Ethics Morality and religion
Moral philosophy is a field of values. What constitutes values is a form of information no matter what its resource is. Value cannot be formed without knowledge. Human beings produce and practice value based on his knowledge. A knowing person builds a solid ground for his purpose of existence, nurtures it with mental, experiential and intuitional principals, knows what is good, correct and virtuous and practices this knowledge in his life.
Aristotle says that “…and in general it is a sign of the man who knows and of the man who does not know, that the former can teach….” ( Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book I (A) Part I, 981ab.)
The relationship between knowledge and practice in Islamic thought means the one who practices what he knows and who demonstrates the holism of knowledge and action; it emphasizes that, knowledge gives responsibility to the knowledgeable and the knowledgeable are distinguished. Emphasizing the difference between the knowing and non-knowing in Qur’anic approach is significant in this respect (Zümer, 39/9; Fâtır, 35/28.)
While emphasizing the believer and exerciser in its systematic, Qur’an states that human has the power to put something into execution and action is necessary.
When our actions are at stake, we give answers to the questions of what we should do, what should we choose, as we should do what we believe is true, what we see, believe, feel and experience. We can come across these answers in moral philosophy reasoning processes.
It is possible to increase the number of these answers, but we should note that the statement ‘good’ here is the synonym of “what is beneficial”, “what is rational” and “what is beautiful”. We decide on what is ‘good’ after reaching a level of knowledge at the end of an evaluation process. There is similar change in the information level of the value of ‘goodness’ which we determine in terms of its relations with objects.
In the frame of the definition that Islamic ethics is a compassion for all of the creatures and it is a respect for the Creator, production and consumption processes involves sensitivity in terms of effect and interaction processes rather than an automation process.
Which resources of the basic priorities and principles of Professional Ethics[1] give it the power of sanction?
I believe that we haven’t been able to exactly locate the relation between piety and ethics as a society. Resource of religion or ethics is often discussed in different environments. The question of “What is the resource of ethics, is it religion? Or, is religion free from ethics?” are some other significant questions leading to interesting issues. Without referring to these questions, it should be emphasized that, ethics makes its presence felt in religion while the most magical word used to increase the orbit of a religion is ‘ethics’.