Masoud Sadeghi's Critique of Abolqasem Fanaei's The Ethics of Religious Studies (Part One)

One of the necessary discussions for beginning a critique of any book is examining the appropriateness and expressiveness of its main title and subtitle in relation to the content and tenor of the book. It seems that the book's title does not reflect the critical and negative aspect of a major part of the work. Perhaps it would have been better if the esteemed author had, at least in the form of the book's subtitle, appropriately indicated its critical approach toward what he calls traditional jurisprudence or, at times, modern and postmodern Ash'arism...

Bibliographic details of the work under review: The Ethics of Religious Studies, an inquiry into the ethical and epistemological foundations of jurisprudence, Abolqasem Fanaei, Tehran: Negah-e Mo'aser, 2010.

Before anything else, it must be said that the writer of these lines could have made the task easier for himself and, following the common practice, instead of a step-by-step critique of the book's themes, or even in place of it, attributed one or several central ideas to the book, challenged them, and in a one-sided game and contest, declared himself the outright victor of the field. However, fairness dictates that this voluminous and, in some respects, important work (regardless of all its strengths and weaknesses) deserves an analytical and detailed examination, not a few general judgments and propositions. Not to mention that I have seen and continue to see myself and many others at risk of devoting our efforts merely to confirming a book or casting doubt on its very usefulness or reasonableness, whereas the ethics of critique require that we either refrain from undertaking a critique or do it justice, and instead of rhetorical embellishment, generalizing, or labeling, bring forth illuminating and guiding points for the reader and author of the work being analyzed. Therefore, the present critique, since it is not so short or filled with general and definitive claims that one could instantly grasp the critic's view and the fate of the book under review with a cursory glance, requires the discerning reader to be patient, follow this multi-part writing to the end, and finally review the summary and conclusion regarding the book in the last part.

This book, totaling 604 pages, contains, in addition to a relatively lengthy preface, 7 chapters under the following titles: Chapter One, Substituting Jurisprudence for Ethics; Chapter Two, Jurisprudence and the Challenges of the Modern Era; Chapter Three, Traditional Rationality and Modern Rationality; Chapter Four, Jurisprudential Rationality and Conventional Rationality; Chapter Five, The Theoretical Contraction and Expansion of Jurisprudence; Chapter Six, The Expansion of Prophetic Jurisprudential Experience; Chapter Seven, The Cultural Translation of Religious Texts.

Perhaps the esteemed reader might ask what exactly the subject of this book is. The author considers the subject of his work to be "the ethics of religious studies" or "the ethics of jurisprudential research and thought" or "the ethics of ijtihad" (Fanaei, 2010, 14), and elsewhere considers *The Ethics of Religious Studies* an inquiry into "jurisprudential rationality or the rational foundations of jurisprudence" (Fanaei, 2010, 24). In another place, he regards his book as an inquiry into "the external pillar of religious knowledge" (Fanaei, 2010, 25), and subsequently believes that *The Ethics of Religious Studies* can also be considered a treatise on "defending the epistemological authority and validity of rational and empirical conjectures" (Fanaei, 2010, 28).

Perhaps one of the necessary discussions for beginning a critique of any book is examining the appropriateness and expressiveness of its main title and subtitle in relation to the content and tenor of the book. It seems that the book's title does not reflect the critical and negative aspect of a major part of the work. Perhaps it would have been better if the esteemed author had, at least in the form of the book's subtitle, appropriately indicated its critical approach toward what he calls traditional jurisprudence or, at times, modern and postmodern Ash'arism, discussions that occupy at least more than half of the book.

Furthermore, regarding the book's subtitle, upon seeing it we naturally expect a "research" work. Of course, a work being research-based is not necessarily incompatible with it being idea/theory-oriented, but this work, as will become clearer later on, has more the flavor of a work that seeks to reach its main objective and explicate the author's design and view by summarizing and broadly reconstructing the reasons of historical and current opponents of its central and final idea. Evidence for this claim is that in some important and key instances (which will be referred to separately in the future), the author does not adhere much to the protocols and standards of serious and methodical research, and sometimes, over dozens of pages, criticizes and even rebukes an argument or theory without it being clear exactly whose it is, or where and with what reasons or nuances it has been expressed.

In the preface, Fanaei sets out to introduce and outline his ideas, explicitly stating that from his perspective, modern ethics is one of the intrinsic and unavoidable components of modernity (Fanaei, 1389, 17), a claim which, although an important part of Fanaei's assertions rests upon or is at least related to it, is nowhere proven by him. He also believes that human rights cannot be restricted by religious rulings (Fanaei, 1389, 18), and that the essence of secularism regarding the relationship between religion and ethics is that the "sharia of reason," which is inspired to humans through the inner prophet (reason/moral conscience), takes precedence over the "sharia of transmitted tradition," which is inspired to them through external prophets (revelation) (Fanaei, 1389, 23).

Critique of Chapter One: Substituting Jurisprudence for Ethics

Perhaps the first serious flaw in the book, which incidentally plays a decisive role in advancing its subsequent discussions (and challenges the concept of research included in the work's title), is where Fanaei, without citing any source or reference, begins to examine and critique the theory of those he calls "modern or postmodern Ash'arites," a theory whose proponents, according to Fanaei, although like the Mu'tazila they believe in the intrinsic and objective nature of moral attributes and their independence from the will of God the Lawgiver, also believe that human reason and cognitive faculties are incapable or deficient in recognizing or justifying these moral values and norms (Fanaei, 1389, 34).

Continuing his work, Fanaei examines the logical and epistemological dependence of ethics on religion and formulates it under the two headings of epistemic dependence and justificatory dependence. However, throughout the 9 pages dedicated to examining this matter, no references are seen for many of the claims, attributions, terminologies, and arguments surrounding the discussion. Perhaps mentioning the following cases is sufficient to prove this claim:

The epistemic and justificatory dependence of ethics on religion has each been placed within two separate views, and it is not clear by whom any of these four views have been articulated (Fanaei, 36, 1389). For the epistemic dependence of ethical propositions on theological propositions, three presuppositions (Fanaei, 36, 1389) and for substituting jurisprudence for ethics, four presuppositions have been mentioned (Fanaei, 37, 1389), each of which entails sensitive and decisive claims for none of which a source has been provided. From the author's perspective, the view advocating the replacement of ethics by jurisprudence, due to its similarity to legal positivism, can be called jurisprudential positivism (Fanaei, 37, 1389), but neither these points of similarity nor the definition of legal positivism have been stated by the author through reference to a source or by offering a specific definition. In the section defining "justification," for the claim that "most modern epistemologists believe that epistemic justification does not entail truth" or that "justification is, from one perspective, divided into theoretical and practical" or even regarding "the instances of justifying characteristics and the disagreement of epistemologists in determining them," no source has been cited (Fanaei, 37, 1389). The three definitions enumerated in this section for "theological beliefs" lack any references (Fanaei, 40, 1389). When the expressions "proponents of this theory" (Fanaei, 37, 1389) or "these individuals" or "proponents of the dependence of the science of ethics on the science of theology" (Fanaei, 40, 1389) or "moderate foundationalists" or "coherentists" (Fanaei, 42, 1389) or "ethical intuitionists" (Fanaei, 42, 1389) are used, it never becomes clear who, at least as an example, is an instance of one of these schools of thought and where and how they have expressed the views attributed to them. In this chapter, Fanaei attributes four main arguments to those who, in his opinion, substitute jurisprudence for ethics.

From Fanaei's perspective, the first argument in favor of "substituting jurisprudence for ethics" is as follows:

1- Human reason is imperfect; 2- The reason of the Lawgiver is perfect; 3- Religious rulings have been established to compensate for the imperfection of human reason in discerning its rights and duties; 4- The science of jurisprudence is responsible for discovering and expressing the rights and duties of human beings; therefore, the science of jurisprudence replaces the science of ethics (Fanaei, 46, 1389). In this part, Fanaei finally tries to "as an example" clearly reflect the view of one of the proponents of what he calls modern or postmodern Ash'arism, and in this regard, he raises three fundamental questions:

Has the expression of values through revelation and religion made them completely clear? After the expression of revelation and religion, have all instances of good and evil been clarified in such a way that a consensus has been reached? Has recourse to religion in cases of conflict and friction between values, instead of resolving this conflict and friction, increased it? (Fanaei, 51, 1389) Fanaei categorically considers the answer to the first two questions to be negative and the answer to the third question to be positive, and on this basis concludes that, from the perspective of postmodern Ash'arites, religion has failed to achieve its goals and we need a new religion and a new prophet to come and rectify these deficiencies (Fanaei, 51, 1389). But in response to Fanaei's three questions, accompanied by his irony and sarcasm, the following three answers can be offered:

Religion helps in explaining and reminding of "more and better" values. There is no necessary concomitance between the better and more explanation and reminder of values by religion and the creation of consensus among humanity or even the religious, just as there is no necessary concomitance between the efficacy of reason in discovering values on the one hand and the creation of consensus among the rational on the other; because both religion and reason, or both the religious in particular and the rational in general, have internal and external rivals and obstacles that may sometimes overshadow their correct functioning, partially or completely. One cannot simply consider religion as the cause of creating more conflict among values, and such a claim requires precise research and investigation, the place of which is absent in Fanaei's writing. In his detailed critique of the first argument in favor of substituting jurisprudence for ethics (as he sees it, of course), Fanaei believes that appealing to and arguing from the imperfection of reason is in fact a kind of paradoxical argument, and one cannot say that reason does not err when it commands obedience to tradition and Sharia, but if it identifies human rights and social ethics, it falls prey to whim and desire (Fanaei, 57, 1389).

In response to this argument, it can be said that, firstly, someone who says reason is imperfect does not necessarily say that reason is deficient everywhere and in the analysis and identification of everything, just as when someone considers their own knowledge and learning to be incomplete, they have by no means pronounced their own absolute ignorance, and a learned and rational individual can honestly say that although I am a chemist, I have no knowledge or information about theoretical physics. Can such an individual's argument be considered self-defeating or paradoxical? From Fanaei's perspective, does someone who speaks of the limitation of reason or its deficiency in certain specific areas necessarily pronounce the absolute deficiency of reason or their own irrationality?

Secondly, regarding those whom Fanaei sometimes calls modern Ash'arites and sometimes postmodern, it must be said specifically that they ultimately see reason as encountering difficulty (and not complete unawareness and deficiency) in recognizing the particulars of moral rulings, and therefore, contrary to Fanaei's claim, they neither pronounce the suspension of reason in the face of transmitted tradition, nor do they believe that reason-defying transmitted reports better guarantee the worldly and otherworldly perfection and felicity of human beings (Fanaei, 1389, 57).

Thirdly, unfortunately, the esteemed author, in many places in the book, especially in this section, has engaged in homogenizing and lumping together the arguments of a diverse range of individuals and has also shirked documented and source-based differentiation and analysis; otherwise, one must see what exactly these modern and postmodern Ash'arites (in Fanaei's terms) say. Do they believe in the deficiency of reason in all matters and consider the sole specific function of reason to be escorting humanity to the threshold of transmitted tradition? Do they believe that the reason of all human individuals, or some, or the majority of them is deficient? A documented, precise, and non-generalizing answer to these questions can naturally influence our judgments completely.

Fanaei goes on to ask that if the role of reason is such, then fundamentally, "why did God create reason?" (Fanaei, 1389, 58). Without wishing to play the role of spokesperson for the Divine Essence or the modern Ash'arites from Fanaei's perspective, in response to this critical question, I can say that reason in the realm of ethics is responsible for understanding generalities, recognizing some particulars, and analyzing and even criticizing the transmitted reports received on this subject, and therefore it had to be created, and thank goodness it was created.

Perhaps a brief analysis of the relationship between reason and experience can help advance our discussion. If a philosopher of science says that human beings cannot progress in many branches of science with reason alone and, in addition to reason, need experience and empirical investigations, they never mean to say that reason is deficient or its creation is futile. Perhaps those whom Fanaei has labeled modern and postmodern Ash'arites would say that fundamentally, or at least in this realm, they do not consider reason deficient, but the comprehensiveness of reason should not be conflated with its perfection. The requirement for the perfection of reason in science is not that it understands everything without recourse to experience, and the requirement for the perfection of reason in ethics is also not that it recognizes all ethical particulars and subtleties without the aid of revelation. Moreover, this group can say that their meaning regarding reason's predicament in discovering and recognizing ethical particulars does not pertain to every single human being, and their statement is directed at the average individuals or the majority of human societies.

The second argument from Fanaei's perspective in favor of substituting jurisprudence for ethics is as follows:

A significant portion of religious texts concerns practical rulings. If a way other than revelation and transmitted tradition exists for recognizing moral rights and duties, revelation loses its proper function of providing direction for human lives. Therefore, the science of jurisprudence replaces the science of ethics (Fanaei, 1389, 81). Fanaei's critique of the second argument can be summarized as follows:

Firstly, the implication of this argument is the acceptance of moral skepticism and the suspension of reason.

Secondly, in this argument, no distinction has been made between the context of discovery and the context of justification; that is, the mere fact that religion is a discoverer of ethics saves religious texts from futility, and it is not necessary for religion to necessarily adjudicate in this matter (Fanaei, 1389, 83).

اما در راستای بررسی این بخش از کتاب که مؤلف گرامی 8 صفحه را به آن اختصاص داده است باید گفت که متأسفانه در این قسمت هم ما شاهد ضعف اخلاق پژوهش و نقض آداب آن هستیم. با خواندن این بخش هیچ‌گاه معلوم نمی‌شود که این استدلال از آنِ چه فرد یا افرادی است و برای نمونه حتی یک مصداق هم ذکر نمی‌شود. جالب است که فنایی این استدلال بدون مرجع و منبع در کتاب را بیانگر یکی از دغدغه‌های اصلی متدینین در باب رابطه‌ی دین و اخلاق می‌داند (فنایی،81،1389) و بدتر آنکه، آن را یکی از خطاهای بزرگی می‌داند که بسیاری از مؤمنان و دین‌داران در اثر «ساده‌لوحی» مرتکب می‌شوند (فنایی،82،1389). صرف‌نظر از این عبارات کلی و ادبیات ناشایست و توهین‌آمیز باید گفت چون معلوم نیست این استدلال را اصلاً چه کسی گفته و دقیقاً نظر مدافعان احتمالی آن چیست، راقم این سطور به خود حق می‌دهد که از کنار آن بگذرد.

استدلال سوم به سود نشاندن فقه به جای اخلاق از منظر فنایی به قرار ذیل است:

خداوند عاقل‌ترین عاقلان یا رئیس عقلا است. این وظیفه‌ی خداست که احکام خود را با ارزش‌های اخلاقی سازگاری می‌کند. دلایل پیشینی که بر کمال عقل خداوند در شرع دلالت می‌کنند سازگاری احکام دینی با ارزش‌های اخلاقی را به‌نحو پیشینی تضمین می‌کند. حکم رئیس عقلا ممکن است با سایر عقلا فرق کند. بنابراین، صِرف ناسازگاری برداشت‌های فقهی با حکم عقل در باب اخلاق موجب نمی‌شود که آن برداشت‌ها اعتبار خود را از دست بدهند. در صورت تعارض حکم عقلا با حکم رئیس عقلا، ما موظف به پیروی از حکم رئیس عقلا هستیم (فنایی،88،1389). خوشبختانه نویسنده‌ی محترم اقلاً برای این استدلال، سرنخی را جهت تحقیق و تدقیق بیشتر به دست مخاطب می‌دهد، هرچند که در اینجا هم صرفاً به ذکر عنوان کتابی از شهید محمدباقر صدر اکتفا می‌کند و خواننده باید خود پیگیر شود که این استدلال دقیقاً از کجای آن کتاب مستخرج شده است. فنایی این استدلال را بسیار کوتاه و در 2 صفحه بررسی می‌کند؛ چراکه آن را صورت‌بندی دیگری از استدلال اول می‌داند (فنایی،89،1389). اما یکی از ابهام برانگیزترین سخنان کتاب در همین قسمت نهفته است. به گمان فنایی، حکم رئیس عقلا از 2 طریق به دست آدمی می‌رسد که هر دو ظنی‌اند و احتمال خطا و تأثیرپذیری از هوی و هوس «به یک میزان» در هر دو وجود دارد (فنایی،90،1389). باید پرسید بر فرض که ظن عقلی و نقلی هر دو هم‌سنگ هستند و هر دو به یک اندازه در معرض خطا و خطر هستند، حال چرا باید دین‌داران (و نه عاقلان بی‌ایمان) حتماً و همواره ظنون عقلی را بر ظنون نقلی ترجیح دهند؟ آیا این نوعی مصادره به مطلوب نیست که ازقضا فنایی حامیان استدلال سوم را به آن متهم می‌کند؟

استدلال چهارم به سود نشاندن فقه به جای اخلاق از منظر فنایی به قرار ذیل است:

ارزش‌های اخلاقی فرهنگ‌آلود بوده و جهان‌شمول نیستند؛ بنابراین نمی‌توان و نباید اخلاق غربی و ارزش‌هایی مثل آزادی، دمکراسی و حقوق بشر را که از اصول بنیادین این اخلاق هستند در جوامع شرقی توسعه داد (فنایی،90،1389). این استدلال را مؤلف کتاب به شکلی بسیار موجز نقد می‌کند که حقیر نیز در اینجا با او همدل و موافق است، اما با این توضیح که اولاً، این دلیل همانند استدلال اول و دوم بدون منبع و مرجع در کتاب رها شده است. ثانیاً، همه‌ی کسانی که برخی خوانش‌ها از دمکراسی یا مصادیق حقوق بشر را متعلق به بخشی از فرهنگ و عادات غربی‌ها می‌دانند الزاماً نسبی‌گرا نیستند؛ چراکه قطعاً جناب فنایی و خواننده‌ی فاضل به نیکی می‌دانند کسی می‌تواند مطلق‌گرا باشد، اما همه‌ی احکام اخلاقی را مطلق نداند. ممکن است بسیاری برخی از مفاد یا تفاسیر از اعلامیه‌ی حقوق بشر و یا اموری چون دمکراسی را ذاتاً داخل در حیطه‌ی اخلاق ندانند و فرضاً دمکراسی را یک روش و لیبرال‌دمکراسی را صرفاً یک خوانش از آن بدانند و اگر منتقد آن هستند از باب باور به نسبیت‌گرایی اخلاقی نباشد.

فنایی در پایان فصل اول می‌کوشد به چند شبهه پاسخ گوید که در ذهن دین‌داران در باب حقوق بشر وجود دارد.

شبهه‌ی اول، تعارض فتواهای فقهی با حقوق بشر در واقع تعارض حق خدا با حقوق بشر است و بدون تردید حق خدا مقدم است.

In Fanaei's view, this claim is fallacious; for one who accepts that "God is just" must necessarily accept that "God observes human rights" (Fanaei, 96, 1389). However, in critiquing Fanaei's attempt to resolve this objection, it can be said that if Fanaei accepts that there may be a contradiction or conflict between the rulings of religion in the realm of affirmation or the Preserved Tablet and the rulings of historical religion, then it is entirely possible that there is a difference between the natural rights of human beings in the realm of affirmation and human rights in the realm of actualization, and that human beings may err in identifying the instances of human rights or in their construction, convention, and agreement upon them. Therefore, although in the realm of affirmation, religion or the Right of God cannot be and is not incompatible with the inherent and natural rights of human beings, it may nonetheless be at odds with some of the claimed and conventional instances of human rights.

The second objection: human rights are individual rights, and the realization and actualization of these rights are contingent upon their compatibility with the right or interest of society or the system (Fanaei, 99, 1389).

Fanaei's response to this objection is that, firstly, society has no real existence and is a collection of individuals, and therefore we have no right called the right of society; and secondly, human rights are not based on expediency but are of the nature of rights, and thus always take precedence (Fanaei, 101, 1389).

The third objection: it is sometimes said that human rights and democracy lead to homosexuality, wine-drinking, and the like, and this is one of the main reasons for the opposition of some literalist religious people to human rights and democracy (Fanaei, 103, 1389).

In resolving this objection, Fanaei tries to show that many things, such as discrimination, despotism, hypocrisy, and so on, are morally worse than the aforementioned matters. He even considers an excessive emphasis on certain second- and third-order moral values (from Fanaei's perspective) or an emphasis on specific instances of a general moral value to be a kind of moral deviation, while he claims that from the perspective of "social ethics," individuals' sexual and dietary inclinations and preferences belong to the private sphere of their lives (Fanaei, 105, 1389).

The esteemed author's effort to resolve this objection could have taken a better form and manner for the following reasons.

Firstly, the literature of this section of the book (which there is no space to quote in full) takes on a strongly poetic and slogan-like aspect.

Secondly, it contains categorical, general, and sometimes unethical claims whose basis and method of proof are unclear; for example, Fanaei says: "Selling religion (earning a living through religion) and building the roof of power and livelihood upon the pillar of Sharia is a thousand times worse and more heinous than selling one's body (earning a living through prostitution)" (Fanaei, 104, 1389). Regardless of what "earning a living through religion" means from Fanaei's perspective, one must ask: if someone (rightly or wrongly) receives an income or wages for religious propagation or writing a book in defense of religion, is that, from Fanaei's perspective, like someone who prostitutes themselves a thousand times and receives a separate wage for each act of prostitution?!

Thirdly, in this section, Fanaei practically engages in ranking values and moral rulings and explicitly speaks of first-, second-, and third-order values in ethics, but he neither clarifies the criterion for this division nor provides a source for a better and more thorough understanding of the standard and instances of this ranking.

Fourthly, Fanaei considers individuals' sexual and dietary inclinations and preferences, from the perspective of social (not individual) ethics, to belong to their private sphere, and believes that no one has the right to impose anything on others by citing religion or their own taste and inclination. Although Fanaei keeps this point somewhat veiled in implication, it is unlikely that by dietary preferences he means the saltiness or spiciness of food, or by sexual preferences he means the age or hair color of sexual partners. He wants to say that wine-drinking and homosexuality, even if condemned at the level of individual ethics, cannot be prohibited to anyone in the social sphere under the pretext of jurisprudence or ethics. He explicitly considers the use of any coercion for moral correction to be an instance of corruption or repelling a corrupt thing with something more corrupt (Fanaei, 105, 1389). With this account and based on the aforementioned points, it is clear to the astute reader what Fanaei's opinion is regarding the ruling on wine-drinking and homosexuality, not only amidst the fatwas of jurists but in the very text and core of the Quran.

It must be said that although Fanaei raises these several doubts concerning the relationship between religion and human rights, we should not forget that he is primarily and more extensively concerned with examining the weight of rational conjectures in jurisprudence and religious studies—a discussion that, in fact, pertains to the epistemology of jurisprudence. In this regard, it seems that Fanaei has overlooked one of the most important and prevalent arguments (or, in his terms, doubts) regarding the connection between revelation and human rights, an argument that, as it happens, has a strongly epistemological dimension. This argument rests on the claim that since God is the creator of human beings and knows them better than anyone else, He is also better aware of their innate and natural rights than anyone else, and therefore, religion is the best source for gaining knowledge of true human rights (for example, see Javadi Amoli, 1381, p. 107). Regardless of whether I agree with this argument or not, the absence of its presentation and explication in this part of the book is keenly felt.

Masoud Sadeghi's Critique of Abolqasem Fanaei's The Ethics of Religious Studies (Part One)

Fanaei and the Failure to Adhere to Standards of Methodical Research

Author: Masoud Sadeghi (PhD Candidate in Moral Philosophy)

Masoud Sadeghi's Critique of Abolqasem Fanaei's The Ethics of Religious Studies (Part One)

Masoud Sadeghi's Critique of Abolqasem Fanaei's The Ethics of Religious Studies (Part Two)

Masoud Sadeghi's Critique of Abolqasem Fanaei's The Ethics of Religious Studies (Part Three)

Masoud Sadeghi's Critique of Abolqasem Fanaei's The Ethics of Religious Studies (Part Four)