The Role of Meta-ethical Rules in the Identifying Determining Ethical Priorities

One of the most essential challenges in human life is the way of recognizing logical behavior and making decisions about intellectual and ethical crises. This paper sheds light on the role of meta-ethical rules in resolving the conflict between ethical principles or actions at times when man encounters two or more ethical principles or actions and needs to respond, and so, because of his limited capacity, fails to decide upon all of them and cannot help choosing the preferred one, with the aim of recognizing the theoretical approaches to distinguishing how to sort out moral priorities and resolve the practical deadlock and prevent the damages which results from performing the preferred act. This paper uses a descriptive-analytical method and summarizes the main points as follows: certain fiqhi rules and principles which can contribute to identifying the priorities when conflict occurs between ethical actions, the general rules of determining the priorities referred to in Quranic verses and narrations and the criterion for calculating the value of actions and the expediency they envolve.