The article elucidates the values and moral faculties that are necessary for the intellectuals to fulfill their social functions in the conditions of contemporary society. The author refers to such values and moral qualities as: duty, legality, equality, justice, fairness, freedom, responsibility, empathy, dignity, honor, fairness, honesty, good faith, shame, etiquette, politeness, etc. An analysis is made of the place and role of empathy which is the ability to recognize and, to some extent, to share the feelings (sadness or happiness) that are being experienced by another being through the golden rule of morality (“Don't do to someone else what you (don't) like to be done to you!”). At the same time, the analysis is performed through the prism of the comparison between „what must be” and „what is” in the social reality of the contemporary society.