Islamic Philosophy

This paper raises a moral issue for contemporary post-revolutionary Muslim intellectuals in Iran. According to traditional Islamic philosophers such as Al-Ghazali, ethics, following what Prophet Mohammed said, must transcend people form this mundane world. If this is so, ethics would need to teach people how improve their virtues i.e., virtue normative theory. Most of contemporary Muslim intellectuals tried to pave the way for accomplishing this goal. After clarifying the ways in which new Muslim intellectuals have faith in virtue ethics as a best possible moral normative theory, I claim that virtue ethics (and to some extent deontologism) fails to support some of our modern problems such as human right. Also, we argue that virtue ethics is not a good theory for ordinary average people who have weakness of will. A preliminary conclusion of the paper will be that Utilitariansim, generally, and principle of utility, specifically, can do this job better. This, we think, has been over looked from the eyes of new Muslim intellectuals. Yet, we suggest that among different versions of Utilitarianism, Rule-Utilitarianism is more justified to do that.

در فلسفه‌ و کلام‌ اسلامى‌ واژة اعتباری‌ کاربرد پردامنه‌ای‌ دارد. ظاهراً جز شهاب‌الدین‌ سهروردی‌ (از متقدمان‌) و محمدحسین‌ طباطبایى‌ (از متأخران‌)، کسى‌ فصلى‌ مستقل‌ در تبیین‌ اعتباریات‌ و چگونگی تمایز آن­ها‌ با دیگر مفاهیم‌ نگشوده‌ است‌. در مقالة حاضر، ذیل عنوان اعتباریات، فلسفة اخلاق طباطبایی به بحث گذاشته شده و از سه منظر وجود شناختی، دلالت شناختی و معرفت شناختی بررسی شده است. در نهایت نیز برای درک بهتر موضع طباطبایی، اشتراک و افتراق فلسفة اخلاق وی با فلسفة اخلاق لودیگ ویتگنشتاین طرح شده است.

In this paper, we are going to discuss Mohammad
Hossein Tabatabaie’s mo
ral  framework, as a controversial Islamic philosopher, in his The Principles of  Philosophy and the Realist Method and Al-Mizan fi Tafsir al-
Qur’an. In order to do
that, we shall explore the metaphysical, epistemological and semantical aspects of his framework and it is shown that his attempts demonstrate that he was a genuine thinker in the sense that the implications of his ideas - which challenges some Islamic laws -does not play a crucial role in his way of thinking and philosophising. We are inclined to conclude that although Tabatabaie is a Muslim and
a commentator of the Qur’an,
he has some moral ideas which sound idiosyncratic according to the majority of  Muslim scholars. However, this does not entail that these ideas must be marginalised.These controversies between Muslim scholars, we think, have to be considered and  supported in Islamic educational academies. These idiosyncratic ideas need to bediscussed and talked about in Islamic academies instead of being ignored and rejected. Preparing environment for having dialogue between Islamic scholars withdifferent ideas is a significant key for educational prosperity of Islamic academies.