Course Overview
Course Subject: Jurisprudence of Ethics
Instructor: Sayyid Ṭāhir Ghaffārī
Day and Time: Thursdays, 10-11 a.m.
Location: No. 3, 39th Alley, Chāhār Mardān St., Qom, Iran
Course in Social Media: https://eitaa.com/mabahesghaffari
About the Course
Knowledge and precise definition of the jurisprudence of ethics is very important as it is an emerging field. The duties of human beings in the field of moral issues, compared to religious laws related to the acts of worship and transactions, have been extracted and compiled in a less specialized manner, and sometimes they have been neglected and mainly entrusted to the knowledge of ethics. Therefore, there are some conflicts and inadequacies in some moral issues. In order to solve this problem, it is necessary to adhere to the jurisprudence of ethics and to apply ijtihād in ethical issues. Based on this, explaining the jurisprudence of ethics and its foundations and limits, in the framework of religious and jurisprudential teachings, becomes more important. In this way, the relationship between jurisprudence and ethics is presented and it should be properly explained so that the place of the jurisprudence of ethics is clarified. Thus, under it, it is possible to solve various issues of ethical jurisprudence and to provide a basis for jurisprudential examination of moral qualities and behaviors based on jurisprudential foundations.
The jurisprudence of ethics in the general sense is the application of ijtihādī methods in ethics. Based on this, the jurist tries to infer and explain ethical propositions by referring to jurisprudential sources and draw the frameworks and systems of ethical knowledge based on Islamic thought. But the jurisprudence of ethics in its special sense does not only mean deducing the laws with the method of ijtihād; rather its goal is to make ethics religious and to be placed in the light of Islamic teachings, and for this purpose, it uses religious sources in ethics in the manner of ijtihād. Thus, in the general sense, ethics is a system of human values, and jurisprudence means a methodical understanding of the sources of religion, but in the special sense, ethics is not limited to jurisprudential laws, but attention is also paid to the application of inferential methods in the field of ethics.
The jurisprudence of ethics in its special sense is divided into two parts: the field of attributes and the field of behavior. The field of attributes includes qualities of the soul, a part of which includes personal traits. Accordingly, jurisprudence can discuss about the laws related to acquiring, removing, reducing, or increasing these traits like other optional behaviors. The second field is moral behaviors that are discussed in the science of ethics. These behaviors have a very wide range and some of them can be included in the chapters of jurisprudence. For instance, family behaviors can be examined in family jurisprudence, appropriate organizational behaviors in management jurisprudence, and appropriate judgment behaviors in judicial jurisprudence. Based on this, the jurisprudence of moral behavior can be examined in three parts of religious, individual and social relations.
According to Sayyid Ṭāhir Ghaffārī in the first session of his advanced course on the jurisprudence of ethics, the subject of this course in 2023 is the moral vice of ʿujb (self-conceit, self-admiration, a feeling of exaggeration of one’s virtues and good deeds, their overestimation and satisfaction with them, accompanied with a sense of superiority on their account. A person with ‘ujb considers himself free from all shortcomings and faults), which will be examined based on jurisprudential sources and the method of ijtihād. This issue is important in two ways: one is that it is common and many people, even righteous people, sometimes suffer from it, and the second is that its destructive effects in this world and the hereafter are many.
