مجله پژوهش های اخلاقی
سال چهارم شماره 1 (پیاپی 13، پاییز 1392)

The issue that smart moral agents will certainly exist someday has made specialists of ethics to conduct extensive research in this regard. The descipline of machine ethics tries to create moral robots. To this end, it proposes moral frameworks to be used in machines and guarantee their moral behavior. The present paper investigates the way of executing and implementing Kantian deontological ethics in machines, explains advantages and disadvantages of this approach, and examines complexities and problems of this kind of implementation.

Man's life is overflowed by many pains some of which are inevitable. Men adopt different ways to relieve from these pains. Some people resort to worldly pleasures and others admit their inability to overcome these pains and yield to despair and hopelessness. All the efforts made by the first group face with defeat and end up with despair. All this adds more and more to man's pains. Those who seek felicity instead of pleasure and adopt a moral life, in turn, face with other pains such as injustice and moral conflict in practice, as well. Even more than that, a believer faces different pains in his/her religious life, from the pain of leaving worldly attachments to that of moral suspension (suspension of ethics) in some divine afflictions. The question faced with religious thinkers is why, morally, should the Omni-benevolent God permit such a painful path for man? Focusing on Kierkegaard's thoughts, the present paper shows that, in his view, these pains are rooted in man's dichotomous nature, and that it is only in the realm of faith that this dichotomy is eliminated and relief from pain is possible. The pains of different stages of existence lead men to despair and the threshold of a choosing a transcendent stage. In this way, these pains transcend men's soul and finally lead to relief from despair which is a sickness unto death. Conducting a psychological investigation on man's depth and pointing to his existential stages, Kierkegaard holds that the nature of pain and suffering of each stage is a particular fact appropriate to that stage. He defines the only single authentic choice to confront with pains and sufferings of life in the realm of faith. In his view, man's best reaction to these pains and sufferings is faith, and these pains can be made meaningful and consequently tolerable with the help of faith and the vision which it grants to believers. According to Kierkegaard, man can traverse the path of faith only through knowing the real pain.

Avicenna asserts that practical philosophy is one of the basic pillars of philosophy, which plays a role in man's felicity and even in perfecting his theoretical faculty. In spite of this importance, however, there are not many issues on the field of practice in Avicenna's works as compared with his theoretical philosophy. Given Avicenna's unique position in the history of intellectual thinking in the world of Islam, it can be claimed that his reticence on practical philosophy has greatly caused this part of philosophy to be neglected in the process of Islamic philosophy. But, indeed, what is the reason of his reticence on practical philosophy? What is the nature of his approach to practical philosophy? Can it be said that his reticence is due to his approach to practical philosophy? Questioning Avicenna's reticence on the field of practice, the present paper seeks to clarify his macro-approach to the field of practice and, in the light of this approach, find justified answers for some of the most important in-text and peripheral questions of Avicenna's practical philosophy. It proves that Avicenna's reticence is not due to his neglect of and inattention to the issues of this field, as it is sometimes assumed; rather, it is based on his macro-approach to prophecy and relationship between philosophy, religion and practice. Avicenna is of a few choice words, which is the necessity of his view, and owns a fundamental thought in practical philosophy.

Ibn Hazm Al-Andulusi has innovative thoughts in ethics. He admits the division of virtues and vices into four virtues and vices. Although his division of virtues and vices and their definitions are apparently similar to those of other Muslim philosophers, they are, in fact, different. While admitting the theory that soul consists of three components, Ibn Hazm proposes a different division on the basis of the idea that virtues and vices are compound. Accordingly, he divides them into three groups-basic, secondary and specific-and believes that secondary virtues are composed of basic ones. This view of his paves the way for proposing a more coherent definition of secondary virtues. On the other hand, Ibn Hazm frequently uses such principles as the principle of benefit in his moral discussions. Although Ibn Hazm cannot be regarded a "utilitarian" thinker in the common use of the term, he puts great emphasis on the principle of benefit and profit. The principles of comfort and health are among other principles which are important in his moral system. This paper deals with his most important moral thoughts.

Investigating the mutual effect and utilization of scientific disciplines is one of the important axes in the philosophies related to sciences. In the meantime, utilizing ethics and moral values in different sciences is an important axis. The present paper examines the issue of utilizing ethics and moral values in fiqh (jurisprudence) and Ijtihad. The principle of utilization is altogether presupposed and not discussed in this paper. This paper elaborates on the ways and methods by which ethics is utilized in Ijtihad, the most important of which are as follows: utilizing in the reinforcement or weakening the procession of a narration; utilizing to explain legal injunction not injunction based on concealment; utilizing to explain permanent injunction of Shariah (Divine Law); utilizing in public usage; utilizing to understand obligation or non-obligation; utilizing to prove the continuation of an injunction; utilizing to prove relinquishment; utilizing by the way of interpreting and determining a meaning among several probable meanings; utilizing in predication against apparent; utilizing in specification and determination; utilizing in allocation to a certain time or event; utilizing in predication on corrective injunction; utilizing by the way of conflict; utilizing by the way of interference, utilizing by the way of issuing fatwa.

The ethics of care as exposed by Carol Gilligan can be regarded the mother of theories of care. In her famous book, "In a Different Voice", Gilligan introduces and fully describes this type of ethics. She believes that ethics of care is, in fact, a feminine ethics and regarded as one of the distinctive characteristics of women, which is deeply different from masculine ethics; a difference which results from different thinking and view of these two genders, traces back to their deep gender difference and causes two different kinds of ethics with two different approaches, i.e. care-based and justice-based. Despite Gilligan's certainty in defending the ethics of care, psychologists, feminists, policy-makers and followers of other theories of ethics had criticized her theory from different aspects.

Today, journalism as one of most influential tools for intellectual cultivation of society and control of ruling power is of great importance. Ethicalization and practical channelization of press towards divine rules can promote the culture and thought of society. Given the multiplicity of views and cultures, however, these moral rules are different in every society; and in a religious society, they often result from the commands of divine religion. It is necessary to investigate these moral rules governing the press of our country and their relationship with legal rules in order to determine and explain the limits and framework of the press's performance. Furthermore, legal rules, the most important of which are laid down in the press laws, create public order. The present paper discusses the issue in detail in order to provide a complete understanding of freedom of press and its frameworks in the legal-moral system of Islamic Republic of Iran.

The importance of ethics and attention to moral principles has always been taken into consideration during man's life and many issues have been written in this field. The present paper seeks to examine the status of scientific products in the field of ethics during a 22 year period in Information Sciences Institute at international level and determine Iran's share of these journals. Then, having extracted data from the website of Journal Citation Reports (JCR), it examines the status of journals of ethics. A survey method with a scientometrics and bibliometrics approach is used in this research. The research findings can open up a new horizon for pundits and those involved in ethics and generally in human sciences.