پژوهش نامه اخلاق
پیاپی 43 (بهار 1398)

The reality of pleasure and its existential role and value in Avicenna’s ethical thought is an acquired, falsifiable and at the same time achievable issue. Any pleasure results and is understood from its own special power, and there is a distinct relationship between types and examples of pleasure by influencing and being influenced in self faculties. Having criticized and nullified Avicenna’s self faculties and replaced the theory of skeptic and differential ranks of the self in the human existence ranks, Mulla Sadra dealt with the reality of pleasure and its existential role. The reality of pleasure in transcendental theosophy is presential in addition to being existential, and does not lend itself to sensory violation and comparative fallacy. The highest pleasure from the perspective of nobleness in transcendental theosophy pertains to intellectual pleasures, and on the basis of by-compulsion agency of intellect in Sadra’s study of self, infra-intellectual pleasures bear ethical values. The purpose of the present study is to give rational solutions on the basis of Sadra’s study of self in order to ethically manage and interact with effective perceptions such as pleasure in life.

The classic definition of lying in the West consists of three categories: 1. a false statement is said, 2. the speaker is aware of the falsehood of the statement, and 3. the speaker intends to deceive the audience. In the late twentieth century, the three-constituent definition of lying, particularly the third category (intention of deception), has been disputed and new definitions were presented. In alternative definitions, the term assertion is utilized, and by focusing on this term, issues such as humor, joking, theater, etc. are attempted to be excluded from the definition of lying. Most definitions presented by philosophers and jurists made use of the term reporting. This term (reporting) nicely removes humor and joking from lying since reporting other issues does not exist in them. As a result, Muslim thinkers did not recognize the intention of deception as a category of lying. This article demonstrates how concentrating on the two terms, reporting and assertion, makes the attachment “intention of deception” as a category of lying redundant.

To explain the nature of human beings and their necessary characteristics for ethical acts is one of the most important issues so as to achieve an ethical theory. Seyyed Morteza, as one of the founders of Shiite theology that is the main source for theoretical discussions of former scholars, had a somatic stance at human beings which naturally impacted on the way he presented his ethical theory. In addition to investigating and criticizing the reality of humans from Morteza’s viewpoint and exploring human qualities in his attitude, this article examined its effects in ethics through descriptive-analytic methodology and based on library information, and proved his theory about moral necessity, namely, virtue-centered deontology.

Evolutionary meta-ethics is an emerging philosophical study of the relationship between theory of evolution and evolutionary meta-ethics. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of evolutionary factors on various planes of meta-ethics, and attempt to answer this question: can theory of evolution (presumed as true) strengthen or weaken meta-ethical theories? Using a descriptive-analytic approach, the present article separates four realms of meta-ethical studies (semantics, epistemology, ontology and psychology) and comes to grips with evolutionist opinions that tried to take advantage of the theory of evolution in order to accept or reject some meta-ethical theories. The findings of the present study shows that reasons such as “principle of thrift” which evolutionist philosophers turned to so as to deny the existence or objectivity of ethical facts are not only inadequate but also ineffective, and they fall into skepticism by repudiating ethical theories and justifications and the truth of the ethical propositions.

Theorists of “divine command” have strived to introduce methods for accomplishing the divine will that states ethical facts. Referring to revelation, intellect, nature of objects are among the approaches presented by those theorists. In this respect, Charles Taliaferro designates the ideal observer theory as effective and completely valuable. He established a solid relationship between the ideal observer theory and the divine command theory. Having employed this theory, he endeavored to show the role of God’s stance in ethics, and bring out new methods for the purpose of achieving moral decrees. Taliaferro holds that the ideal observer theory can only justify God’s stance based on some of the atheists who believe that God the Exalted is not committed to any independent moral necessity and value in His enjoining and forbidding. However, unlike Taliaferro’s view, the methodology of ethical knowledge of this theory cannot be considered useful and valuable for any atheist due to its being irrational and ineffective.

The present article studied a tolerance-centered management approach emphasizing Islamic texts. The findings on the basis of narrations show that tolerance within an epistemological-normative paradigm is organized by interpersonal, social and political interactions. That is regarded as a virtue, ethically speaking; and necessary, politically speaking. Tolerance is a social and political discourse, political philosophy based on nobility, right to live, removal of inequitable discriminations, controlled interaction with political opponents, and commitment to the freedom of citizens. All the narrations on kindness fall into six categories: First, intellect, wisdom and knowledge are the head of kindness. Second, kindness is half of religion. Third, kindness is half of good living or “luxury”. Fourth, kindness is an appropriate bedrock of using opportunities, and an important factor to change the treats into opportunities. Fifth, kindness is a factor to achieve goals. Sixth, kindness causes increase and blessing in society, and whoever deprived of it is deprived of goodness.

Emergence of the phenomena high-rise building and consequently high-rise living in the Islamic Republic of Iran in the last decades or so has brought many ethical and environmental challenges for Iranian citizens. The problem of high-rise building and its challenges have their roots in the Western culture. In addition to misshaping the bodies and parts of the cities, it triggered many side effects for urban living in societies. This is despite the fact that Iran has enough capacity and talent to rid itself of high-rise building via apt villa building like before. Employing a descriptive-analytic approach and a library and content research, this article aimed to inform members of society of the unconcealed and hidden moral impacts of high-rise building, introduce some ethical challenges and harms such as deprivation of natural blessings and welfare facilities like natural light, healthy air, adequate space, etc., and bring into attention principles of Islamic architecture in building through Koranic verses and Ahl al-Bait’s narrations.

A group of ethical statements in the Koran and narrations consist of explicit causations. At times, the theologian’s serious intention in such causations is vague; this vagueness refers back to the generality of causation or lack of it thereof. Taking advantage of library research, this study achieved the following findings about causations explicitly mentioned in the religious ethical propositions: 1. Although causations stipulated in ethical recommendations are generalizable, they are not meaningful; namely, lack of them do not signify lack of ethical recommendations. 2. The appearance of causation in ethical propositions, unlike jurisprudential propositions, is a final cause, not wisdom. 3. The causations that are not testable and appraisable are accepted out of devotion, and debating about its concept is irrelevant. 4. Sometimes for ethical propositions, the causations are inferred from appropriate theistic, theomorphic or formative facts and knowledge. 5. Stating causations in religious ethical recommendations helps the mind of the audience put at ease, in addition to a general attitude toward ethics.

Based on a revision of virtue ethics, an act is right if and only if performed by a virtuous agent under those circumstances. Of the semantic critiques placed on that view is the problem of “right but non-virtuous” since, on that basis, it is erroneous to define a right act depending on the action of a virtuous agent. This is because sometimes a non-virtuous agent is in a condition that is never experienced by a virtuous agent. The present article aimed to first grapple with this problem and show that the aforesaid problem is the result of mixing the realm of determining the duties and proffering the practical guidance with the scope of appraising the acts. As a consequence, in “guidance of actions” an act is right if and only if a virtuous agent decides in that condition whereas in “appraisal of actions” this decision might not be “admirable”. Correspondingly, there are cases that an agent “should” do an act, yet their act cannot be counted as “right” meaning “virtuous” and “admirable”. Finally, a number of pragmatic approaches were presented to solve this problem.

“Interpretation ethics” is one of the branches of ethics and an affiliate of applied ethics. The purpose of the present study is to delineate the epistemological domain of “interpretation ethics” in “Koranic studies”. Interpretation ethics, as an offshoot of applied ethics, is of an interdisciplinary identity. On the one hand, it is affiliated with ethics as an epistemological system [field of study], but on the other, it pertains to the epistemological scope of interpretation. Since this emerging science has not developed well enough and not been determined epistemologically, portrayal of the role and epistemological scope of interpretation ethics in the fields of ethics and Koranic studies can help us account for the method and type of research, and methodological and epistemological necessities. The study is to conclude that interpretation ethics comprises three scopes of action (the act of interpreting), process (the process of interpreting as research) and science (the epistemological breadth of the science of interpreting). Moreover, dependent upon the three-fold realms of the studies concerning Koranic understanding and interpretation, interpretation ethics can be investigated in three levels of pre-interpretation, during interpretation and post-interpretation (the product of interpreting).