Morteza Tabatabaei

Martin Heidegger is among the first philosophers to have deeply engaged with the question of technology. At the same time, he faces the criticism that he failed to offer a clear solution for properly confronting this phenomenon of modernity, limiting himself instead to a phenomenological and detached examination of it. The central question now is whether a practical solution for better engaging with technology can be derived from Heidegger’s thought and way of life; and if so, what components would such a solution entail? In this study, by examining some of Heidegger’s most significant works addressing technology—and considering his own life and personal encounters with modern technology—we have concluded that, firstly, this German thinker has put forward numerous value-laden perspectives regarding both technology in general and specific forms thereof; consequently, it is entirely feasible to derive prescriptions and proscriptions for the proper engagement with technology from his intellectual framework. Secondly, we have outlined—supported by relevant evidence—some of the key components of his ethics of technology, whether explicitly emphasized by him or inferred from his words and actions.

Virtue is one of the fundamental concepts in Aristotle’s moral philosophy, and understanding it paves the way for comprehending and evaluating his ethical system. Saint Thomas, Aristotle’s greatest medieval follower, also approaches this concept in a manner seemingly similar to Aristotle’s, yet with the distinction that he imbues it with a transcendent meaning alongside its original sense. The central question, then, concerns the place of virtue within Aristotle’s ethical system and whether the meaning of virtue in Thomas’s intellectual framework is precisely the same as the Aristotelian one. Given that Aristotle offers a human, worldly, and rational definition of happiness, the good, and virtue—while Thomas struggles to reconcile these concepts with his own Christian-philosophical framework—this study aims to address these questions. Also, at the end, we briefly review the words of both philosophers.

Whenever we are discussing the nature of faith, we often have a classification based on the object of faith. Accordingly, faith is generally either propositional or non-propositional. It means that if faith belongs to one or several propositions, its nature is also propositional and a kind of knowledge. But if the object of faith is a real thing or person, the nature of faith is related to such feelings as affection, and loyalty. Through examining the prerequisites of this distinction, the following study intends to show that this classification has some formal and logical problems. Secondly, it is not strong and qualified enough to clarify the nature of faith. The second part of the article classifies faith according to the soul aspects into three groups of evidential, volitional, and emotional faith. Later, it provides some examples of Christian and Moslem philosophers and theologians' ideas regarding every kind of faith. Consequently, the paper comes to this result that determining the nature of faith based on soul aspects is a much more defensible choice than classifying based on the object of faith.

This paper is going to introduce and compare Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Andrew Feenberg’s views on technology, and speak of their different solutions to get rid of the problems of modern technology. And finally, it presents a strategy which is approved by both of them and helps us to deal with technology better. The order of the issues discussed in the article is as follows: firstly, their discussions with regard to the technology in three areas of “nature of the modern technology”, “its pathology”, and “the proposed solution to deal with its problems” will separately be presented; secondly, their views are compared and their common points as well as their differences in the three areas and in general are pointed out; and eventually, a consensual solution to encounter this modern phenomenon better is provided. Nasr believes that modern technology after industrial revolution is essentially different from traditional technology. Unlike traditional technology, modern technology has a secular humanistic value orientation, has a close relationship with modern dominating science, and has cut off its relationship with art. This technology has done a lot of damages to the human in three areas of individual life, social life, and environment including the decline of creativity and skill, dullness and boredom, the increase of greediness and consumerism, and the emergence of spiritual crisis (individual life), population explosion, and the intensification of global poverty along with the social class gap (social life), air pollution, global warming, extinction of many animal species, and abusing the animals for medical experiments (environment). To encounter this modern …

This paper examines modern technology not merely as a collection of tools and processes but as a philosophical problem concerning the nature, value, and existential orientation of humankind. The study aims to reconstruct a coherent conceptual framework for analyzing four principal responses to technology—resistance, critical passivity, reform and substitution, and support and advancement—and to evaluate them in light of three fundamental propositions: (1) the overall harmfulness of modern technology, (2) whether technological harms are intrinsic or incidental, and (3) the human possibility of resisting technological expansion. The methodology combines conceptual analysis, argumentative evaluation, and comparative study of major contemporary positions, focusing especially on representative thinkers such as Martin Heidegger,, Andrew Feenberg, Theodore Kaczynski, Ray Kurzweil, and proponents of traditionalist schools. The findings indicate that each of the four approaches rests upon a distinct set of philosophical and value-laden assumptions, and that the proposed tripartite criterion enables a more precise differentiation of technological policies. Furthermore, the study argues that the deepest divergences stem from competing conceptions of the autonomous human being and its relation to nature and the technical order. In conclusion, the paper proposes the conceptual and ethical conditions necessary for a potential rapprochement among these perspectives and outlines the research requirements for developing a reliable medium-term strategy toward technology.

This article analyzes one of the most important metaethical challenges to negative utilitarianism, focusing on Ninian Smart's argument for the destruction of the world. Smart shows that if the ultimate goal of morality is only to reduce suffering, then the complete elimination of suffering through the destruction of life can ultimately be justified, a result that is inconsistent with moral intuition. In this study, while examining the responses of defenders of negative utilitarianism, it is shown that they rely solely on practical or psychological obstacles in the logic of destruction and therefore completely deny the essence of the argument, namely the possibility of slipping from reduction to destruction. The article continues by examining historical and everyday examples of the “slippery slope from reduction to elimination” to show that such a tendency is real and dangerous, and at the very least needs to be taken seriously. Finally, it is suggested that negative utilitarianism be accompanied by complementary principles such as the right to life and attention to priorities in order to avoid slipping into an “ethics of destruction.”

The present study, using an analytical-comparative approach, examines the relationship between moral development and moral responsibility in three prominent theoretical traditions: developmental psychology (focusing on the theories of Piaget and Kohlberg), moral deontology (based on Kant's practical philosophy), and Islamic innate ethics (based on the views of Allameh Tabataba'i and Ayatollah Javadi Amoli). The main goal of the study is to design an applied model for the moral education of adolescents by combining the theoretical foundations of these schools. The findings show that each school has a different conceptual precedence: developmental psychology considers moral responsibility to be the result of cognitive-social development; Kant introduces responsibility as a prerequisite for moral development; and Islam sees responsibility as arising from divine nature and revelational guidance. The innovation of the study lies in synthesizing these perspectives and presenting a three-level model that includes cognitive-social development, rational autonomy, and guidance of spiritual nature. By combining external methods and internalizing ethics, this model provides a theoretical and practical infrastructure for raising a responsible, ethical, and insightful generation.

The ideal legislator in this study is one who upholds propriety, ethics, and the principles of legislation. This study examines the ethical foundations of legislation through Imām al-Shāṭibī’s theory of Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah. By emphasizing the five objectives—preservation of religion, life, intellect, lineage, and property—al-Shāṭibī formulates a moral and rational framework that places legislation in service of the public good. His distinction between devotional acts and transactions, acceptance of analogy in rational matters, and differentiation between Meccan and Medinan revelations establish a dynamic balance between fixed and adaptable Sharīʿah principles. Grounded in the precedence of revelation over reason, al-Shāṭibī views lawmaking as an ethical process bound by divine limits and human welfare. This perspective offers valuable guidance for contemporary Islamic legislation amid technological, social …

Punishment, its justification, and the relationship between punishment and justice are important topics in moral philosophy and jurisprudence. In this article, first, the definition of retributivism and its purpose are stated, and then the theories of Shatibi and Jeremy Bentham regarding punishment are presented. After a comparative discussion, the objections against the utilitarian school regarding punishment are mentioned. In Bentham's utilitarianism, punishment itself causes suffering unless its benefit outweighs its harm. It is desirable to punish when it brings the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people, even if it causes injustice. Based on Shatabi's criminalism, the criminal must be punished. One of the most important reasons is the deterrence of punishment. If it does not cause deterrence in rare situations, he should still be punished; Because it may have ingredients that are hidden from us. Through Shatibi's retributive theory, which operates based on rules, objections are raised against Bentham's retributive theory, which proceeds based on utilitarianism, including the issue of justice being called into question in punishment. Additionally, three major differences between Shatibi's purposes of Sharia and Bentham's utilitarian retributivism are discussed, which in a way demonstrate the strength and superiority of the purposes of Sharia over utilitarianism. The first difference is the temporal criteria for benefit. The second difference is the confinement of pleasure to material pleasures in utilitarianism, while the purposes of Sharia consider both material and spiritual pleasures. The third difference is that in utilitarianism, the consideration of …

The theory of Jismāniyyat al-Ḥudūth wa Rūḥāniyyat al-Baqā’(corporeal origination and spiritual subsistence) in Mulla Sadra’s philosophy is one of the most fundamental perspectives in explaining the nature and evolution of the soul. This theory dynamically explains the relationship between matter and form, holding that the human soul originates as a material phenomenon but ascends to a spiritual, immaterial level in its developmental process. In contrast, emergentism in contemporary philosophy of mind and science argues that new qualitative properties such as mind and consciousness emerge from the complex interaction of material components and possess causal efficacy irreducible to their physical bases. The present article provides a comparative analysis of Mulla Sadra’s theory within the framework of emergentism, identifying key similarities and differences. It further examines the metaphysical and epistemological foundations of both views, assessing their relevance to contemporary debates in philosophy of mind and artificial intelligence. Additionally, the present article offers a distinction between physical and immaterial consciousness based on Sadra’s view.

This article provides a systematic review of a wide range of leading theories in evolutionary ethics—including kin selection, reciprocal altruism, group selection, evolutionary intuitionism, and the evolution of empathy—while offering a critical evaluation of their foundations, contributions, and especially their fundamental shortcomings in fully accounting for the complex phenomenon of human morality. The central issue addressed is the insufficiency of standard evolutionary accounts in responding to the existential and teleological questions of ethics—particularly the deeper question of why human beings possess a fundamental need to ‘generate morality’ beyond mere mechanisms of survival and adaptation. The article argues that, despite their valuable insights into certain aspects of social behavior, these theories overlook cultural dimensions, the role of agency and volition, and, above all, the deeper existential roots of morality. This neglect leads to a reductive and ultimately inadequate account of ethics. The study concludes by emphasizing the necessity of moving beyond purely evolutionary explanations and attending to philosophical and existential approaches in order to attain a more comprehensive understanding of human morality.

The sexualization of ethics has been noticed mainly in the last two centuries and mostly by feminists who believe that Western ethics from the time of ancient Greece to the modern period has taken a male or patriarchal approach. At the same time after many feminist criticisms of this approach, not only was the gender perspective of ethics not completely rejected, but alternative approaches were proposed that have new gender strains classified under the five approaches: feminist ethics, female ethics, caring ethics, lesbian ethics and queer ethics. In this article, after introducing and reviewing these five gender approaches and comparing their similarities and differences, some criticisms will be raised about the principle of the gender approach to ethics and the challenges faced.

Considering the great ambiguity in the adjective “Modern” of the expression “Modern Technology”, the paper introduces and criticizes the dominant approach among scholars and critics of technology-which is an Absolutist Approach and holds that technology has a definite and constant nature-and then suggests a new approach, regarding modern in such a relative and applied sense that enjoys benefits of impartiality and efficiency in comparison with the absolutist one. It is worth mentioning that the threefold norms for modern quality of technology in the latter approach are acquired through anthropological bases and show that what changes and developments have been beared by Modern Technology, as taken it for man and near him. These distinctions have implications for thinkers in morality, psychology, sociology and anthropology to arrive at a better interpretation and understanding of modern mans behavior and give instructions for his intricate condition to be improved.

The present article examines the possibility of attributing personhood to artificial intelligence agents, a concept central to determining moral status. The debate on personhood has long been central in applied ethics, particularly in discussions on abortion, where philosophers such as Mary Anne Warren proposed five criteria—consciousness, reasoning, self-motivated activity, capacity for communication, and self-awareness—as key indicators of personhood. The present study applies these criteria to artificial intelligence systems and asks whether their cognitive and functional capacities are sufficient for moral consideration. While certain features such as memory, goal-directed behavior, and limited moral interaction are identifiable in some AI systems, the absence of self-awareness and subjective experience remains a fundamental obstacle to full personhood. The article further engages with the views of Kant, Locke, DeGrazia, and Searle, assessing the possibility of AI’s moral standing—whether direct or indirect—through ethical frameworks such as deontology and virtue ethics. It concludes that although attributing personhood to AI remains highly problematic in its current state, addressing this issue is an urgent necessity for contemporary moral philosophy.

Consciousness is one of the most fundamental yet complex issues in the philosophy of mind. Philosophers such as David Chalmers, by proposing the “hard problem of consciousness,” have distinguished between phenomenal consciousness and psychological consciousness. Ned Block has further refined this distinction by formulating it in terms of phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness. On the other hand, John Searle, by differentiating between the first-person and third-person perspectives, and Thomas Nagel, by emphasizing the subjective character of experience, have analyzed this duality from different angles. Although these classifications appear diverse, they all point to the fundamental distinction between inner experience and behavioral or cognitive capacities. The present article, focusing on this essential distinction, examines the question of whether artificial intelligence can possess phenomenal consciousness or merely exhibits psychological consciousness. Answering this question has significant philosophical and ethical implications, as phenomenal consciousness is directly linked to experiences of pain, pleasure, and suffering, and is considered a foundation for many moral rights. This study, adopting a descriptive-analytical approach, argues that the distinction between types of consciousness can serve as a basis for determining different degrees of moral status. For instance, beings endowed with access consciousness but lacking phenomenal experience may be entitled to functional autonomy, yet not to the right not to suffer. In contrast, infants and animals, due to their inner experience, are deemed deserving of the right not to suffer, even if they lack advanced cognitive abilities.

One of the methods of teaching ethics, which has recently attracted the attention of researchers in the field of ethics and education and has a long history in Islamic teachings, is teaching through games, the main purpose of this article is to explain it in detail and examine the capacities and advantages of this method; With the difference that in this article, our focus is not on a specific type or case of games, but on the absolute of collective games that do not necessarily have an ethical design. Therefore, in this article, by using inference and documental methods and using library resources, after reviewing the background of indirect methods of moral education, the game is defined and then, while enumerating a number of effective functions of the game in the moral improvement of the players, some advantages of this method over other training methods have been mentioned. Strengthening moral humility, balance between personal interest and collective interest, creating the capacity to win and finally the spirit of acceptance of failure are among the capacities of the game in moral education.

Ethics of using technology requires proper classification of technologies so that the ethical principles appropriate to the common characteristics of each major category of technology can be provided. Don Ihde in his post-phenomenological approach categorizes our relationship with technology into four categories of embodiment, hermeneutics, alterity, and background; hence, one can similarly classifies technologies based on their primary function. Accordingly, embodied technologies expand our perceptions; hermeneutical technologies refer to something other than themselves and are like a text open before us; technologies of alterity appear a human person before us; and the background technologies are engaged on the margin of our consciousness. This article intends to show that Ihde’s division is an appropriate foundation for the ethical issues, especially the ethics of using technology, because of its capacities such as its noticing the human relationship with his surrounding world, its including of old and new technologies, and its objectivity and neutrality. However, this division has its ambiguities and shortcomings, including the lack of collectivity and formal flaws. It seems that these shortcomings can be eliminated with a few reforms.

Aristotle and Spinoza, two influential philosophers in the history of philosophy, and the subject of their philosophy is Johar. is, by comparing the properties of essence from his point of view, the root of many differences in the great part of Western philosophy is catching up. It is worth noting that these two philosophers have similarities with the definition of essence They also have; But they differ a lot about its features and examples. Study of Aristotle's opinions in The two books Organon and Metaphysics, and the explanation of Spinoza's attitude in the book of Ethics, is the first step of this article. Of course, a look at the substance in the custom and idiom of Ibn Nasina and his innovations can be a help for a better understanding. The essence is from the point of view of pilgrims. The criterion of the researcher for evaluation is the degree of compatibility of the essence definition with another It is the parts of the philosophical system. With the conducted studies, the result is that Spinoza's definition is stable It is more logical and has provided a more coherent system.