نشریه اخلاق پژوهی
پیاپی 5 (زمستان 1398)

The revival of virtue ethics in the last century was an origin of new philosophical debates over friendship. Neo-Aristotelian schools disregard Aristotle’s definition of happiness; therefore, they have revived and modified certain Aristotelian notions as well as ancient post-Aristotelian schools, introducing “friendship” and “care” for the other as inseparable components of human happiness. Moreover, since ancient Aristotelian schools considered the most important demand of virtue ethics to consist in rational formation of one’s feelings, emotions, and internal passions in order to enjoy an internally good life, they were always accused of self-centrism, among other things. In this paper, we deal with “care for the other” as a new component of modern virtue ethics and consider the importance and role of “care for the other” as well as friendship in human happiness from an Aristotelian and neo-Aristotelian perspectives. Then, we consider the reasons why Annas—a neo-Aristotelian philosopher—does not take ancient theories of happiness to be imbued with self-centrism and why she gives more weight to “friendship” and “care for the other” as compared to ancient theories. She seeks to find an answer to questions such as whether humans can, in addition to thinking of their own happiness, develop a care for the other in a non-instrumental way.

Unlike virtue ethicistswho emphasize the existence of robust character traits in individuals, philosophical situationists argue that character traits do not exist. Based on the findings of social psychologists, situationists claim that the virtue ethicist's view of character traits is false. Arguments presented by situationists such as Harman, Doris, and Flanagan are grounded in empirical evidence provided by social psychologists; the empirical findings that lead to serious concerns and tensions for virtue ethics. In response to situationists, virtue ethicists, including Christian Miller, strived to defend the existence of character traits. The present paper is an attempt to introduce a novel and multidimensional viewpoint about the role of character traits and situations. First, the paper reviews Miller’s responses to situationists while elaborating on the situationists’ questions and arguments. Second, both stands are critically analyzed and evaluated and a novel viewpoint is suggested as a better alternative for understanding the basis of individual’s moral thoughts and actions. The paper proposes that the reality of individuals' moral thoughts and actions are neither solely based on situations, nor exclusively determined by robust character traits. Rather, it is a dual-aspect unit of character and situation that determines an individual’s moral thoughts and actions.

A common concern among advocates of Aristotelian virtue ethics is the problem of human character. The problem was particularly scrutinized by researchers of education in the last two centuries, and after the revival of virtue ethics in 1950s, it evolved into practical application of virtue-based approaches to moral training. Since then, character-based or virtue ethics faced new challenges mainly from advocates of care ethics and contextualists. They generally take the existence of character, and virtue for that matter, into question. In this paper, I begin by a consideration of how serious these challenges are through an analytic and critical method, and then I deal with the question: given the Aristotelian requirement of practical wisdom for virtue, is it an achievable goal to present a sage as a role-model for moral training of people in the society, particularly children and teenagers? If not, what is the purpose of virtue-based moral training? This paper is concerned with an inquiry into the nature and place of this goal in the human life today, together with an account of effective methods of training virtuous agents.

Since the beginning of philosophical thought until Kant, the faculty of theoretical reason was deemed the foundation of the faculty of practical reason. One influential philosopher in the West, working on practical reason and morality, was Henry Bergson–the French philosopher. In his intellectual system, perception is reinterpreted as the first result of action and reaction, and the human image with the external world, action, and the faculty of practical reason are viewed as having primacy over theoretical reasoning. The result of this fundamental turn is manifested in Bergson’s ethics. Given the predominant atmosphere in Bergson’s period, this modern philosopher is concerned with the revival of the moral and axiological human, elaborating his ethics in two realms: social ethics under “closed morality” and “human open morality.” In his close morality, he tries to correct errors in Kant’s deontological ethics, opening the path to the flourishing of a new ethics in terms of prominent models as moral models. Bergson rejects autonomous reason as the foundation of morality. In his account of open morality, he establishes it upon an evolved rationality, which reaches passion and consciousness in its creative development and reconnection with life, and can guide the human to acquisition of genuine knowledge.

A moral guide is someone who instructs others to do good/right things and abandon bad/wrong things. The present research aims at providing an analysis of compassion as a guiding character which convinces the audience. The method of the research is analysis of data and logical analysis. The statistical population consists of students of Islamic doctrines and audiences of enjoining the right and forbidding the wrong. The sample consists of 55 people purposefully selected. Coding and logical analysis of the data show that compassion is distinguished by five behaviors, leading to the persuasion of the audience in central and peripheral ways. The central way points to the great importance of the message and informs the audience of his undesirable condition, directing his attention to the content of the message. The peripheral way gives the audience a good sense of himself, creates a pleasant feeling toward the guide and trust in him, and encourages a sense of compensation, thus directing the audience's attention to the person who sends the message.

Soft power is resultant from the positive and fine face of power, in which policies are positively manifested such that people realize a government’s goals without compulsion. One significant source of engendering soft power is observance of morality in politics. In this paper, we deploy a document-based method with a descriptive-analytic approach to consider Amir al-Mu’minin’s approach to morality in politics and its function in engendering soft power. According to this research, Amir al-Mu’minin was strictly committed to moral values, and his approach to morality rests on four principles: “moralism and non-instrumental attitude toward morality,” “constancy and inflexibility of moral values even in the most challenging political circumstances,” “control of power with morality,” and “correlation and connection between morality and politics.” This approach leads to the establishment of moral values in the society and prevents the corruption of the centers of power and politics. Therefore, it is highly efficient in engendering soft power. A rediscovery of Imam ‘Ali’s approach to morality reveals the problems of soft power theory, such as instrumental and utilitarian view of morality, values being relative and matters of taste, and the separation between morality and politics.