The Critical Analysis of the Moral Framework of Social Capital: "Implications for Islamic Studies'

The moral framework, as one of the basic coordinates for understanding concepts, has found a special role in the social sciences. If we consider the moral philosophy as a criterion for the validity or inadmissibility of an action, then the knowledge of ethical philosophy will be in charge of examining the theories of normative ethics. One of the concepts whose normative framework should be examined based on the knowledge of the philosophy of ethics is social capital. Although examples of social capital in the religion of Islam are also considered, but neglect of the normative framework of this concept in religious studies has led to the introduction of religion and religiosity in some studies only as a micro component to strengthen social capital. The present study, conducted in an analytical manner and in the context of moral philosophy, presents a division of religious studies in the field of social capital. The study extracts the normative framework of social capital and shows the criticisms of the concept of social capital witch emerged through the framework of "Utilitarianism". According to the findings of this study, the components that are presented as social capital in Islam, while having a collective consequence, have some characteristics that justify them in the form of "deontological ethics" and this is something that is far from the eyes of researchers in this field. While this study is not going to analyze the social capital on the basis of the Islamic moral philosophy, its denotations will be informative for religious studies due to its consideration of the features of concepts introduced into the humanities.