The Ethics of Leo Tolstoy and the Tradition of "Ars Moralis"

The article examines Tolstoy's ethical teaching of the final period of his moral and philosophical work, expressed in the work "The Way of Life". The main thesis of the article is that Tolstoy's ethics of the late period is an expression of the philosophical tradition of "Ars moralis". This tradition originates in Plato's idea of techne peri tou biou, meaning the transformation of human nature into a zoon ethikon ("ethical animal"). The moral principle of this concept is concentrated in the Socratic concept of "caring for the soul". The metaphysical basis of this kind of art was the idea of the possibility of transforming a person into a subject of good. According to Seneca, the ability to be and become good is art, the essence of which is to be guided by the "instructions of life" appropriate to a given place and time, based on certain "philosophical principles".The article emphasizes that the main types of Ars moralis in Tolstoy are a kind of "quadrivium of moral arts": the art of love, the art of non-doing, the art of death (ars moriendi) and the art of life (ars vitae). This article focuses on the concept of "the art of life" and the related art of non-doing and the art of love.The article develops the idea that the peculiarity of Tolstoy's concept of "ars vitaе" is the creation of a holistic normative program of " life in the present " and its direct application to the situation of moral choice of action through negative effort (the art of non-doing) and positive effort of consciousness (the art of love).