Humanism as a fundamental principle of social interaction in the context of discussing a life and death problem

The article discusses the importance of humanism in the processes of social interaction, especially in relation to incurable patients who need palliative care. For the development and improvement of the palliative care institution created on the initiative of the World Health Organization (WHO) at the end of the 20th century the public consciousness and value system should undergo substantial transformation from a perspective of true humanism and unselfish altruism, about the role of the latter in society the outstanding Russian-American sociologist and philosopher Pitirim Sorokin wrote. Such a change involves the rethinking of the eternal philosophical problem of life and death on the basis of a holistic interpretation of the phenomenon of being, according to which death is not a negation, a polarity to life, but a natural process that does not exclude the principles of humanism, altruism and life approval. Arguing this position, we turn to the ideas and theories that have developed in various cultural and philosophical systems of the past.