Ethical analysis of the parables of Ganjavi's Makhzan al-Asrar based on Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of stages of moral development

Allegorical stories are an effective tool in changing the emotional and intellectual state of the audience and they affect the layers of human existence and cause another perception. In the meantime, an ethical approach to allegory is a purposeful movement that Nizami Ganjai has discussed in, his precious Masnavi, Makhzan al-Asrar. In the speech and behavior of the heroes of his stories, Nizami has depicted the nature and identity of an ideal human being. This feature of Nizami's works has caused the moral behavior of fictional characters to be analyzed based on one of the selected and elite contemporary moral theories of the West and the degree of conformity with its stages and levels to be evaluated. Considering the innate nature of human beings, it seems that moral issues have some common elements among human cultures and societies. But sometimes, the multiplicity of moral theories causes the moral codes to have different addresses among different nations. Research in ethical theories based on one of the richest Iranian and Islamic cultural heritages can confirm the superiority of one of these two assumptions. In this article, the moral behavior of the system people is analyzed for the first time in the framework of a scientific theory.