نشریه تاملات اخلاقی
سال دوم شماره 3 (پیاپی 7، پاییز 1400)

In this paper I consider all the ways known to me of trying to make sense of the idea of something’s being good in a respect, though perhaps not good overall. My conclusion is that none of them is at all successful, so that the idea of something’s being good in a respect remains a mystery.

Aristotle’s theory of the Mean plays a significant role in his ethical system. The theory appears in the second book of Nichomachian ethics. The most prevalent reading of theory is that Aristotle tries to provide an action guide for moral agents to determine the most appropriate and right decision in different and problematic circumstances. More than 15 critics are presented in this article about this interpretation. Because of the criticisms of this kind, some moral philosopher have offered a second reading according to which Aristotle’s does not aim to offer an action guide, rather his main purpose is conceptual and analytical analysis of virtue to understand the exact meaning of moral virtue and to distinguish it from other excellences. This idea is also criticized. At the end, a new interpretation is offered: Aristotle neither wants to give an action guide nor to offer a method for analyzing the virtue, but his theory is just a sign of his support of situation ethics, according to which it is impossible to present a general and valid rule by which the agent can distinguish the right decision in different circumstances. Rather, each situation has its own characteristics, and the moral agent must be trained in such a way that he can consider these different aspects and avoid falling into the trap of extremism.

Cyberspace has provided new possibilities for the exchange of information that can be considered a key element for the development of life. On the other hand, it has become a new weapon and a suitable platform for war. Some argue that one of the features of cyberwarfare is that it can be more ethical than traditional warfare because it causes less damage and the resulting damage is easily compensable. In recent years, due to the expansion of the use of cyber weapons, new and serious ethical issues have arisen in this area. The ethics of using cyber weapons and whether the theory of just war also applies to cyberwarfare is a serious question. In this article, in addition to examining the application of the just war theory in cyberwarfare, strategies for the ethical use of cyber weapons are addressed. Such solutions include: using the just war theory in accordance with cyber warfare, designing reversible attacks, designing and using controllable cyber weapons, training cyber army experts, non-arbitrary participation of civilians in cyberwarfare, mobilization of people, teaching ethical issues of cyberwarfare, and moral education from childhood. According to studies, the just war theory is necessary for cyberwarfare, but it is not enough, and governments and the international community should seek to establish ethical and legal principles specific to cyberwarfare.

Human life, from the beginning to the end, includes various events that are usually divided into two pleasant and unpleasant groups. The question of what and why these events occur and how to evaluate they are good or bad, as well as the discussion of how humans deal with these events are among the old concerns addressed by each of the world's schools of thought. Meanwhile, Muslim mystics, such as Mulavī, have also discussed this in detail. In this descriptive-analytical study, the causes of pleasant and unpleasant life events, as well as the way people deal with these events are examined from the perspective of Masnavī Maʿnavī, as one of the most important texts of mystical literature. In this regard, the results show that according to Mulavī in Masnavī, although the source of all events in the universe is the will of God, according to the same divine will, the reason for the occurrence of various events in the life is the action of man himself or a test to measure and guide him towards perfection. According to Mulavī, the criterion for evaluating events is not their pleasant and unpleasant appearance, but how they affect human growth and perfection. Surrender, gratitude and patience are also Mulavīʼs advice to face various life events.

The re-reading of divine command theory in the last century has led to more defensible interpretations of this theory. Philip L. Quinn is one of the leading philosophers who tries to prove the ontological dependence of morality on God in Christianity. He claims that by separating the sphere of duties and values in morality, moral duties depend on divine command and moral values depend on the good nature of God. He uses a cumulative argument to substantiate this claim and by presenting four testimonies from the Christian tradition, he shows that Christianity supports the ontological dependence of morality on God. Devotional practice, gospel ethics, scriptural hermeneutics, and a theological theory are evidence that, according to Quinn, their aggregation has the potential to prove this claim. In this article, after a detailed explanation of Quinn's theory and his reasoning, it is analytically shown that Quinn's reason includes his claim. The central point in the critique is that the author accepts the validity of the cumulative argument and he does not seek to show the imperfection of each evidence alone; rather, by acknowledging that this evidence together can only prove the result, it will be shown that the result obtained in this cumulative argument is not in line with Quinn's claim. Quinn claims that morality is ontologically dependent on God, while his cumulative argument proves the principle of dependence, not the ontological form in particular.

This article examines some general views on the social and moral functions of ignorance, according to a study approach called Agnotology. Based on these views, an attempt is made to analyze some concrete examples of social benefits or moral virtues based on ignorance, i.e. categories, such as social freedom, habit, skill, forgetfulness, confidentiality, privacy, professionalism, and moral censorship. Various types of ignorance or various divisions of the unknowns are also the basis for the continuation of the present article. What is the relationship between ethics and each of these categories of ignorance is discussed in the final part of the article, which tries to better explain it using a long-standing, but neglected distinction between the two concepts of virtue and moral advantage.

This paper advances a reductive semantics for ‘ought’ and a naturalistic theory of normativity. It gives a unified analysis of predictive, instrumental, and categorical uses of ‘ought’: the predictive ‘ought’ is basic, and is interpreted in terms of probability. Instrumental ‘oughts’ are analyzed as predictive ‘oughts’ occurring under an ‘in order that’ modifier (the end-relational theory). The theory is then extended to categorical uses of ‘ought’: it is argued that they are special rhetorical uses of the instrumental ‘ought’. Plausible conversational principles explain how this end-relational ‘ought’ can perform the expressive functions of the moral ‘ought’. The notion of an ‘ought-simpliciter’ is also discussed.