virtue ethics

Contemporary ethics and moral philosophy need a kind of revision due to their negligence in human moral capacities, ordinary life, and humans’ expectations of ethics. The assumptions and presuppositions of ethics result in their current unsatisfactory status. In this paper, we first explore and criticize those presuppositions. Then, instead of introducing ideal presuppositions of ethics, we introduce folk ethics and its components in order to show that contemporary ethics and moral philosophy should always begin with folk ethics. The most important advantage of folk ethics is its realistic foundation, which in turn will produce better results.

What confers their value on genuine virtues, it is argued, consists in the intrinsic value that instantiating them in thought and action standardly brings about. This granted, virtue theory is argued to be capable of plugging a gap in consequentialist theories of the kind that make actions right which either exemplify optimific practices or are directly optimific. Compliance with optimific practices like truth-telling makes the relevant actions right, subject to certain exceptions. But even if such compliance is combined with the optimificity of beneficent actions, considered singly, that do not exemplify these practices, the resulting theory of rightness remains gap-ridden. The gap can be filled if it is granted that virtuous actions are generally optimific, and this knowledge is incorporated into consequentialist theories of rightness. Thus where no optimific practices are relevant, and no actions are manifestly directly optimific, dispositions of a generally optimific character (virtues) can rightly be adopted.

Despite the scientific and technological progress seen in the human world today, we are witnessing the disproportionate growth of violence in human society. It is, thus, necessary to talk about tolerance in such a time. The purpose of this study is to examine tolerance within the framework of Sadra's philosophy. The theoretical foundations of tolerance in Transcendent Theosophy will be explained in four categories: epistemology, methodology, ontology, and anthropology. Though Sadra has been influenced by Aristotelian virtue ethics, he takes a step forward and analyzes tolerance from an ontological point of view, understanding it not as a merely moral virtue but as an ontological-existential perfection towards Godlikeness "ὁμοίωσις θεῷ" [homoiōsis theō] which is the very essence of wisdom. Tolerance and violence in Sadra’s philosophy constitute two pyramid-like structures reciprocally. The pyramid of tolerance has reason and justice at its pinnacle while on the top of the pyramid of violence lie ignorance and injustice. Thus, pro-tolerance behavior is resulted from a rational mindset and pro-violence behavior has its origin in ignorance and idiocy. Outcomes of tolerance are the increase of wisdom, social dignity, and influence on people while stagnation, social humility, and isolation result from violence. It is needless to say neither tolerance is always applauded nor violence is always despised. This is why one can speak of the wrath of God and His saints in a meaningful way. Rather it is because of the conditions and their relation with reason and ignorance that we can reach a judgment in this regard. The study is concluded by a reality-based account of Sadra's treatment of his opponents which is followed by an elaboration of his tolerance-centered approach.

The present article examines the possibility of attributing personhood to artificial intelligence agents, a concept central to determining moral status. The debate on personhood has long been central in applied ethics, particularly in discussions on abortion, where philosophers such as Mary Anne Warren proposed five criteria—consciousness, reasoning, self-motivated activity, capacity for communication, and self-awareness—as key indicators of personhood. The present study applies these criteria to artificial intelligence systems and asks whether their cognitive and functional capacities are sufficient for moral consideration. While certain features such as memory, goal-directed behavior, and limited moral interaction are identifiable in some AI systems, the absence of self-awareness and subjective experience remains a fundamental obstacle to full personhood. The article further engages with the views of Kant, Locke, DeGrazia, and Searle, assessing the possibility of AI’s moral standing—whether direct or indirect—through ethical frameworks such as deontology and virtue ethics. It concludes that although attributing personhood to AI remains highly problematic in its current state, addressing this issue is an urgent necessity for contemporary moral philosophy.