Self-Constraint: Ethical Challenges for Contemporaneity

The paper deals with issues related to self-constraint examined in the context of the social, environmental or economic threats and challenges generated by the contemporary civilization. The ability to limit one's own needs, and hence the issue of the reasonable use of goods is nothing new for ethics. However, after having realized the finite nature of natural resources, growing economic disproportions, and especially the exceeding consumption, that problem gains importance and calls for the recapitulation. The article, based on references to alternative models of consumers' behavior (sustainable consumption, voluntary simplicity) and sustainable strategies of development (degrowth), provides an argument why reflection on self-constraint is one of the critical areas of ethical reflection today. Self-constraint was presented as a voluntary, and individual approach of the moral agent towards other people and the natural environment.