How to Become a Decent Person in the Modern World. On Agnes Heller’s Philosophy of Morals

This paper explores Agnes Heller’s theory of morals. A widespread belief claims that Europe has been in a general spiritual crisis and cultural anxiety since the 20th century. A number of thinkers in Central and Eastern Europe contributed to theoretical-ly dealing with this crisis; they intended to reconstruct and so change European culture. They reflected modernity from the standpoint of cultural criticism with deep moral concern and a high sense of historical responsibility. Among them, Heller deeply ana-lyzes the human condition and dilemma of morals in the modern world, and in effect proposes an ethics of personality.