Research Quarterly in Islamic Ethics
Year:2015 | Volume:8 | Issue:27|Papers Count:8

Society needs ethics constitution to continue its living; but why should “I” live an ethical life? What is wrong with the fact that all people behave ethically and I pretend to be ethical without being committed to ethics? Socrates was faced to this question by Glaucon and many people have tried to find a proper answer for it. In addition to the Socratic answer to this problem, existentialist and farsighted responses which are a kind of sophisticated egoism have been proposed, too. In addition to these responses being featured by strong and weak points, a religious response could be given to this problem. Religious response to the reason of living ethically has been exposed by some criticisms and drawbacks being emerged from its specific assertions. Reviewing this problem historically and separating the two main questions from each other, the author of the present study put four responses forward and then the Islamic response is supported because of its strong explicative strength. Finally, an assertion of award and punishment phenomenon is given to be responsive to the common criticisms.

The positive approach and its follower, the agency theory, have had a great impact upon the line of research in accounting field. Based on the agency theory, “company” includes a set of conventional relations and its aim is maximizing the shareholders’ wealth. Because of different purposes, self-interest, and opportunism, there is constant conflicts of interest between the brokers and agents; meanwhile, the theory of agency is seeking some strategies to minimize the costs of this conflict. In this paper, the principles of the theory of agency are explained and the criticisms directed to this theory are analyzed through ethics perspective. The paper adopts an analytico-descriptive structure and for collecting theoretical principles and materials, documentary and library methods were used. Because of limited and simplistic perspective as well as ignoring the ethical norms and social aspects, the agency theory has a limited capacity to describe and predict human behaviors.

A Unit Hadith, khabari vahid, is widely applied in the field of Islamic sciences. Aiming at illustrating on validity of unit Hadith and techniques of its application in the field of ethics, the paper initially defines the unit hadith and its types followed by dealing with its applications in jurisprudence based on different principles. After that, application of the authenticity of unit Hadith in the fields of ethical and educational sciences is analyzed. Accordingly, if we consider that unit Hadith is authoritatively issued, it will have a wide range of application in terms of understanding ethical and educational propositions and it will also have applications on descriptive and structural propositions.

Human soul is under the influence of various factors during his material life and on some occasions, being deviated and digressed from the moderation path he will degenerate others, too. One of the most destructive carnal diseases about human is envy. Envy includes the potentiality of destroying human worship and servitude; as it did with Satan. One of the educational aims of the Holy Quran, due to the word of God, is “a balm for that which is in the breasts” i.e. treatment of the carnal diseases of human. Revolving around monotheism and worship, the Holy Quran proposes a model of soul treatment against diseases such as envy. Knowledge promotion, modeling in the form of stories and allegories, the promise of paradise and hell, taking refuge in God, change of will, operational strategies like being benevolent to others, and hardship are among the treatment methods of envy within the Holy Quran’s ethical system presented on the basis of monotheism and worship. Applying an analytic approach, the paper intends to analyze the Quranic model of treating envy and, through this perspective, to achieve a systematic and innovative model of treatment while focusing on monotheism and worship in comparison to other schools.

One of the key and significant factors of religious life in the field of human relationships is the relationship with relatives by blood or by marriage either pious or impious which is referred to as “connection of kinships”. It is a teaching which has been stipulated and emphasized on in the religious resources and traditions of the religious leaders frequently along with various interpretations to observe it in any possible conditions. Despite of rational, intuitive, religious and empirical supports, this social value has been declined from its former position of the traditional society because of some structural, personal, cultural, and communicative changes and has been turned to a conventional social decorum in some occasional and seasonal interactions. Enjoying the original religious resources (verses and narrations) directly, this paper intends to analyze and to determine the position of this strategic teaching in religious lifestyle and pure life or Islamic utopia.

From Nahjolbalagheh’s perspective, human has three existential rankings and ecstasies; spiritual and rational ecstasies, purgatory and heart ones, and mundane and material. According to this, human lives in three worlds including material and physical world which is the same as this world, ecstasy of human soul including his physical and internal powers, and an occult ecstasy involving his soul. Based on Hammam sermon, the parameters of the faithful life within the field of rational, ethical and behavioral life are illustrated in the study. The rational life of a pious human is based on monotheism offering a sacred and spiritual look to it. Ethical lifestyle is characterized by rationality and separated from ignorance and whatever is emerged in the apparent and behavioral lifestyle of a pious person is resulted from fulfillment of the God’s jurisprudential and religious orders.

To explicate the general concept of virtue, Feyz states that every good action which helps human in achieving hereafter happiness is virtue and everything making human away from hereafter happiness in any way is vice. From him, the virtues helping human in achieving happiness are divided into four types including spiritual, Physical, social, and successive virtues. Particular meaning of virtue or ethical virtue lies in fact in a part of spiritual virtues including Hikmat, bravery, decency, and justice. Feyz divides happiness into two types of suspected (mundane) and real (hereafter) ones. For him, the ultimate perfection and happiness for human is limited to knowing the almighty God. Of course it should be mentioned that happiness is of gradation and levels of human happiness are directly related to their faith and monotheism degrees. The highest level of happiness is, in fact, the level in which human achieves to an intuitive knowledge of his God. However, people who have imitative faith will achieve to a level of happiness, too.

The present study intends to provide answer for the question that whether legislators are able to enter ethics to the realm of law and establish ethical teachings in a law framework when legislating the laws and regulations related to families. Answering this question depends on illustrating the ethics-centered necessity in the field of family based on specific features of family and also clarifying the concepts of ethics and rights as well as the distinctions between both of them. As a result of specific features of families such as having family privacy and being emotional, the legal guarantees of this field lack the desired function and protecting the foundation of the family depends on moral-based behavior of the members. On the other hand, according to the fact that one of the characteristics of legal regulations is legal sanction, legislator cannot directly approve ethical teachings in a legal framework. Therefore, the legislator has adopted prediction of the judgment institution and development of supplementary rules as two major strategies to include ethics in the legal structure of family.