What Is Ethics?
7:26:15 2023-11-27 940

According to the Islamic scholars, ethics includes all human traits which are brought about either by heredity or environment and which make up one’s personality influencing one’s deeds, conducts thoughts and speech.

Raghib in his Mufradat al-Qur’an says that the two terms "Khalq" (creation) and "Khulq" (human traits) are, in fact, identical; but the former refers to superficial configurations which are observable with naked eyes, whereas the latter refers to the internal powers and innate goodness which are only observable with the hearts.

Regarding this, Imam ‘Ali (as) has said: "Khulq refers to the soul, whereas khalq refers to the body".

As the bodies are different among people; some are beautiful, and some are ugly, the souls are different as well; some are nice, others are inhuman. In the final analysis, the structure of human body relies on the rules of creation, which are beyond humans to tamper with; whereas sour behaviors and traits are for the most part learned and are formed through hardships.

Ibn Miskawayh in his book Taharat al-A'raq writes," Khulq is one of the traits of human self which entices man to carry out his daily affairs without thinking. It is of two types:

Some part of it is natural and rests on the human nature. An example is when a man becomes furious over minor things or fears insignificant events or becomes happy or depressed.

The other part of it relies on our customs and practices. This part at first rested, no doubt, on thought but later, due to practice and repetition takes on a habitual status; then it works with no thought at all."

Thus, our physical traits are not considered as our ethical traits unless they have become constant. For instance, a person does not acquire the trait of generosity by random acts of generosity; neither is he termed brave by just randomly engaging in brave actions.

Thus traits take on the status of khulq only when they manifest themselves as constant, occurring without thought or consideration.

But this does not contradict the optional nature of these traits since man is capable of either carrying them out or avoiding them as a whole, although it is hard to stop doing habitual things.

Furthermore, as it is proven elsewhere, since from the beginning he could either form habits or abandon them, thus he has been free from the beginning to make the choices he likes.

 

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