摘要：In the first section of this article, Kant’s basic determinants of ethics are expounded. In Kant, the starting point of modern man: to know that he could act, encompasses a doing of good will, to which an ethically active person is reduced, and on that basis the positive acquired law and advancement in the enlightenment. Kant’s definition of the practical (ethical) reason proves to be the decisive turning point in the history of philosophy. In Kant’s ethics, the maxim of every man, through his striving and his self-coercion, is a direct participant in the subsistence of the generally valid pattern of relations within a community. The second section focuses on the problem matter related to the definition of ethos as the core of historical development in Max Scheler’s philosophy. The crucial difference between Scheler’s thought and Kant’s definition of ethics lies in the fact that material value-related ethics is conceived as the “deepest core of history itself” – of the historical process of world genesis. The fundamental values belonging to a social-historical unity (period, epoch, people) do more than build relations between people – they also concern the entire surrounding world. Max Scheler demonstrated this with the central concept of his philosophy – the concept of ethos and inquiry into the problem of ethos which bears and develops the modern world.
关键词：ethics; practical reason; moral law; autonomy of the subject; law; ethos; Kant; Scheler
