پژوهش نامه اخلاق
پیاپی 23 (بهار 1393)

The most important part in analyzing moral concepts includes those used as predicate in moral sentences covering moral concepts of valuation and obligation. Moral concepts in the field of values include those like “good” and “bad” while obligatory concepts include “ought to” and “ought no” and “duty”. Many papers have been written about “moral obligation”; however, dissociating the area of semantics from ontology of the concept of “moral obligation”, this paper has proposed a new interpretation of Allame Tabatabaie’s viewpoint about semantics of “moral obligation”. This study intends to prove that for Allame Tabatabaie, the meaning of “moral obligation” is known as “necessity by the other” because he founds i’tibaryat theory based on “Sakkaki`s view” and there is no distinction between literal meanings of these kinds of metaphors from their real meanings, but figurative meanings are different from real meanings. Therefore, the meaning of “ought to” would not be different in real and credit usages and according to the fact that from his viewpoint the meaning of “real ought to” is “necessity by the other”; thus, the meaning of “credit ought to” will be “necessity by the other”, too.

As is known, Ishraq philosophy is of some sorts of mystical teachings. Ishraqi ethics is also a mystical ethics and has taken such a direction that with the help of Ethical Journey may release human from nature’s darkness, mundane attachments and his own alien homesick and to return human to his original homeland. Sheikh Ishraq has recommended some instructions for God seeker’s achievement to purification of the soul and heart as well as being blessed with real insight based upon considerable anthropological and ontological principles. This paper has intended to explain the meaning and concept as well as nature and reality of ethics from Ishraq philosophy perspective followed by dealing with anthropological and ontological principles of Ishraqi ethics. Finally, Ishraqi ethical plans and instructions will be analyzed.

Mentioning the background of ethical disagreement and the two parties’ evidences of its being real or visionary, this paper deals with a conceptual analysis of restrictions and signs in a case of real ethical conflict. It has shown that the solution of the problem lies in the fact that whether moral ought to may be reduced to its elementary conceptual components or not. Returning “ought to” into “reason”, one can support the reasonability of duties, capability of evaluation, and measurability. “Inevitability of an ethical violation”, “not abolishing state” of any of the two obligations by the other, “existence of the contradiction” and “ethical residue” have been introduced as important restrictions and particular signs of a real conflict.

With a language of poem, allegory and elegant sentences, Rumi attempts to explore meaning and its causes, consequences and finally some solutions for its remedy in his own works. For him, human has a divine identity from which he has been cast away because of descent and has been involved in self-oblivion. What makes this initial mandatory oblivion more severe is dependence and association with materials as well as the influence of animalistic natural forces that gradually make darkness to predominate human and keep him away from pure and bright world. For this, human feels to be tormented and tortured like a confined bird within himself, making him to complain and yearn to get back to his main homeland. This evolution in Rumi’s works could be depicted in the arc of descent and ascent. For Rumi, two groups of internal and external factors are the causes of lack of self-recognition. From Rumi’s viewpoint, the counterpoints of the reasons of self-oblivion are the ways which lead to self-discovery and overcoming self-oblivion. In short, the way of its treatment is only finding the original home and returning to it and consequently being out of ignorance.

Regarding impact of education on morality and possibility of change in morality various viewpoints have been stated by scholars in the field. This issue has a direct relation to moral characteristics` state of being innate or acquisitive. This issue could be illustrated from Naraqi’s viewpoint. In other words, it is known for him that some characteristics are changeable but some not. He has filed some evidences for his claim. However, it appears that his cases of evidence are inadequate and doubt is cast on his viewpoint. In this case, the considerable issue is the statement of attribution, that is to say all of the human’s characteristics and attributes are acquisitive but not merely inbred.

Virtue is of the most important ethical concepts and among those few words including ethical propositions. Aristotle has divided virtues into two ethical and intellectual classes with regard to their purposes. It was known for him that intellectual virtues were stable features of soul which are used by the purpose of recognizing reality (truth). In virtue-oriented epistemology approach which has been developed during the recent decades, it has been emphasized on epistemological values of intellectual virtues and their role in the truth of beliefs. However, there is not an equal perspective about these virtues in various varieties of this approach. For Sosa they are known as types of power and epistemological talents, but for Zagzebski they are deemed as behavioral features and personality characteristics and as their subcategories of ethical virtues. Although he chooses the Aristotle view about intellectual virtues, he does not accept separation of intellectual and ethical virtues. Analyzing various approaches on intellectual virtues, this paper attempts to investigate Zagzebski’s reasons in equalizing intellectual virtues and ethical ones.

Through formulating the conflict between reason and religion, in this study the point of conflict is determined. Then, explaining the intellectual and religious badness and goodness (divine command theory), their relation with Ismail`s sacrifice will be analyzed. According to theory of divine command, ethical knowledge will have a maximum dependence on religion. When we present this principle to Ismail`s sacrifice, we will be encountered by ethical disturbances which are led by maximum domination and reading of the divine command theory. Therefore, we have to either abandon ethics or present a more moderate version of the divine command theory so that it could be compatible with ethics. Each one of these methods is meagerly successful in respect to solving the conflict, but the last method is the most successful one.

The aim of this paper is to study children’s perception of death, analyzing children’s reaction to the phenomenon of parents’ death and teaching them some methods to explicate death and efficiently confront it. In this regard, using Islamic and psychological authoritative texts, religious backgrounds were investigated. The collected data were analyzed through a hermeneutic method. The achieved results indicated that children have little information about death and the ways to face it. However, death phenomenon and the ways to face it could be taught to children. Objective, explicit and clear explanation, expressing feelings, participating children in consultation meetings and explicating the fact that life is endless by the language of children are among the effective methods in this regard. In addition, the results showed that art therapy methods such as creating memory boxes, harmonious sounds and stories appropriate to growth, spiritual and Quranic stories, and puppet shows not only could be effective on our recognition of children’s emotions about parents’ death but also they could be effective methods of emotional discharge and they will be helpful regarding their insights.

With an emphasis on Julia Driver’s ideas about virtue, this paper intends to illustrate an approach on virtues that despite of accepting general frameworks, it attempts to weaken the genuine role of knowledge in Aristotelian ethics and defines and justifies some important virtues based on ignorance and unawareness. The virtues in his view include modesty, trust, forgiveness, spontaneous courage, and scoreless kindness. The necessity to accept the virtues of ignorance is acceptance of an infra-ethical approach which does not consider good intentions necessary for achieving virtues. However, to limit the domain of the study without criticizing this presupposition, only the analysis of virtues of ignorance will be discussed.