NAMEH-YE-MOFID
Year:2001 | Volume:7 | Issue:4 (28) Philosophy|Papers Count:9

This article seeks to deal with morality or moral philosophy (ethics) as viewed by Kant, one of the greatest philosophers in the west. According to Kant, scientific natural science contains within itself a priori synthetic judgments without which it cannot be called "science". Synthetic a priori judgments are necessary and universal judgments upon which all sciences are based. Thus, morality (ethics) as a science contains in itself a priori synthetic judgments like 'we ought to tell the truth'. This 'ought to' dose not result from any particular facts we experience at a particular time. In other words, our judgments come from our reason, not from the objects we experience. Kant says that knowledge generally consists of a form and a substance. Substance, according to Kant, comes to our mind from the external world and form is something our minds impose upon the matter, so every human being inevitably thinks about things in accordance with the natural structure of the mind, and by virtue of these human beings can justify the necessary and universal laws in sciences. In his view, rational knowledge is of two kinds: material and formal. Formal knowledge is what he calls formal or transcendental logic and material knowledge itself which deals with a subject is of two kinds: natural philosophy and moral philosophy (ethics). Both natural sciences and ethics have one empirical aspect and one a priori aspect. The a priori aspect of ethics is called pure ethics or moral philosophy. For Kant moral philosophy serves to justify or account for the necessity and universality of moral judgments. In other words, moral philosophy serves to make a distinction between the a priori elements and the objects of experience and to examine what accounts for the acceptance of a priori elements, i.e., how one can achieve certain binding rules or principles concerning human behavior (conduct). Kant offers certain rules and principles through which one can recognize the necessary and universal principles in ethics.

The present article seeks to explain the criterion moral philosophers have proposed to determine which moral judgments are right and which ones are not. Nevertheless, since the writer holds that ethics of virtue is of a significant status among others, he has made an attempt to investigate the critiques and criticisms offered by different thinkers on ethics of virtue. The writer also touches on the criticisms regarding another type of ethics called applied ethics and finally deals with the convincing opinion about the subject in question.

Sören Kierkegaard, (1813-1855), a Danish philosopher and theologian generally believed to be the father existentialism, holds that questions of faith cannot be rationally demonstrated, so reason cannot be a means for attaining faith and a man of faith has to make a faith leap. Faith is dependent upon volition and is dissociated with reason. Thus no one can argue for or against it. Does Kierkegaard' s emphasis on the role of volition allow us to call him a voluntarist? What is voluntarism in essence? What can be said for or against it? The present article seeks to discuss the subject in question and the views and arguments given by its well-know proponents and opponents.

Virtue ethics or virtue-based ethics is considered to be a normative theory which is perceived to be of vital necessity in the revival of moral values in this declining age of modernism and the emergence of post-modernism, with the failure of its moral theories to propose a new model for the salvation of human beings. In an age of moral estrangement and chilling moral conscience which is, in fact, the consequence of mutilating the truth of humanity, the necessity of moral virtues and the significance of human fulfillment reaches its climax. Casting a glance at virtue ethics, the present article seeks to explore the nature of virtue ethics, its geographical position and its course of development throughout the history. Differing statements regarding virtue ethics, though they have some points in common, develop various views that are of significance in understanding and explaining virtue ethics and its practical consequences.

Science and ethics have always had a special status. Usually it is imagined that the players in the field of the sciences, i.e., scientists, in their own area restrict themselves to what is, and with regard to what should be, they are indifferent. This view inevitably leads to the thesis of the neutrality of science with regard to values. The author of this article offers another thesis. On the basis of his thesis, problems of value, especially moral problems, are tied to scientific research. One who would trim science of values in order to beautify it, falls into error with regard to the essence of scientific research. Scientific research cannot be done without attention to problems of ethics and values. Thus, a solution to this problem must be sought, rather than ignoring it, or keeping it hidden. Examples of this attention are presented in this article.

In this paper the question of the semantics of God's attributes is examined from the viewpoint of Mulla Sadra. The great Muslim phisosopher relying on ontology and its relevant principles deals with the God's attributes. Invoking principles of homonymy (Eshterake maanavi) and the gradation of being (tashkik wujud) equivocation of the existence, he shows the ideas of anthropomorphism and absolute purity are wrong and explains that existence is applied to the creator and creature in a gradation manner. He also interprets the attributes of beauty in the light of the nature of the existence and the identity of its qualities with its essence and they are like the existence, common and equivocal and understandable by human reason.

Among the achievements of ideational theory, one can refer to the search for the fallacies which have filled the whole history of philosophy. The main conflict between solipsism which is recounted to be the most extreme branch of idealism and realism grounded in ideational theory finds a novel solution which is touched upon by Wittgenstein. The denial of the objective world from the perspective of solipsism has its roots in the confusion between the two differing roles of language, two separate aspects of the subject and the limits of scientific and philosophical discourses. Through careful analysis, one can show that the ideal solipsism is looking for cannot be expressed and insufficient attention to the distinction between the subjective mode and the existential mode of subject and improper appealing to empirical knowledge can lead to the denial of reality. If we observe the distinction consciously, solipsism will come to terms with realism. Statements involving mental acts like "Ahmad believes that Hassan won something." can be shown through careful analysis not to be a good reason for the violation of the principle of universality but to clarify vague or ambiguous statements which can be reduced to empirical or psychological statements having no philosophical significance or construed to necessarily true tautologies which are undoubtedly pseudo-proposition which have nothing to do with idealism.

The present paper is devoted to the phenomenon of "presupposition" and its variants. This Phenomenon has alluded generations of linguists. In the same vein, it has drawn the attention of logicians in view of their interest in the expansion of the first-rank predicate logic and the development of the second-rank predicate logic. This paper is purported to address the concept of presupposition and to analyze its nature from both logical and linguistic vantage-points.