This article discusses the issues of ethical and aesthetic views in the works of Abay Kunanbayev. Many of Abay Kunanbayev’s works are written in the form of moral teachings and moralistic conversations. In them, the Kazakh educator criticizes patriarchal-feudal customs, prejudices, and promotes a new morality that expresses the ideas of social progress. In solving ethical issues, as well as other problems, his cherished educational ideals come to the fore. Education, the development of mental abilities, culture in Abay — these are the criteria by which you can evaluate the actions and behavior of people. Everything that opposed the enlightenment of the people, their economic and spiritual development, and supported ignorant customs, was condemned and denounced by the poet-thinker. Hence the peculiarity of Abay’s works devoted to the problems of morality. They usually begin with criticism of the prevailing norms: ignorance, dishonesty, hypocrisy, meanness, greed, the desire to live at the expense of others. Abay angrily condemns the modern society, in which even friendship between people is based on self-interest