Living Ethically Under Conditions of Uncertainty: Abolghasem Fanaei Responds to a Question About Marriage

Question: Dr. Fanaei, a matter that has taken on a more serious aspect for me these days, and about which I am also under pressure from my family, is the issue of marriage and choosing a spouse. Among the numerous criteria for marriage, one criterion is attention to the intellectual, doctrinal, and thought system of the other person. Of course, this question is more pertinent to myself, and how he (the other person) can trust my current beliefs, which have no specific framework whatsoever. Can merely saying that I guarantee I will be an ethical individual in life be sufficient reason to convince him? And if a person like me wishes to have dynamic and critical beliefs in life and constantly seeks to refine and revise his beliefs, can he be assured that he will remain committed to these same ethical principles for the rest of his life? In other words, with the change of his beliefs—whatever direction they may take—will his ethical principles remain unchanged? To what extent is the claim of the absoluteness of ethics reliable? And issues of this sort, to which more could be added.

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Some young friends whom I have not met in person, and whom I have had the honor of getting to know in the virtual world, out of kindness, affection, and the good opinion they have of me, share their good and profound questions with me. Unfortunately, numerous preoccupations on the one hand, and the multitude of questions on the other, have deprived me of the opportunity and time to answer these questions promptly. The depth of the questions also prevents one from settling for a cursory and unreflective answer. This note contains one of these questions and its answer. I have obtained permission from the questioner to publish this question publicly.

Dear friend,

Greetings,

The following note is my answer to one of your questions. Given the priority and importance of this question, it seemed to me that it would be better to answer it first. I hope to soon find the opportunity to answer your other questions. I sincerely thank you for sharing your good and profound questions with me.

Question:

(1) Dr. Fanaei, a matter that has taken on a more serious aspect for me these days, and about which I am also under pressure from my family, is the issue of marriage and choosing a spouse. Among the numerous criteria for marriage, one criterion is attention to the intellectual, doctrinal, and thought system of the other person. Of course, this question is more pertinent to myself, and how he (the other person) can trust my current beliefs, which have no specific framework whatsoever. Can merely saying that I guarantee I will be an ethical individual in life be sufficient reason to convince him? And if a person like me wishes to have dynamic and critical beliefs in life and constantly seeks to refine and revise his beliefs, can he be assured that he will remain committed to these same ethical principles for the rest of his life? In other words, with the change of his beliefs—whatever direction they may take—will his ethical principles remain unchanged? To what extent is the claim of the absoluteness of ethics reliable? And issues of this sort, to which more could be added.

Dr. Abolghasem Fanaei's Response:

Firstly, the concern you have in this regard is very valuable and praiseworthy. I believe this concern itself indicates ethical sensitivity and the awakening of the moral conscience within you. Someone whose moral conscience has fallen asleep does not worry at all about how his potential future intellectual developments will affect his relationships with others, including his future spouse. In fact, your question is a serious ethical question. What worries you is this: "If I, who have no certainty about my future beliefs and values, get married, have I not done something ethically improper?"

Secondly, the problem you have pointed to in this question is not unique to those who lack a fixed intellectual framework and who, as you say, hold exploratory and critical views, constantly seeking to revise and amend their beliefs. The causes and reasons for a change of belief in human beings are highly diverse, and many of them are neither controllable nor predictable. Even those who do not adopt such an approach to their current beliefs and are under the false impression that their present convictions will remain untouched forever are exposed to such change and transformation. Therefore, the possibility of a change in beliefs in the future, and consequently the possibility of a change in the moral principles and values to which a person is currently committed, always exists and applies to all human beings.

Thirdly, this question is not specific to marriage and the marital relationship; rather, all social relationships, especially long-term ones, face such a question. Hence, if this matter—that is, the possibility of future changes in beliefs—were to create an obstacle to marriage, it would also obstruct other social relationships. On this basis, one can claim that your question is entirely universal. For all enduring social relationships are founded upon the knowledge that the parties to the relationship have of each other's personality and of each other's accepted system of beliefs and values. If the other party's reaction in various situations is not predictable, a desirable, intimate, and trust-based relationship with them will not take shape. Predicting the reactions of others is only possible in light of knowing their personality and knowing the principles that person follows in their conduct and speech.

Fourthly, this problem is not exclusive to you; rather, the person who is to be your future spouse faces exactly the same problem and question, and if they are concerned with living ethically, they must inevitably find a convincing answer to it.

I have said all this to conclude that the possibility of a change in belief in the future, as well as the possibility of revising one's accepted moral principles, should not and cannot be an obstacle to marriage or to establishing any other relationship with others. In fact, the main question is: "Is living ethically under conditions of uncertainty about the future possible?" In my view, the answer to this question is affirmative, because, as philosophers have said, "the strongest proof of the possibility of something is its occurrence." The point is that living ethically depends on having sincerity and seriousness in discerning one's moral duty and fulfilling it, not on the stability and unchanging nature of beliefs and values. So long as a person sincerely and seriously strives to correctly discern their moral duty and act upon it, their life is ethical. Whether something will happen in the future, and whether a future change in their beliefs will lead to a change in their accepted moral values, plays no role in their living ethically, neither in the present nor in the future.

On this basis, the promise you can and have the right to make to your future spouse at the time of marriage is not that my intellectual and doctrinal state will always remain constant. The other party also cannot make such a promise to you, and fundamentally, given the explanations provided, accepting such a promise from someone is a sign of naivety and foolishness. The maximum promise you can make to another is that you will strive to be a good person, meaning you will have sincerity and seriousness in discerning duty and acting upon it. Anything beyond this is outside your control and volition and is unpredictable.

The question that both you and the other party must consider at the time of deciding about marriage is not "Will my or the other party's accepted moral principles remain constant or not?" but rather "Am I, or is the other party, an ethical human being or not?" And the definition of an ethical human being is not that "their moral beliefs and values in the future will be identical to the moral beliefs and values they accept at present," but rather that "they sincerely and seriously strive to live ethically." The conclusion is that living ethically does not depend on certainty about the present and future and the stability of beliefs and values, but rather on the will to live ethically and the sincere and serious effort to realize this will.

In closing, it is not amiss to mention two points. One is that your formulation of the question at hand is not precise. For "stability" and "change" are different from "absoluteness" and "relativity." Your question has nothing to do with the absoluteness or relativity of moral values. Even those who believe in the absoluteness of moral values may change their opinion about those absolute values in the future, and in their accepted value system, other absolute values may replace the current absolute values. Moreover, just as a change in a person's moral beliefs is probable, a change in their meta-ethical beliefs is also probable; that is, someone who currently believes that moral values are absolute may, for any reason or cause, change this view in the future and incline toward relativism.

All of this shows that living ethically in the present does not depend on unforeseeable events and developments that may occur in the future. The qualifier "unforeseeable" points to the fact that if the consequences that will follow from a person's current actions in the future are foreseeable and morally significant, the person is responsible for them and they must be taken into account when discerning one's duty and making decisions about the goodness, badness, rightness, and wrongness of an action.

The second point is that the above answer to the question under discussion is susceptible to misunderstanding. This answer should not be taken as an endorsement of moral and religious anarchism, moral skepticism, or moral relativism. Those who are skeptics, relativists, or anarchists in the realm of ethics are so in the present and in their current conduct. Uncertainty about the future is not a good reason for skepticism, relativism, or anarchism in the present.

With affection and devotion,

Ali

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. A Question and Answer with Professor Abolghasem Fanaei Regarding Marriage Published on his personal Facebook page | 27 October 2013

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