Morality In Islam Morality in Islam encompasses the concept of righteousness, good character, and the body of moral qualities and virtues prescribed in Islamic religious texts. The principle and fundamental purpose of Islamic morality is love: love for God and love for God’s creatures. The religious conception is that mankind will behave morally and treat each other in...
Wu Wei Wu wei (無爲; wú wéi) is a concept literally meaning “inexertion”, “inaction”, or “effortless action”. Wu wei emerged in the Spring and Autumn period, and from Confucianism, to become an important concept in Chinese statecraft and Taoism, and was most commonly used to refer to an ideal form of government, including the...
Dignity Dignity is the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. It is of significance in morality, ethics, law and politics as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inalienable rights. The term may also be used to describe personal conduct, as in “behaving with dignity“. Etymology The English...
De (Chinese) De (Chinese: 德), also written as Te, is a key concept in Chinese philosophy, usually translated “inherent character; inner power; integrity” in Taoism, “moral character; virtue; morality” in Confucianism and other contexts, and “quality; virtue” (guna) or “merit; virtuous deeds” (punya) in Chinese Buddhism. The word Chinese de 德 is an ancient and linguistically complex word. The...
Bioethics The term bioethics was first coined by American biochemist Van Rensselaer Potter to describe a new philosophy that integrates biology, ecology, medicine, and human values. In the broader sense of the term, bioethics encompasses both biomedical ethics, dealing with questions of ethics related to medicine, and environmental ethics, dealing with ecological ethics, such as respect for...
Science Of Morality The science of morality may refer to various forms of ethical naturalism grounding morality in rational, empirical consideration of the natural world. It is sometimes framed as using the scientific approach to determine what is right and wrong, in contrast to the widespread belief that “science has...
From Chaos To Order This article covers how to achieve From Chaos To Order. For several centuries, with respect to our understanding of morality, virtue, science, and knowledge, our society has had the appearance of a wreck. It has been searching for an alternative system of order and thought in...
Positive Human Characteristics Of Wisdom Here are the Forty-eight Positive Human Characteristics Of Wisdom. When a person possesses good character it can be observed through their actions. It’s not limited to a single value but the traits are demonstrated in the “good” choices they make and the “bad” choices they...
Character And Success Character And Success first appeared in The Outlook, March 31, 1900 A YEAR or two ago I was speaking to a famous Yale professor, one of the most noted scholars in the country, and one who is even more than a scholar, because he is in every...
The Virtue Of Decency In the 1937 film Gone With the Wind, Clark Gable shocked a nation of moviegoers when he said to Vivien Leigh, Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a dam. In retrospect, the shock is particularly difficult to fathom because the word dam (not damn) refers to...
Religion And Sexuality This article covers the relationship between religion and sexuality. The views of religions and religious believers range widely, from giving sex and sexuality a rather negative connotation to believing that sex is the highest expression of the divine. Some religions distinguish between sexual activities that are practiced...
What Is Pity? Pity is a sympathetic sorrow evoked by the suffering of others, and is used in a comparable sense to compassion, condolence or empathy – the word deriving from the Latin pietās (etymon also of piety). Two different kinds of pity can be distinguished, “benevolent pity” and “contemptuous pity” (see Kimball), where, through...
What Is Righteousness? Righteousness is defined as “the quality of being morally correct and justifiable.” It can also be considered synonymous with “rightness”. It is a concept that can be found in Indian religions and Abrahamic traditions as a theological concept. For example, from various perspectives in Hinduism, Christianity, and Judaism it is considered an attribute that implies that a person’s actions are justified,...
The Virtue Of Uprightness “For the Lord is righteous, He loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold His face,” says Psalm 11:7. While there are many allusions to the virtue of “uprightness” in the Old Testament, it is scarcely ever mentioned in today’s secular world. Uprightness, nonetheless, remains an essential...
What Are The Cardinal Virtues? The cardinal virtues unite the intellectual element and the affective. Much has been said recently of heart going beyond intellect in virtue; but the cardinal virtues, while concerned with the appetitive or affective parts, place prudence as the judge over all. Those who recite the Divine Office find constantly recurring what...
Virtues Are Good Habits Remember virtues are good habits developed out of love for others. When you begin growing in one virtue, you’ll end up growing in many of them simultaneously! Everyone has heard of virtues and most of us have some understanding of what virtues are. It’s easy to...
Continence Continence may be defined as abstinence from even the licit gratifications of marriage. It is a form of the virtue of temperance, though Aristotle did not accord it this high character since it involved a conflict with wrong desires–an element, in the mind of the philosopher, foreign to the content of a...
What Is Secular Morality? Secular morality is the aspect of philosophy that deals with morality outside of religious traditions. Modern examples include humanism, freethinking, and most versions of consequentialism. Additional philosophies with ancient roots include those such as skepticism and virtue ethics. Greg M. Epstein also states that, “much of...
Secular Ethics Secular ethics is a branch of moral philosophy in which ethics is based solely on human faculties such as logic, empathy, reason or moral intuition, and not derived from supernatural revelation or guidance—the source of ethics in many religions. Secular ethics refers to any ethical system that does not draw...
Ethics In The Bible Ethics in the Bible refers to the system(s) or theory(ies) produced by the study, interpretation, and evaluation of biblical morals, (including the moral code, standards, principles, behaviors, conscience, values, rules of conduct, or beliefs concerned with good and evil and right and wrong), that are found...