Psychology and Ethical Epistemology

We examine a hitherto unstudied debate, turning on the epistemology of value judgements, between Ashʿarīs and Baṣran Muʿtazilīs of the late eleventh and twelfth centuries. Al-Ghazālī and al-Rāzī countered Muʿtazilī ethical realism, here defended by al-Malāḥimī, by developing an emotive subjectivism underpinned by increasingly sophisticated psychological accounts of ethical motivation. Value judgements, they maintained, arise not from knowledge of some ethical attributes of acts themselves, but from subjective inclinations, which are often elusive because they can be unconscious or indirect. We also argue against the widespread notion that Ashʿarīs espoused an anti-rationalist ethics, and we show that they were not only ethical rationalists, but also the more innovative side in this debate.

New Perspectives on Ethics in Islam [whole issue]

Complete volume, containing all articles CONTENTS Introduction: Feriel Bouhafa, Towards New Perspectives on Ethics in Islam: Casuistry, Contingency, and Ambiguity I. Islamic Philosophy and Theology Feriel Bouhafa, The Dialectics of Ethics: Moral Ontology and Epistemology in Islamic Philosophy Frank Griffel, The Place of Virtue Ethics within the Post-Classical Discourse on ḥikma: Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s al-Nafs wa-l-rūḥ wa-sharḥ quwāhumā Ayman Shihadeh, Psychology and Ethical Epistemology: An Ashʿarī Debate with Muʿtazilī Ethical Realism, 11th-12th C. Hannah C. Erlwein, The Moral Obligation to Worship God Alone: Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Analysis in the Tafsīr Anna Ayse Akasoy, Philosophy in the Narrative Mode: Alexander the Great as an Ethical Character from Roman to Medieval Islamicate Literature II. Islamic Jurisprudence Ziad Bou Akl, From Norm Evaluation to Norm Construction: The Metaethical Origin of al-Ghazālī’s Radical Infallibilism Felicitas Opwis, The Ethical Turn in Legal Analogy: Imbuing the Ratio Legis with Maṣlaḥa Robert Gleave, Moral Assessments and Legal Categories: The Relationship between Rational Ethics and Revealed Law in Post-Classical Imāmī Shīʿī Legal Theory Omar Farahat, Moral Value and Commercial Gain: Three Classical Islamic Approaches III Hadith, Quran, and Adab Mutaz al-Khatib, Consult Your Heart: The Self as a Source of Moral Judgment Tareq Moqbel, “As Time Grows Older, the Qurʾān Grows Younger”: The Ethical Function of Ambiguity in Qurʾānic Narratives Enass Khansa, Can Reading Animate Justice? A Conversation from Alf Layla wa-Layla (The Thousand and One Nights) Nuha AlShaar, The Interplay of Religion and Philosophy in al-Tawḥīdī’s Political Thought and Practical Ethics William Ryle Hodges, Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s Notion of Political Adab: Ethics as a Virtue of Modern Citizenship in Late 19th Century Khedival Egypt

Ethical realism before social constructionism

In this article, I explore the idea that there is a fundamental ethical aspect that precedes social constructionism. I suggest that within social constructionism we can identify a development from seeing knowledge as socially constructed ( epistemological social constructionism) to seeing not only knowledge, but also corporeal ways of being as socially constructed ( ontological social constructionism). As a next step, I propose incorporating what I refer to as ethical realism in social constructionist perspectives. In the encounter with the other human being, I argue that there is a real ethical impulse that precedes social constructionism and puts it in motion. This impulse is real in the sense that it is neither constructed within, nor is it dependent upon, any particular social–cultural–historical context. In this paper I consider the ethical aspects of human encounters that allow for a constructionist epistemology and ontology to emerge in the first place. I make use of ideas from Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Rancière and consider how these thinkers are used in the work of Gert Biesta. The ideas are discussed in relation to findings from a previous study by the author and his colleagues exploring the experiences of adolescents taking part in mental health services.

Ethics without theory? On advantages of the Pyrrhonian over the dogmatic way of life.

The paper discusses two interrelated problems pertaining to the Pyrrhonian way of life. We try to rise to the challenge and play devil’s advocate, arguing from the skeptical point of view. The first part portrays a reconstruction of central skeptical arguments against the dogmatic ethics that attack some epistemological, metaphysical and ethical issues of the central dogmatic concept “the good by nature”. The second part considers the arguments suggested by G. Striker and R. Bett who claim that the sceptic cannot have ethics nor be an ethical agent. Against it, we try to formulate minimal conditions for ethics without theory, namely, the conceptual ability to distinguish between “right” and “wrong” actions grounded upon the notion of “private good” and the skeptical criteria for actions. This is made possible by relativizing the criteria of the ethical and connecting it with the customs and traditions of a given community. Though Pyrrhonism is quite different from ethical relativism or ethical realism, a striking comparison to H. Putnam’s ethical approach is drawn at the end of the paper.

Living Freely before God

Chapter 6 outlines the main features of Bonhoeffer’s Christian Humanist ethics. Bonhoeffer’s ethical realism and rejection of moralistic legalism is based on ethics defined as participation in Christ whose incarnation and person structure reality as a whole. The chapter begins by showing that the personal and eschatological structure of this Christological realism exonerates Bonhoeffer from the charge of collapsing reality into Christ. The next section delineates the goal of Bonhoeffer’s ethics as Christformation with its essential aspects of renewal into the divine image through the work of the Holy Spirit, through ecclesial communion, through Christian action in the world, and by means of the sedimentation of Christian virtues in cultural traditions. Next, the chapter takes up from the previous one the hermeneutic element of discernment in describing ethics with Bonhoeffer as realistic responsible action. Realistic responsible action denotes the call to action in response to concrete circumstances within a creation oriented toward Christ. Such realistic action includes the risk of freedom along with the assumption of guilt. Realistic responsible action explains the meaning of this famous and often misunderstood concept of guilt bearing in Bonhoeffer rooted in his sacramental, participatory ontology. The chapter ends with a summative description of Bonhoeffer’s Humanist ethics as living freely before God.