Psychological- Epistemological Barriers to Living Morally from the Point of View of Imam Ali (A.S.)

One of the important questions about morality is why human beings can’t live morally on the basis of moral will alone. In other words, why is it difficult to live morally? This is where the barriers to morality come into play. Any Human being who wants to live morally will face obstacles that prevent him from following the moral path of living. The obstacles of living morally can be divided into two sociological and psychological types. The sociological obstacles are some external factors that influence a person’s moral decisions and prevent him from living morally, such as public opinions, the value-judgments of others, the approvals and disapprovals, and likes and dislikes of others. The psychological barriers, themselves, are divided into two epistemological and non-epistemological types. The epistemological-psychological obstacles are obstacles that prevent moral living in the human psyche and are, of course, related to epistemology. According to Imam Ali (A.S.), pride, dogmatism, fanaticism and bigotry are among the epistemological- psychological obstacles. The present study makes an attempt to prove this claim in a descriptive-analytical way and to show how, according to Imam Ali (A.S.), these epistemological-psychological obstacles prevent moral living.