Three Principle Ethical Questions
Download as PPT, PDF1 like893 views
This document outlines three principle ethical questions: ethical rationalism, which holds that right and wrong can be determined rationally independent of revelation; ethical voluntarism, where right and wrong are determined by God's commands and prohibitions with nothing intrinsically good or bad; and a hybrid view where reason can know God but obligation only comes through revelation, and revelation restates but does not validate principles from reason.
Three Principle Ethical Questions
- 1. 3 principle ethical questions
- 2. Right & Wrong • -ethical rationalism • -right & wrong can be determined rationally and that it is ultimately independent of divine revelation as well as its obligatory • -the intrinsic good or bad is known to us, by necessity • -it is only by the virtue of the intrinsic good or bad of the action that it be comes a fitting object of God’s command or prohibition
- 3. • -the obligation is a matter or reasoning, accessible to man prior to the advent of revelation • -it is autonomous and self-validating-it does not require evidence to support it, not even the divine revelation
- 4. • -the function of revelation • -to exhibit the principles already established by reason, but does not to confirm or validate • -it is the arbitration bet. conflicting revelations or parts of revelation • -to instruct us concerning those actions that He had already instilled in our intellects, with a confirming and specifying them in detail
- 5. • In short, revelation does no more than to restate the obligation in the general theological context • -bad thus becomes either prohibited mahzur, unlawful (muharram) & sinful (ma’siah) • -good becomes equivalent to the permitted, lawful, allowed or the act of obedience
- 6. • -ethical voluntarism • -God is the real author of action, voluntary action are imputed to man metaphorically • -right & wrong are determined by , respectively, the divine command and prohibition
- 7. • -nothing is good in itself or bad in itself for good and bad are neither generic nor essential qualities of the action • --in other words, good and bad are what is commanded and prohibited by the law
- 8. • -the knowledge of God may be attained through reason but is becomes obligatory only through revelation • -if no command or prohibition emanated from God, man would have been liable to no obligation