نوع مقاله : مقاله پژوهشی
تازه های تحقیق
Extended abstract
1. Introduction
One of the most persistent and foundational quandaries in normative ethics—spanning both Western and Islamic philosophical traditions—is the problem of moral action under conditions of radical uncertainty. In real-world practical scenarios, moral agents frequently encounter normative opacity: the objective moral reality of a situation (defined ontologically as an action’s intrinsic relation to teleological human perfection and true flourishing) remains epistemicly inaccessible. In such circumstances, conventional normative frameworks face acute theoretical challenges. Deontological ethics, anchored in rigid, universal rules (e.g., the absolute prohibition against lying), tends toward an impractical dogmatism when confronted with irreconcilable value conflicts. Conversely, consequentialism, which identifies moral worth strictly with anticipated outcomes, collapses under uncertainty due to the impossibility of exhaustively calculating long-term consequences; furthermore, it systematically marginalizes the agent’s intrinsic moral quality (ḥusn fā‘ilī).
In Shiʿite legal theology (uṣūl al-fiqh), a parallel dilemma is formulated concerning the epistemic authority of defeasible or conjectural evidence (al-amārāt al-ẓanniyyah), such as solitary reliable reports (khabar al-wāḥid) or the rational practice of the wise (sīrat al-‘uqalā’). Known historically as "Ibn Qubba’s puzzle" (shubhat Ibn Qubba), this theological skepticism queries: How can normative adherence to a fallible conjecture—which inherently risks diverging from objective reality—be reconciled with divine wisdom, justice, and teleology without committing a contradiction of divine purpose (naqḍ al-gharaḍ)?
Shaykh Murtaḍā al-Anṣārī (1214–1281 AH) formulated a groundbreaking resolution through his doctrine of al-Maṣlaḥah al-Sulūkīyah (the compensatory expediency of conduct). He argued that the agent’s conscientious, procedural adherence (al-sulūk al-ta‘abbudī)—that is, the internal and practical commitment to follow a pathway sanctioned by the Lawgiver—possesses an independent, compensatory good (maṣlaḥah jibrānīyah). Consequently, even if the conjecture fails to track objective reality (al-wāqi‘), the agent's procedural and devoted engagement is ontologically and normatively meritorious, warranting divine justification and reward.
The central thesis and novel contribution of this study lie in the conceptual reverse-engineering and transposition of al-Anṣārī’s doctrine into contemporary applied ethics. The paper investigates whether the triadic internal logic of al-Maṣlaḥah al-Sulūkīyah—the reality-appearance distinction (wāqi‘ vs. ẓāhir), the autonomous valuation of procedural conduct (sulūk), and the compensatory mechanism (tadarruk)—can provide an independent meta-ethical foundation for the "rational justification of moral action under uncertainty." While existing literature has largely confined al-Anṣārī’s model to intra-jurisprudential debates or maintained a general comparison between law and ethics, this inquiry systematically reconstructs the doctrine into a freestanding, process-oriented normative ethical framework.
2. Methods
This study adopts an interdisciplinary, analytical-comparative methodology implemented across five systematic phases:
1. Textual and Doctrinal Reconstruction: Drawing directly from al-Anṣārī’s magnum opus, Farā’id al-Uṣūl, and his lecture transcripts in Maṭāriḥ al-Anẓār, the operative concepts of "reality" (wāqi‘), "indicant" (amārah), "conduct" (sulūk), and "compensatory good" (maṣlaḥah jibrānīyah) were critically dissected. The analysis demonstrates that al-Anṣārī’s solution rejects both pure instrumentalism/pathway theory (al-ṭarīqīyah al-maḥḍah—mere legal excusability) and radical constructivism/causality (al-sababīyah al-maḥḍah—ontological alteration of reality), identifying instead an autonomous value inherent in the secondary consideration (al-‘unwān al-thānawī) of procedural obedience.
2. Philosophical Grounding via Transcendent Philosophy: To transpose this juridical structure into ethics, the study grounds the framework in Mullā Ṣadrā’s al-Ḥikmah al-Muta‘āliyah. Under Ṣadrian realism, moral qualities (ḥusn and qubḥ) are not arbitrary cultural conventions but existential attributes rooted in an action's ontological relation to human perfection and substantial flourishing. This establishes an objective "moral reality" indispensable for distinguishing reality from epistemic appearance in ethics.
3. Systematic Conceptual Mapping: The primary juridical components were systematically translated into moral philosophy:
- Shar‘ī Reality: Objective Moral Reality (an act's ontological relation to existential perfection).
- Amārah (Defeasible Indicant): Valid Moral Conjecture (the outcome of rigorous applied moral reasoning / ethical ijtihād).
- Devotional Conduct (Sulūk): Moral Conduct (existential commitment to act upon valid conjecture to actualize virtue and participate in goodness).
- Compensatory Expediency: Compensatory Agentic Moral Worth (ḥusn fā‘ilī) / Rational Justification.
4. Applied Case-Study Analysis: The framework was tested against two classical ethical dilemmas: the "necessity of deceptive speech (white lie) to preserve an innocent life" and "emergency medical triage under severe ICU resource scarcity."
5. Critical Benchmarking and Defense: The reconstructed model was comparatively evaluated against Kantian deontology and act-consequentialism, followed by a rigorous philosophical defense against the charges of moral relativism and epistemic subjectivism.
3. Findings
The investigation yielded several critical theoretical results:
- Formulation of the Principle of Rational Justification: The study articulates a concrete normative principle for practical decision-making:
Under epistemic uncertainty regarding objective moral reality, whenever an agent attains a "valid moral conjecture" through structured practical reasoning and acts with genuine "moral conduct," that action possesses full rational justification; the agent's intrinsic agentic worth (ḥusn fā‘ilī) ontologically compensates for any inadvertent divergence from objective moral reality (qubḥ fi‘lī).
- Epistemic Derivation of "Valid Moral Conjecture": Unlike unreflective intuition or subjective guesswork, a valid moral conjecture is formalized as the output of rigorous ethical reasoning (ijtihād akhlāqī) integrating three sources: (a) the rational consensus of the wise (sīrat al-‘uqalā’) as an empirical marker of collective practical wisdom; (b) ontological cost-benefit analysis of existential harms and perfections; and (c) adherence to a rational hierarchy of intrinsic values.
- Ontological Grounding of "Moral Conduct": Informed by Ṣadrian substantial motion (al-ḥarakah al-jawhariyyah) and dispositional habitus (malakah), moral conduct is shown to transcend external physical output; it represents the soul's intentional self-determination toward the rational good. Consequently, what appears in jurisprudence as a divinely enacted legal compensation (ja‘l shar‘ī) translates in ethics into the intrinsic ontological elevation of the soul.
- A Process-Oriented "Third Way": The model avoids both the rigid universalism of absolute deontology (by incorporating situational reasoning and dynamic prioritization) and the teleological reductionism of consequentialism (by decoupling moral justification from post-facto empirical outcomes).
- Refutation of Moral Relativism: The paper demonstrates that because objective moral reality remains singular, realist, and immutable, the divergence of valid epistemic conjectures does not imply ontological relativism. The model strictly demarcates epistemic justification under uncertainty from ontological correctness.
- Explicit Scope Limitations: The framework explicitly identifies its boundary conditions: it applies solely to genuine zones of uncertainty (not self-evident moral truths), presumes an agent with sound dispositions (salāmat al-fiṭrah), condemns epistemic negligence, and requires external deliberative mechanisms (such as institutional consensus or consultation) to settle interpersonal social conflicts.
4. Conclusions
The study confirms that classical Islamic legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh) possesses profound generative capacities for addressing contemporary ethical dilemmas. Reinterpreting al-Anṣārī’s doctrine of al-Maṣlaḥah al-Sulūkīyah yields an autonomous, realist, and process-oriented framework that bridges the divide between internal agentic intentionality and external normativity. By demonstrating how agent-relative moral worth provides rational justification under uncertainty, this model provides actionable, philosophically rigorous guidance for contemporary challenges in biomedical ethics, institutional governance, and professional practice.
Key References (Selected & Romanized)
Al-Anṣārī, M. (1383 AH). Maṭāriḥ al-Anẓār (2nd ed.). Qom: Majma‘ al-Fikr al-Islāmī.
Al-Anṣārī, M. (1428 AH). Farā’id al-Uṣūl (9th ed.). Qom: Majma‘ al-Fikr al-Islāmī.
Frankena, W. K. (2013). Ethics (H. Sadeqī, Trans., 4th ed.). Qom: Taha Publications.
Gholāmrezā’ī, J., A‘rāfī, A., & Sulṭānī, S. Z. (2023). The mutual interaction of jurisprudence and ethics in establishing the ‘ethics of jurisprudence’. Akhlāq-i Vaḥyānī, 13(1), 151–185.
Hāshimī, S. A. (2023). A systematic reformulation of al-Maṣlaḥah al-Sulūkīyah with a theological and doctrinal approach. Pajūhishhā-yi Uṣūlī, 6(6), 129–154.
Kant, I. (1999). Lectures on Ethics (M. Ṣāni‘ī Darrah-Bīdī, Trans.). Tehran: Naqsh-o-Negār.
Miṣbāḥ Yazdī, M. T. (2005). A Critical Examination of Ethical Schools. Qom: Imam Khomeini Educational and Research Institute.
Mirṣāni‘, S. M. B. (2023). A feasibility study on formulating constitutive rulings (aḥkām waḍ‘īyah) in ethics. Pajūhishnāmah-i Akhlāq, 16(60), 7–28.
Muḥammadī Munfard, B. (2013). Moral realism with an emphasis on Ṣadrian thought. Pajūhishnāmah-i Akhlāq, 6(19), 99–118.
Mullā Ṣadrā, M. (1981). Al-Ḥikmah al-Muta‘āliyah fī al-Asfār al-‘Aqliyyah al-Arba‘ah (3rd ed.). Beirut: Dār Iḥyā’ al-Turāth al-‘Arabī.
عنوان مقاله English
نویسنده English
This research, aiming to address the dilemma of ‘moral action under conditions of uncertainty,’ employs an analytical-comparative and interdisciplinary method to reinterpret and re-conceptualize Sheikh Al-Ansari’s theory of al-Maslahat al-Sulūkīyah within the domain of applied ethics. The central question is: Can the model of ‘devotional conduct’ based on ‘valid conjecture,’ proposed in jurisprudence to justify apparent rulings, serve as the theoretical foundation for the rational justification of moral action under conditions of uncertainty? The findings indicate that, by relying on the foundations of moral realism in Mullā Ṣadrā’s Transcendent Wisdom, the key concepts of this theory can be transposed into the realm of ethics. In the proposed model, ‘moral reality’ equates to existential perfection, ‘valid moral conjecture’ is the outcome of a rational process of ethical reasoning, and ‘moral conduct’ signifies the intention to commit to this conjecture with the aim of participating in goodness and realizing virtuous disposition in the soul. Action based on these two pillars, under conditions of uncertainty, enjoys rational justification and compensatory moral goodness. The article’s innovation lies in presenting this conduct-centric model for problem-solving in applied ethics which, on one hand, avoids relativism by emphasizing rational moral goodness, and on the other, distances itself from the rigidity of absolute deontology and the reductionism of consequentialism by making the justification criterion process-oriented. This theory provides an Islamic and rational response to ambiguous moral situations in practical fields such as medical ethics, media ethics, and management.
کلیدواژهها English
