Issued by the Institute of morality
in St. Petersburg in 2014
Signed in 2015 by the International Academy
of social technologies
The Open Civil Society Declaration is an international law document issued to protect morality in every region of the world.
The Declaration determines the procedures of a civil society, guaranteeing support and responsibility regarding moral or immoral acts of social subjects.
The Declaration regulates the norms of a civil society to determine the liability of moral or immoral actions of social subjects.
The Declaration can serve as a guide to action for citizens of different countries in the international community.
The Declaration is focused on the development of an open civil society and on its legal insurance.
The document defines morality as a necessary category. It would be impossible to ensure civil harmony, social justice and stability for socioeconomic development of the international community without it.
The Declaration defines the specifics of the social subjects’ behavior ethical assessment and its application in all spheres of activities of citizens and organizations.
The majority of citizens accepts morality, as the idea of not causing harm. It can be used in the ideological development of civil society institutions and the democratic and popular States, to act as the basis for the life activities of citizens.
Morality is a global idea of living without harm to humans and the planet. It is a legal basis for the livelihoods of citizens.
Open Civil Society Declaration differs from other declarations because it meets the problem of moral crisis, which depreciated traditional values, formed the cult of money and enrichment at any cost.
The moral crisis has led to crisis in all spheres of human life. New threats to public safety appeared, traditional challenges such as corruption, organized crime, terrorism, extremism, poverty and misery increased. The need to protect morals and to create a legal mechanism for its compulsory metering in all spheres of citizens’ life became obvious.
Open Civil Society Declaration identifies the specific opportunities and an accounting of morality civil mechanism in regulating social relations and social processes.
The Declaration describes the process of ethical responsibility for immorality, unethical behavior and dishonesty.
The Declaration defines the processes of ethical responsibility for the harm against society, unethical behavior and the lack of conscience.
The distinguishing features the Declaration is that it offers a certain technology of influence on citizens, their unions and all spheres of their activities.
Article 1. International law of the protection of morality
1. International law of the protection of morality consists of this Declaration. This document provides the right to freely adhere to citizens and public associations from every region of the world.
2.This Declaration is not contrary to the constitutions of all world community States, based on the universally recognized principles and norms of international law.
Article 2. Objectives of the Declaration of an open civil society
1. The objectives of this Declaration are:
to publicize morality as the basis of vital activity;
to organize moral education and enlightenment;
to support and limit rights and freedoms of man and citizen to protect morals;
to exclude double standards of conduct, anti-corruption, crime, terrorism, extremism;
to create a civil society in all regions of the world.
2. For these tasks, this Declaration sets the basis and principles of moral education and enlightenment of citizens, defines civil procedure of ethical assessment and other measures of support and protection of morality in any region of the world.
Article 3. Moral principle and morality
1. Moral principle – do not harm yourself, others and the environment. The moral rule implements: not to harm myself, my neighbors, my environment, any thought or word or deed; to create for themselves, neighbors, environment, thought, word and deed.
2. Morality is a General expression of the properties of human nature, which perform the function of a relations regulator between members of society, regardless of social, national, religious and other factors. This is a special attitude of thinking and behavior that allows us not to harm others, the environment and ourselves.
3. Harm is a violation of human life, which a person feels or experiences. A threat is a potential harm for human activity.
4. The ability to discern harm or threat to citizens is formed in the process of socialization and secured in the process of studying of secular ethics.
5. Morality is a supranational, supra-state, non-denominational, non-partisan category. It can be used by anyone to determine their own system of values. Moral values enable a person to understand anyone voluntarily because they are attractive and versatile. Morality is achieved with the participation of all citizens, moral upbringing and education.
Article 4. Providing morality
1. Morality is ensured by moral upbringing, education, outreach, and civil society institutions.
2. Lessons of secular ethics, in which students and staff learn the provisions of hereby Declaration, need to be given in educational institutions and other organizations in order to bring up morality.
3. During secular ethics lessons citizens, guided by a moral rule, master the skills to give public moral assessments of events and actions committed by other subjects.The ability to recognize immoral acts in one’s own behavior and the behavior of other citizens and organizations is an essential academic result of the secular ethics class.
4. The preparation and the implementation of secular ethics lessons is coordinated by civil society institutions and other interested citizens and organizations.
5. Moral enlightenment and the advocacy of morality are organized in the media and by the means of other information and communications resources.They are aimed at a visual illustration of the benefits of moral conduct and provide the civil society with examples of legal responsibility for immorality, unethical behavior and dishonesty.
Article 5. Secular ethics and the civil society
1. Human behavior guided by a moral rule is a moral one.
2. Moral behavior that inspires trust is an ethical one.
3. Trust can be characterized as social relations that arise between citizens and their organizations in the absence of mutual harm and threats. Without trust there can be no civil society.
4. An open civil society is a population of free citizens and their associations that carry out their activities on the basis of mutual trust, independent of government interventions and regulations.
5. The common goal of a citizen and a civil society is mutual development and creation.
6. The development of a civil society is ensured by the transparency of social processes, procedures of public administration and local self-government, free discussion and assessment of ethical behavior of social subjects, the right of citizens and their associations to form institutions of civil society aimed at implementing the provisions of this Declaration.
Article 6. Ethical assessment
1. Ethical assessment is the citizens’ moral evaluation of other citizens’ and their organizations’ actions (inactions), from the point of causing or not causing harm and threats, in order to suppress inappropriate behavior.
2. Ethical review is an open process that is regulated by a civil society as a form of social control.
3. The grounds for ethical judgment is an act committed by a citizen or organization against other citizens, deemed harmful or threatening to them.
4. A negative ethical evaluation is an ethical burden of the social subject.
Article 7. Civil harmony and the scale of ethical judgment
1. Civil consent (positive or negative) is the opinion of citizens expressed in an evaluation form concerning the social actions of social subjects.
2. A social action is the result of a social subject’s activity: the intentions, statements, decisions, actions affecting interests, capable to harm or to threaten more than one citizen.
3. The social subject is an individual, group of individuals and their associations, organizations, enterprises, administration, government, civil society as a whole.
4. A social process is the way of existence for a social subject, his activity, carried out in collaboration with other social subjects.
5. A negative civil consent is a social subject plurality’s consolidated condemning opinion about the social actions or inactions of other social subjects. Such consent is a civil society’s tool of social processes correction.
6. The scale of ethical judgment (binary, multipoint) is a method of digitizing and visualizing the evaluation of the social subject’s moral level. Citizens can use the scale of ethical judgment to organize ethical evaluation of social subjects.
Article 8. Conscience and social justice
1. Conscience is an ethical regulator of a person’s and citizen’s behavior, their inner spirit created in the process of moral education with the help of other citizens and associations of citizens, that constantly correct the behavior and self-esteem of the person.
2. Conscience occurs during ethical assessment, public discussion and condemnation of social subject’s behavior.
3. Social justice is established and maintained by social subjects acting according to conscience.
Article 9. Legal responsibility for immorality
1. Punishment and other legal measures, applicable to social subjects who have committed immoral, unethical acts, not acting according to conscience, are valid only to the extent in which they are defined by law.
2. A social subject committing a social action, ethically evaluated by other subjects as an immoral one, leads to the formation of a negative civil consent.
3. A negative civil consent concerning a social subject leads to the loss of confidence in this subject on the part of other social subjects.
4. The loss of confidence leads to the destruction of the social subject’s reputation.
5. The lack of trust and credibility, naturally, prevents the implementation of the social subject’s livelihood. Thus, self-punishment for immorality, unethical behavior and dishonesty takes place.
Article 10. Public safety
1. Public safety is a social subject’s state of protection from threats and harm.
2. Public safety is ensured by maintaining morality of social subjects and civil consent.
3. Corruption, social stratification, poverty and misery destroy morality, giving way for extremism, terrorism and other immoral acts that violate public security.
4. Anti-corruption actions of social subjects are meant to prevent immoral actions of other social subjects through consolidation and visualization of negative civil consent in the ethical assessment of acts of corruption and corruption manifestations.
5. The elimination of social stratification, poverty and misery is ensured by a moral economic policy, inviolability of citizen’s privacy and personal property.
6. The immoral socio-economic policy of the authorities leads to the loss of public confidence and destroys civic consent.
7. Personnel rotation, including the one that discredit power with the fact of its presence in public positions, restores the credibility of the government and contributes to the minimization of immoral processes.
Article 11. Social parasitism
1. Social parasitism is a social subject’s mode of existence, guided by the idea of personal gain at any cost. It is a consequence of the cult of money, double standards, discrepancies between words and deeds. A social parasite lives at the expense of other social subjects without participating or only simulating a part in their creation activities.
2. A socio-parasitic structure is an organization, whose efforts are aimed at the obtaining of funds to maintain its own existence. A characteristic feature of such a structure is the imitation of her focus on social issues that are relevant to citizens.
3. Social parasitism is the cause of corruption, social stratification, extremism and terrorism.
4. The ways to prevent social parasitism are social control and ethical evaluation of social subjects.
Article 12. Ethics and the rotation of management staff
1. Management personnel is obliged to adhere strictly to moral standards.
2. Citizens can continuously evaluate management personnel’s social actions. This process can be supplemented by a public discourse of social subjects and a visual presentation of the results of discursive practices.
3. Failure to abide the standards, which is identified in the course of ethical evaluation of management personnel actions on behalf of citizens, should lead to their rotation.
4. The rotation of management staff, convicted of immoral behavior, ensures the solidarity of the civil society with the state bodies and municipal authorities of the city, the prevention of corruption, crime, extremism and terrorism.
Article 13. Ethical assessment as a civil procedure
1. Ethical evaluation is a civil procedure that citizens perform when they feel harm from other citizens’ and organizations’ activities. A public ethical evaluation is a public method of social relations regulation that implements the citizens’ right of freedom of speech and moral choice.
2. A social subject may bring out the information about the immoral conduct of other social subjects to the public sphere for an open discussion. The social subject is responsible for the credibility of this information in accordance with the applicable law.
3. When rendered in the public sphere, information about immoral behavior of social subjects is liable to ethical assessment. All interested social subjects can participate in the process of ethical evaluation.
4. Subjects, who carried out the ethical evaluation and (or) its organization, cannot be held responsible for the ethical assessment made in the public sphere of information, in accordance with international law.
5. A citizen expresses his assessment of the harm received from the evaluated individual or legal entity in no particular form on paper or a data storage device during an ethical assessment. A citizen can express his opinion concerning the harm received from a particular social action of any social subject.
6. An individual and a legal person regulate their activities with the account of citizen’s ethical evaluations. The account of a positive or negative ethical assessment is carried out independently in the manner of adopting appropriate measures to restore and maintain public trust and reputation.
Article 14. Discursive practice as a civil procedure
1. A discursive practice as a civil procedure is a free participation of interested social subjects in the ethical evaluation and discussion of socially significant actions of other social subjects.
2. A discursive practice can be carried out by citizens in the form of civil forums, government, academic, expert and public councils, open conversations, reflections in the mass media and other information and communication resources.
3. Personal ethical evaluation of any social subject can only be changed personally unlimited number of times in the course of discursive practices.
4. The discourses are of a continuous character and provide moral education of social subjects, social justice, civil peace and forms private norms that govern the behavior of social subjects.
5. Discursive practices are dynamic, subjective and cannot be the basis for accountability of the participating social subjects, in accordance with the applicable law.
Article 15. Index of morality
1. Index of morality is a numerical indicator of the social harm from the actions or inactions of a subject. Formed in the process of ethical evaluation.
2. Each social subject can have an individual index of morality.
3. Index of morality is a dynamic characteristic of a social subject, that is altered in the course of discursive practices.
4. Information about the values of a social subject’s index of morality is open and available.
Article 16. Ideology-technology of morality
1. Ideology-technology of morality is a social technology that includes freely accepted and shared by the majority of social subjects as a no harm idea of morality; and the connected with it measurement procedure of social subjects’ morality.
2. The measurement of social subjects’ morality takes place in the process of ethical evaluation of their social actions. As a result, each social subject receives an individual index of morality that constantly improves in the process of discursive practices.
3. Individual indexes of social subject’s morality is used by other social subjects to ensure the transparency of a civil society, state-building, state administration, local self-government and other activities of life.
Article 17. The ethical regulation of business relations
1. The ethical regulation of business relations is conducted through the members’ use of social responsibility declarations.
2. Social Responsibility Declaration is a document that in any form contains public assurances of participants’ transaction in compliance with moral norms in relation with each other. The Declaration is adopted at the request of either party.
3. The emittance of the moral principle by either party is the basis for an organization of public discussions and ethical assessment of the participant, who inflicted harm to the opposite party of the transaction.
4. A transaction participant’s business reputation depends on the adherence to the moral principle.
5. A variety of the Declaration can be used for non-commercial agreements, contracts between citizens and organizations: an Honesty Pact that involves the moral relation of the document’s executors to each other under any circumstances.
6. Social Responsibility Declaration and Integrity Pact may be concluded in written and oral form.