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The book is about the moral problem generated by morally controversial passages in scripture (and in the Qur'an in particular), passages that seem to allow violence and discrimination against women and sexual and religious minorities. The conservatives argue that scripture can override our own moral judgments and thus certain acts of violence or discrimination can be morally justified through scripture. The book explores this conservative argument and finds ways to undermine it. The book aims to show how a progressive Muslim, or a theist in general, can reject violence and discrimination without renouncing scripture as God's word. Moreover, the book provides a refreshing overview of the history of ethics in the Islamic tradition.
List of contents
- PROLOGUE
- DEFINING A NEW PROBLEM OF EVIL
- Summary of the Chapter
- I. Two Stories
- II. Morally Controversial Scriptural Passages
- III. Seemingly Prescribed Evil
- IV. The New Problem of Evil and the Structure of the Book
- V. Historical Background
- PART I: SCRIPTURE-FIRST
- CHATER 1
- THE CONSEQUENTIALISM OF THE LATE ASH'ARITES
- Summary of the Chapter
- I. Divine Command Theory of the Early Ash'arites
- II. The Consequentialism of al-Ghazali
- III. The Moral Epistemology of al-Ghazali
- IV. The Argument for Strict Adherence to Scripture
- V. Taqlid and the Rule of Figurative Interpretation
- CHAPTER 2
- THE DEONTOLGICAL ETHICS OF THE MU'TAZILITES
- Summary of the Chapter
- I. The Ash'arites and the Problem of Evil
- II. The Metaethics of the Mu'tazilites
- III. The Normative Theory of 'Abd al-Jabbar
- IV. The Moral Epistemology of 'Abd al-Jabbar
- V. Natural Evil, Prescribed Evil, and Skeptical Theism
- CHAPTER 3
- THE VIRTUE ETHICS OF ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHERS
- Summary of the Chapter
- I. The Project of the Reconciliation of Reason and Religion
- II. Al-Farabi's View on Epistemology and Religion
- III. Averroes's View on the Harmony of Religion and Philosophy
- IV. The Virtue Ethics of al-Farabi
- PART II: ETHICS-FIRST
- CHAPTER 4
- THE IMPERMISSIBILITY OF MORAL DEFERENCE
- Summary of the Chapter
- I. Moral Deference in Contemporary Philosophy
- I. Al-Razi's Ethical Theory
- II. Al-Razi on Moral Deference
- III. Moses and Impermissibility of Pure Moral Deference
- IV. A Solution to the Problem of Prescribed Evil
- CHAPTER 5
- THE RELIABILITY OF OUR MORAL JUDGMENTS
- Summary of the Chapter
- I. The Debate on Objective and Subjective Ought
- II. Scripture, Ignorance and Uncertainty
- III. Ignorance Revisited
- IV. Kantian Arguments for the Accessibility Constraint
- V. Moral Knowledge Optimism and The Mu'tazilites
- VI. The Case of Abraham
- CHAPTER 6
- THE HERMENEUTICS OF SCRIPTURE
- Summary of the Chapter
- I. Ethics-first Solutions to the Problem of Prescribed Evil
- II. Lessons from a Philosophical Tale
- III. The Nature of Law
- IV. Legal Interpretation Defended
- V. The Moral Functions of Scripture
About the author
Amir Saemi is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM) and an Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. His research is primarily on moral philosophy, philosophy of religion and Islamic philosophy. Saemi's work has appeared in journals including Ethics, Philosophical Quarterly, Analysis, and Canadian Journal of Philosophy, etc. He has also published in Electrical Engineering journals such as IEEE transactions on Wireless Communications and IEEE transactions on Vehicular Technology, among others.
Summary
If God commanded you to do something contrary to your moral conscience, how would you respond? Many believers of different faiths face a similar challenge today. While they take scripture to be the word of God, they find scriptural passages that seem incompatible with their modern moral sensibilities. In Morality and Revelation in Islamic Thought and Beyond, philosopher Amir Saemi identifies this as the problem of divinely prescribed evil.
Saemi unpacks two approaches to answering this problem. In the first part of the book, Saemi demonstrates how Islamic thinkers of various historical traditions (including the Ash'arites, the Mu'tazilites, and the Greek influenced Philosophers, falasifa) adhered to a scripture-first view. By appealing to hidden moral facts known only to God or the prophet, a scripture-first approach views moral reasoning, at least when it conflicts with Scripture, with skepticism. An ethics-first view, however, places our independent moral judgments before scripture. In the second part of the book, Saemi offers two ethics-first solutions, with some roots in the Islamic tradition, to the problem of divinely prescribed evil. Each solution argues that our own moral reasoning is reliable in the face of skeptical arguments presented by Scripture-first views and shows how a theist can maintain their belief in scripture's divinity while relying on their own moral judgments. By studying the conflict between morality and revelation in Islamic thought, Saemi offers unapologetic solutions not only for progressive Muslims but for all theists who take their moral judgments seriously.
