Careful Thinking and Otherness from the Perspective of the Qur'an: The Moral Cure for the ‎Corona Virus

Corona has been one of the most deadly and pervasive viruses in the world so far. It has left not only direct health effects, but also marginal effects on the field of ethics, including moral selfishness. Caring thinking means caring in the way of thinking. It is divided into value or praiseworthy thinking, emotional thinking, active thinking, normative thinking, and empathetic thinking. Another moral dilemma in the field of normative ethics is consequentialism, which considers an act or a moral rule to be more of a personal benefit to the people. In this research, the author’s purpose was to study and analyze these two types of thinking from the Quranic perspective while defining and expressing the principles and components of caring thinking and moral otherness. The results showed that differences in ontological and epistemological presuppositions make a difference in the way we look at otherness and caring thinking. Also, the components of those two thoughts, such as kindness and benevolence, kindness and love, and self-sacrifice, as well as the golden rule, cause a certain distance and closeness. For example, charity has otherworldly effects in addition to its worldly impacts in the Qur'anic view, while only worldly effects have been considered in Lippmann’s approach to otherness. The method used in this research was comparative analysis with the library method of data collection. The findings of this study indicated that there were similarities between some principles of ethical heterogeneity of thinking and some components of caring thinking. Some of their objective examples were emphasized in the Holy Quran. These principles included benevolence and charity, kindness, and self-sacrifice, along with the golden rule, which were close to the examples of the components of value thinking, active thinking, empathetic thinking, and normative thinking. However, in the context of the corona virus, the international community has tended towards moral selfishness, which has no place in the Iranian and Islamic culture and is not acceptable. As a result, it has caused many behavioral and cultural harms to the society. Therefore, to correct this behavior in the society and even at the global level, it is necessary to promote and teach other moral orientations and caring thinking based on religious and Islamic sources, especially the Holy Quran, which can be used as an educational plan, especially in the direction of ethical treatment of coronavirus.