پژوهش نامه اخلاق
پیاپی 9 (پاییز 1389)

Ethical utilitarianism has been known one of the very effective teleological theories in ethics. The theory has been much attended to and studied by the thinkers of various tastes from the beginning. It seems to be justified as a basis on which human deeds can be studied. In the paper, making a reference to the background and types of the theory, its definition and outline have been presented. The way for measuring utility, then, has been produced and some difficulties have been reminded.Furthermore the theory has been critically studied in a religious consideration. In this way, a theory called transcendent ethical utilitarianism by the author has been proposed. The proposal theory, as the author has claimed, has been originated from religious main source and lacked the difficulties of ethical utilitarianism.

Can ethical statements be regarded absolute or relative? The question has been answered by ethical schools differently. Clearly the position taken here would lead to its own consequences. In this paper, therefore, author’s definition of ethical absoluteness and relativity has been made clear. In this view, by the former is meant that ethical judgments are valid without any mental or real limitation but by the latter is meant contrarily. Furthermore, ethical relativity has been studied descriptively, meta-ethically and normatively and it has been considered based on ethical non-realism. The author, having studied ethical relativity critically with view to its basic principles and proofs, has paid a critical attention to the very claim and its theoretical contradictions and unacceptable consequences when obliged in human behavior.And finally, the paper, referring to the principles of Islamic ethics, it has been known absolute, realist and in disagreement with ethical relativity and what is meant by some great Muslim scholars such as Allaamah Tabatabayi consists in its being comparative and can never interpreted as ethical relativity.

Ethical studies have been performed in three areas including those of normative, descriptive and meta-ethical. Ethical realism has been known as a meta-ethical branch in which ethical problems are dealt with theoretically. Meta-ethics also in its turn consists in various parts of ontology, epistemology, semantics and logic. Ethical realism would have been of relationship to the four parts and on the basis of given discussions in them, ethical philosophers have been called realist or idealist.In the view of a realist ethical philosopher, ethical values have been known objective and real and so have the concepts such as good, bad, correct, incorrect, ought, ought not and duty that refer to the values. The values and values, however, have been regarded to be independent from one’s beliefs, presuppositions and tendencies; though these concepts have been abstracted by particular functions of human mind. On this basis, ethical statements would be qualified with truth and falsity and at least, some of them would be true.

Aristotle and Descartes have been known as two permanent philosophers belonging respectively to ancient Greek and modern times. Their views on ethics have been studied comparatively in this paper. In his “discourse de la method”, Descartes has argued against the scholars of ethics, particularly against Aristotle, in detail. Knowing their ethics as a kind of exaggeration, figment of the imagination and a descriptive field, he claims that in their ethics, one can never find a way to ascend the highest point in morality. Descartes himself, however, promises that he will show the straight way for reaching the highest morality and found an applicable and prescriptive ethics in his system.In this paper it has been made clear that neither Descartes` claims against scholastic scholars have proven true nor his promise has been performed. In spite a great and fundamental utilizing Aristotelian ethico-metaphysical teachings, one can say that Descartes has not gone in justice toward Aristotle.

In Nicomachean Ethics in responding to the question that what is the good of man? Aristotle says that an activity of the soul in conformity to the virtue. On the other hand in his Metaphysics Aristotle identified the specific form of man with his rational soul. Thus what the human form gives us is the logos or reason. Therefore, if the moral good means the activity of the soul according to the virtue, then the moral good of man means being correspond to the reason and the moral evil means to be not accord with the reason. In his analysis of moral good and evil, Aristotle does not appeal to any thing beyond reason. In the world of Islam, Ghazali in some of his works in discussion of moral virtues, debated in the way that he seems to be influenced by Aristotelian Greek ethics. On the other hand in some of his books such as Tahafut alfalasifa(Incoherence of the Philosophers) Ghazali criticized strongly the Greek philosophy. Now there is a question to the effect that from Ghazali’s views what is the basis of morality? Did Ghazali believe like Aristotle that the only base of morality is reason or shari’ah (Islamic Law) or reason and shari’ah together or there is an other alternative