پژوهش نامه اخلاق
پیاپی 55 (بهار 1401)

It is an important problem in building modern Islamic civilization to set priorities in major policies and measures which should be adopted for creating and developing this civilization, and there are different views on how to respond to such a problem. The value-based nature of modern Islamic civilization may add a further complication; since the one who gives priority to economics or security in a given time or all the time, does so in ethical terms; but can ethics determine its priority at this level? If yes, according to which criterion can ethics do so? Relying on the foundations of Islamic philosophy and by a descriptive-analytic method, this article attempts to explain how it is possible to classify major plans and actions according to ethics, to analyze a subsistence-criterion for the moral classification of major policies, and finally to develop four proof-criteria for identifying the primacy of certain major policies on the basis of moral standards.

The Glorious Quran clearly indicates that God inevitably tests men in their lives through blessings or sufferings. There are countless discussions on the divine test by sufferings and hardships, but it has been overlooked that God can test one by blessings and bounties. The latter is referred to by the Glorious Quran as “good test”. It is such a difficult, effective, and misleading test that one may lose divine blessings and have lots of problems and troubles. This study has a descriptive-analytic approach with supporting documentation. Its findings show that the divine test by blessings can bring about different educational and moral effects such as mental or psychological, and individual or social ones. This type of test may have the following positive outcomes: gratefulness, great hope for life, contentment, an increase in blessings, vivacity in serving God, and lastly more attempts to get closer to Him, just as it may have the following negative outcomes: ungratefulness, disappointment, a decrease in blessings, inattention to material and spiritual bounties, and lastly human arrogant and haughty reactions to divine blessings which may distance one from servitude and gradually get him closer to destruction even though he does not experience genuine pleasure. In this article, I seek to explore the different effects of this type of test and the Quran’s approaches to deal with it.

There is a fundamental psychological question of why and how human voluntary actions can be carried out. Some accounts of this question can drastically change many explanations and prescriptions given on man’s life in the different branches of humanities. Nonetheless, Islamic ethics and the training based on it more clearly need to provide a precise explanation as to the process of human will and action. Using an explanatory and analytic method, this paper first looks at the current views in this area, and then shows the superiority of Allamah Ṭabāṭabāī’s view over the alternative positions. His view relies on the psychological phenomenon of acknowledgement which he developed and analyzed in his work on philosophy of action. He gives an innovative account of the relation between the inner and outer worlds which satisfies the realistic requirements of Islamic ethics. Having certain advantages over other views, this account avoids voluntarism and relativism.

After the outbreak of COVID-19 and the necessity of quarantine, university classes were held virtually and online so that it was natural that this initially would cause some defects. This study aims to find out, from a moral viewpoint, how the students of Shahid Beheshti University understood and experienced virtual teaching problems in the first semester in which classes were held virtually, i.e. the second semester of academic year 1398-1399. In this qualitative research, 17 female students of Shahid Beheshti University were purposefully chosen and interviewed in a semi-structured way. The thematic method of Brown and Clark is used to analyze the data. According to the findings, virtual teaching problems are arranged into nine central themes and classified according to the problems associated with university, with faculty members, and with students. In the end, some suggestions are put forward to correct these defects.

One of the challenges of conjugal relations is to ask for an uncommon kind of sexual relationships to which one’s partner does not consent. These relationships may violate one’s rights. So the main question is, can we find a good moral reason to justify them or is it morally unjustified to ask for them? Explaining some important cases of the uncommon sexual relationships and using the descriptive-analytic method, this paper seeks to show that there are rational and traditional conclusive reasons to think these relationships are immoral. The majority of them usually involve some of the following constituents: discontentment, annoyance, injustice, compulsion, harm, contempt, a destruction of dignity, a violation of right, association in a dishonorable manner, and so forth. Thus, one should regard these as immoral acts which demarcate sexual relationships so that people’s rights would be preserved and immoral actions would be avoided. As a result of such a conception, the needs of each side will be met in an appropriate way.

Educational justice is one of the most important moral principles in the field of education which include different cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects. It creates some challenges to apply this moral principle with regard to the dissimilarities of thoughts and talents among students. The professor may confront this challenge when there are both talented and less talented students in one class. Adopting a descriptive-analytic method with emphasis on Islamic resources, this study aims to analyze and morally evaluate the two opposing views, and then make suggestions to overcome this challenge. The findings support the fact that it is obvious that there are students with different talents in the classes and one should accept this fact, but to compensate for the shortcomings and to help less talented students, the professor can take the following effective measures: to spend more time with less untalented students after the class, to develop their hidden talents, and to combine the two groups of the talented and less talented students.

Moral works were extensively composed at the beginning of the fourth century. In this period, some pieces of in-depth research were conducted in the field of ethics due to the political and social stability maintained by the Buyid dynasty’s rule on the one hand, and due to the translation movement which provides a great deal of the moral works of other nations for scholars in that century on the other hand. The works on ethics in Farsi translated from Pahlavi to Arabic made Iranians’ morals enter into the moral writings of Muslim thinkers. The question arises as to which moral approaches in ancient Iran could contribute to the Islamic world. Using an analytic-library method, this paper first indicates that there are two kinds of Farsi ethics (religious Farsi ethics and empirical Farsi ethics) and how they are different. Then, it explains that religious Farsi ethics could not get into the Islamic world for three reasons: (1) the works on religious Farsi ethics remained untranslated; (2) they were mixed with mythological concepts; and (3) they met political and social opposition. On the contrary, empirical Farsi ethics could get into the Islamic world and was used by the scholar of that time since (1) it was promoted by scribes and teachers; (2) it was favored by the taste of Eastern people; (3) it was based upon the idea of “Philosophia Perennis”.

The scholar Miṣbāḥ Yazdī affirms that value evils play a role in human moral perfection. This study seeks to answer the question: what relation is there between value evils and moral perfection? The result of this investigation is that he conceptually clarifies that one should use a typical conventional standard, not an individual one, for evaluating his own perfection and best interest, and it is human convention that serves as a criterion for identifying good and evil. The fact that there is much evil in the world lays out the groundwork for values to function properly in light of the different divine tests and to help man to become aware of his values, to get close to God, to benefit from revelation, to choose wisely, and to end his blameworthy attachments to this perishing world. These cases are analyzed in terms of divine grace for the servant to reach moral perfection, i.e. to recognize beings’ spiritual poverty, to get closer to God, and to lift the veil between himself and God.