مجله پژوهش های اخلاقی
سال سوم شماره 4 (پیاپی 12، تابستان 1392)

Prevailing of the principles and values of liberalism over Western public culture and over the international institutions resulted from Western political, economic, and technological authority has created circumstances under which some of Islamic teachings and legal precepts especially concerning freedom of speech, conversion, and sacrilege are challenged. The limitations and punishments enacted for them are also regarded as something “irrational”, against the human honor, and opposed to the human right. These judgments are rooted in the hegemony of contemporary western rationality over the other rational orders. This article, by offering its discussions in three phases: rationality, justification, and truth, is going to show: 1. The Islamic standpoint about freedom must be understood in terms of the framework of Islamic theoretical and practical rationality; 2. Focusing on rationality without going through justification doesn’t give any right to criticize the other rational understandings of freedom. Freedom ant its limitations is related to both theoretical and practical rationality. Since the origins of rationality in the Islamic thought is greatly different from that of secularism, it must be noted by both parties that they need to have a full understanding of the rational foundations of freedom abstracting from its Islamic or non-Islamic conception. They also need to enter the phase of “justification” and argue about the justifiability of their bases and evidences of their understanding of freedom.

Is it necessary for the Islamic moral teachings to provide the essential elements needed for establishing a moral order? Is there any necessity that these elements possess a logical structure? If so, do all moral teachings of primary and secondary Islamic sources enjoy in fact such a logical structure? If not, is there any way to be reached? There are various doubts and debates about these questions explicitly or implicitly. The writer is agreed with those whose answers to these questions are positive. This paper with a metaethical approach is an explanatory introduction to this claim.

Moral reductionism attempts to simplify some moral concepts and beliefs into someconcrete concepts and beliefs to provide a more clear and verifiable explanations.Reductionism takes place sometimes in the same field and among compatible conceptsand beliefs; as in the field of empirical psychology which is under the empirical sciences.In this field, certain psychological findings are simplified into some neurological andbiochemical concepts. But sometimes it may be applied to two non-compatible realms,one of which is normative and the other one descriptive. Moral concepts, beliefs, andtruths are among the most important normative affairs. Epistemology and semantics areamong the normative sciences as well. Contrary to them, naturalistic cognitions are a setof descriptive, non-normative concepts and propositions that their truth may be verifiedby referring to the objective world providing a causal explanation. Now an importantquestion here is that whether the normativity of normative sciences, especially ethics, is apart of their essence and structure or they are like the other sciences, especially empiricalones, which are non-normative in nature or they could be non-normative. Put differently,is it possible for us to reduce their normative content to a set of non-normative truths?Ethical naturalism as a kind of moral reductionism has asserted that it is possible. In thispaper we examine this claim and its efforts and policies for reducing moral facts intonon-normative facts.

Institutionalization of ethics and promotion of its characteristics is among the most basicobjectives of the divine prophets. Their efforts in this realm show the importance ofethics and spirituality in personal and social human life. Accordingly, the application ofethics and spirituality to all areas of human life is clearly necessary. Work as a basicelement for human perfection, reaches its desired result only after the application ofmoral necessities and principles to workplace. This paper is planning to recognize,examine, and analyze some of the principles of work ethic by resorting to the Quranicverses and traditions, especially by focusing on the sayings of Imam ‘Ali (a), to pave theway for their proper application to the community.

Heart is observed as the real essence of human existence by the mystics. Heart is createdwhen the incorporeal part of the human being, spirit, is connected with the implantedsoul in the body. In fact, the heart, according to the school of Ibn ‘Arabi, is the same asthe soul in philosophy, which is elevated to the higher levels of perfection, by which mancould gain the position of vicegerency of God. Those who prosper to reach the level ofheart are endowed with the divine characters and attributes especially justice and theydefend the rights of all humans in terms of their capacity. Anthropomorphic principlesare among the most important bases for mystical ethics, which will directly result insome moral conclusions. Among these principles, the position and the role of the heart isof significant importance, to the extent that it is regarded as the prime cornerstone ofethics. This paper after explaining the nature and the reality of the heart in Islamicmysticism explores its effect on the other dimensions of human being, especially inethical teachings. It also analyses the moral characters that are achieved by this view andthus shows the subtle effects of this view on mystical ethics.

Nietzsche, contrary to Socratic view, advocates of instinct instead of reason and henceinterprets and evaluates all things in terms of the instinctive human needs. According tohim, an action is not assessed in terms of its origins, results, usefulness, or utility. Thesource of judging an action as good is the ideas of good doers themselves who regardedthemselves and their works as good. Nevertheless, it must be noted that the main pointhere is that the value of an action will always remain unknown (X) and is subject tochange.

Some evidences indicate that medicine in Ancient Greece was blended with moralaspects, as if the profession of medicine is not separate from the moral duties in theirviews. Even if we cannot establish some evidences to prove this claim historically, theobservance of moral duties in medicine is our ideal whish today. Nowadays, medicine isconsidered to be just a job which has nothing to do with ethics and hence to show thenecessity of ethics in medicine, we need to argue in different ways. The achievement ofthis ideal is depend on recognizing a kind of necessary moral dimension in medicine. Ifwe prosper to find out a kind of essential connection between medicine and moral dutywe can reach this goal. Since the connection of ethics and medicine is realized just in thecontext of social communication, we need to go first through the moral demands ofsocial relations and then apply the result to the realm of medicine. Ethical demands ofsocial relations can be sketched by two important theories in ethics. The ethical theory ofPlato and Aristotle is based on the right and justice which is the ultimate goal of themoral activities. This theory may be used for sketching the minimum demands ofmorality in medicine. But the maximum moral demands may be reached in the theory ofcare ethics. By focusing on the theory, we can find out a kind of essential connectionbetween the professional duty of a physician (to alleviate the pain of the patients) and hismoral duty (showing care and sympathy to them).

Nietzsche is one of the greatest critics of Christianity. He regarded Christian ethics to berooted in Jews’ feeling of revenge. According to him, the source of moral evaluations inChristianity is the revenge in the clothes of love. He also blames Christ because of hiswill to death. Scheler, however, by a deep study of Christianity and the Christ, revealsthe weakness of Nietzsche’s understanding of Christianity and Christ. According to him,contrary to Nietzsche, Christian ethics is rooted in love not revenge. This paper is goingto describe Scheler’s criticisms of Nietzsche’s understandings of Christianity and Christ.