VIRTUE AND ACT IN A. A. GUSEYNOV’S ETHICS

The article deals with the problem of an act in the perspective that A. A. Guseynov denotes as the correlation of two characteristics of an act which are virtue and functional excellence. Virtue is a quality of a person, manifested in his determination and ability to pursue the path of goodness, based on the notion of his own perfection and the perfect order of the world. Virtue expresses morality in the perspective of personhood and subjectivity. Functional excellence is an action effectiveness in terms of a material result that satisfies needs of human as a natural and social being, a bearer of diverse interests. The problem of virtue and functional excellence is about how a moral act, which is a direct expression of human virtue, correlates with the actions caused by human nature, or involvement in the real world of things and other people. A. A. Guseynov gives priority to those approaches (Aristotle and the Stoics) in which the sovereign virtue and secondarily with the functional excellence of the act. A. A. Guseynov criticizes the early modern ideas of morality and contemporary concepts of institutional ethics formed on their basis, in which the main element of morality is not virtue as a personalized principle of morality, but norms and rules that shape a person externally and orient him to achieve the objective result of action, to functional excellence. According A. A. Guseynov, such a view leads to a deformation of the morality meaning, realized and expressed in the moral philosophy. The author attempts to show that the reorientation of ethical interest from virtue to principles and norms is not necessarily associated with the displacement of the personal principle, subjectivity from the idea of morality, with the complete leveling of the virtue meaning, with the solution of the problem of virtue and functional excellence in favor of the latter.