- 著者
-
塩尻 和子
- 出版者
- 学術雑誌目次速報データベース由来
- 雑誌
- オリエント (ISSN:00305219)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.32, no.1, pp.33-49, 1989
What is the criterion of good and evil brought forth endless controvercies in the Islamic ethics between the rationalists and the conservative groups; the former insisted that it could be known through the human reason, and the latter confined the authoritative criterion only to the revelation and its derivatives. The rationalists, the Mu'tazilah, maintain that the good and evil is inherent in the nature of the act itself and can be understood by the reason. For them the criterion of good and evil must be intrinsic and objective.<br>Based on this traditional Mu'tazilite ethical principles, 'Abd al Jabbar, who is a great scholar belonging to the later Mu'tazilah, elaborated his own ethics. He brought situational and prudential perspective into the judgment of ethical good-evil, taking into account various aspects and levels of the actual acts.<br>“Benefit”, one of the key terms in his ethics, is always correlated to Good, while “Injury” is to Evil. An act is good when it brings forth “Benefit” or when it defends Injury. Since the criterion of Good and Evil is put on the balance of “Benefit” and “Injury”, “Injury” which “Benefit” exceeds is judged as Good. All these prudential judgments can be rightly grasped by man's reason. However, as ethics must be always valid, 'Abd al Jabbar states that “Benefit” must not be of worldly selfish profits, nor should be gained by wrong means.<br>To consider the whole aspects of his ethics together, he seems to conceive a qualitative hierarchy of Benefit, of which the highest is the creation of God itself; “Benefit” not in a prudential nor rational sense, but in a eschatological sense. In the side of man, “Benefit” in the ultimate sense will be realized in the hereafter in accordance with what he has done in this world.<br>In this sphere “Benefit” has both the rational and eschatological meaning in 'Abd al Jabbar's ethics, even though it has situational and prudential aspects. The study of the whole relevance of these aspects is my next task.