely related to the awareness of meaning. A goal is a certain milestone, and the meaning of life is not the final goal, but the general line that defines the goals.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the following should be noted. It is quite natural that there are different points of view on the problems of love and the meaning of life. Sometimes these points of view are mutually exclusive. But it is important to remember that in these issues of moral life, a significant role is played by the belief that, after all, love and the meaning of life exist. Without this faith (even weak) human life will become too painful and burdensome.

A person’s life is filled with meaning, becomes meaningful, worthy of a person when it is useful to others, when a person engages in his work with pleasure and complete dedication, when his existence is imbued with love, moral goodness and justice. Following N. Berdyaev, one can exclaim: “We don’t know what the meaning of our life is. But the search for this meaning is the meaning of life.”

Bibliography

1. Golubeva G.A. Ethics. Textbook/ G.A. Golubeva M.: Publishing house "Exam" 2005 - 320 p. (Series textbook for universities)

2. Razin A.V. Ethics. Textbook for universities. 2nd ed. M.: Academic Project 2004 - 624 p. (Classical university textbook)

3. Popov L.A. Ethics. Course of lectures M.: Center 1998.

4. Schopenhauer A. Selected works M.: Education, 1993.- 479 p.

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