The Application of Reason to Ethics: Studying the Mutazilite Qazi Abdul Jabbar's Viewpoint

Reason has a great role in directing human behaviors toward moral virtues and values. Qazi Abdul Jabbar is among moral thinkers who paid attention to this problem and found his moral thoughts on the basis of rationality. His view concerning the functions of reason in ethics can be studied in epistemological, ontological, and motivational approaches. From the epistemological dimension, reason can discover the basic statements of moral system and then apply them to the particular instances and discern the good or bad sides of moral actions as well. In the emotional dimension, reason discerns truly the ends and results of actions and stimulates motivational faculties to realize the actions. And from ontological aspect, man will realize himself by making rational choices.