Ethics and Religion (original) (raw)
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Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, 2013
We survey the meta-ethical tools and institutional processes that traditional Islamic ethicists apply when deliberating on bioethical issues. We present a typology of these methodological elements, giving particular attention to the meta-ethical techniques and devices that traditional Islamic ethicists employ in the absence of decisive or univocal authoritative texts or in the absence of established transmitted cases. In describing how traditional Islamic ethicists work, we demonstrate that these experts possess a variety of discursive tools. We find that the ethical responsa—i.e., the products of the application of the tools that we describe—are generally characterized by internal consistency. We also conclude that Islamic ethical reasoning on bioethical issues, while clearly scripture-based, is also characterized by strong consequentialist elements and possesses clear principles-based characteristics. The paper contributes to the study of bioethics by familiarizing non-specialists in Islamic ethics with the role, scope, and applicability of key Islamic ethical concepts, such as “aims” (maqāṣid), “universals” (kulliyyāt), “interest” (maṣlaḥa), “maxims” (qawā`id), “controls” (ḍawābit), “differentiators” (furūq), “preponderization” (tarjīḥ), and “extension” (tafrī`).
A Controversy Over Moral Virtue: The Problematic Interplay between Religion and Ethics in Islamic Tradition Ph.D., 2022
This Ph. D. dissertation investigates the problematic interplay between religion and ethics in Islam. Here, I argue that an ethical humanism emerged that distinguished between the ethical and the religious despite the Divine Command Theory's dominance in Islamic ethics. This humanism adhered to two unconventional principles: moral autonomy, which allows the agent to self-legislate via his rational capacity and therefore completely actualize his rational nature; and moral universalism, which makes moral values real and universal and hence transcends confessional bounds and boundaries. Ethical humanism, thus, opposed both moral heteronomy and moral relativism/particularism. To support this fundamental claim, the dissertation follows a tripartite form like a novel plot, with an introduction, a climax, and a resolution. The argument is first introduced by tracing the development of Muslim moral conscience from the early moral response to the Prophet Muhammad's call (sādiq amīn) to the later dominance of legalism, which subsumes the ethical under the religious while denying the first any autonomy. We also identified a number of ways explored by Muslim thinkers to circumvent the prevalent ethico-religious value of taqwā by appealing to some religiously neural moral values such a Murūwwa and adab. Second, we reach the climax of the uneasy interplay between religion and ethics as it builds up inside the minds of three Muslim thinkers: Ibn Muqaffaa, the litterateur and political counselor, Ibn Abi Addunyā, the tradionnist and hadith compiler, and al-Gazālī the Sufi philosopher and jurisconsult. Finally comes the resolution where the boundaries between religion and ethics were unambiguously drawn both in kalam and falsafa. The Mu’tazili mutakallimūn and the philosopher Ibn Zakaria al-Razī, albeit on different grounds, advocated for ethical humanism. As far as the episteme of the era would allow, the two held that moral values are truly universal and religiously neutral, and that the moral agent is genuinely autonomous in the sense that he needs no external commander since he is only abiding by moral principles that reflect his rational nature and which he may acknowledge as his own.
Iranian Journal of Biomedical Law and Ethics, 2020
Background: Application of modern medical and bio sciences and also that of modern biotechnologies to human life, during the last decades, have left impact on and indeed changed traditional religious and moral attitudes. Use of such sciences and technologies has given rise to unprecedented moral and religious discussions which could not be justified and fruitful without taking into consideration of foundations of moral judgments. This is more significant in Islamic societies in which religion plays a considerable role in formation of moral beliefs and legal rules. Methods: This research is a philosophical study by means of conceptual and critical analysis. Results: Taking into account recent biotechnological developments and normative problems arising from them, it is necessary to study religious and moral approaches to these problems and evaluate various types of theorizing on bioethical problems. Conclusion: In this paper, upon discussing and evaluating (religious) theological and textualist approaches to bioethics, it is attempted to put forth a justifiable religious approach to bioethical problems.
BIOETHICS IN THE LIGHT OF LEGAL MAXIMS OF ISLAMIC LAW
Journal of Theological Studies , 2022
Islamic legal maxims (al-Qawāʻid al-fiqhīyah) are an important part of the legal system of Islam. These are the general principles that can be torchbearers in almost every field and can be defined as a concise expression of theoretical abstractions of objectives and goals of Sharī'ah and emerged after contemplation on the rules of the fiqh on various themes. Some of the legal maxims have their roots in the Holy Qur'ān and Sunnah but most of them are the hard work of the great Fuqaha who condensed the detailed discourse in a nutshell articulated as Islamic legal maxims. To date, scholars continue to ponder over the application of the maxims and enlist the novel circumstances where they are gerThe same. Same is the case with the field of medicine. Islamic legal mare as an area source of Islamic Bioethics, or Islamic Medical Ethics too. It refers to Islamic guidance on ethical or moral issues relating to medical and scientific fields, in particular, those dealing with human life. Medical Practitioners are in great need of guidance in many maabouting for the treatment of patients. It's difficult for scholars of Sharī'ah to issue a ruling regarding each medical matter. Legal maxims can be a source of guidance in this regard as well. This paper aims at explicating the legal maxims in the light of Sharī'ah with the purpose of their application in the field of mentoring to guide medical and legal practitioners.