Common morality theory (CMT) vs. divine command ethics

Sound arguments against ethical voluntarism were articulated by the Mutazilites and can be found in al-Mughni, the voluminous book written by 'Abd al-Jabbar (d. 415/1024), who belonged to the Basran branch of the Mutazilites.

He held that divine intentions and purposes that lie behind His commands are the same as the ultimate humans’ purposes.

Linking human moral exhortations and the ultimate purposes of a rational human being to the ultimate purposes of the divine injunctions, 'Abd al-Jabbar indicated the importance of interpreting a text in a way that conforms to human purposes and values.²⁸ For 'Abd al-Jabbar:

An adult with sound mind necessarily knows the evilness of transgression (qubh al-zulm), the evilness of being ungrateful to a benefactor (kufr al-ni 'ma), and the evilness of lying if it is not intended to bring about benefit or to repel harm. One also knows the goodness of compassion and giving (al-ihsdn wa-l-tafaddul). One also knows that thanking a benefactor and returning a trust when asked for and being just are all considered obligations.²⁹

Thus obligations (al-takdldf) imposed by God presuppose moral truth and do not create morality.

Law and ethics are often considered to be one and the same thing in Islam. However, a sharp distinction, even a cleavage between ethics and law, developed in Islamic legal tradition. Indeed, the existence of hiyal (legal trickery) literature can serve as a proof that law and ethics are not one and the same.³⁰ One can also say that there is a distinction between law and Shari 'ah, with Shari 'ah being more of a system of morality than law. Theoretically, the jurists acknowledged that the specific injunctions of the Quran are meant to satisfy the principles ofjustice, goodness, forgiveness and so on. These principles constitute the rationes legis (filal al-ahkdm) of the Quranic injunctions, and the whole theory of qiyas (analogical reasoning) is based on this premise.

In fact the later Ash'arite jurists have appealed to a theory that would eventually emphasize the principles of equity, justice and goodness when they formulated the maqasid paradigm. Yet the problem is that apparently the maqasid theory, which is an Islamic ethical theory, was never used to infer laws or to check the appropriateness of some existing rules. Though, when these maqdsid or objectives of the Shari ''ah can be identified, ‘it is not only permissible to pursue them, but it is our duty to make an effort to identify and implement them’.³¹

It has already been mentioned that the proponents of ethical voluntarism or DCT in Islam are usually considered to be the Ash 'arites, whereas the proponents of CMT are usually considered to be the Mutazilites. Yet, such a simple classification into proponents of DCT and proponents of CMT is not based on an inquiry into the nature of the legal reasoning, but seems to be based on the explicit assertions of the jurists who adopted the theological and moral doctrines articulated in the works of the Ash 'arite kaldm. Also, it is worth mentioning that, for instance, some Mutazilites, like 'Abd al-Jabbar, and Ash 'arites, like al-Juwayni and al-Ghazali, belonged to the same legal school of Shafi 'ism, while holding opposing meta-ethical presuppositions. Thus such a classification oversimplifies the subject, especially when we are attempting to investigate the place and the impact of ‘DCT’ on legal tradition.

Mutazilite ethical theory, as articulated by the 11th-century Muslim thinker Abd al- Jabbar, is an option available for theistic morality in Islam. However, divine command ethics and Mutazilite ethics do not exhaust all the ethical theories in Islamic thought. The theory that prevailed in Islam assumed that divine commands are purposeful. Richard Frank rightly stated that Ethical Voluntarism, advocated by al-Ash 'ari, implies that ‘it is fundamentally and ultimately impossible to explain God’s commands in terms of any purpose or end’.³² The concept of ‘purposeful commands’ contradicts the basic assumption of any consistent classical DCT.

Ethical Voluntarism is arbitrary by definition, while any command that is based on purposes, or guided by reason, is by definition not arbitrary. A morality that demands people to adhere to divine injunctions, when those are understood to be purposeful and appeal to human reason, cannot be called ‘Ethical Voluntarism’ nor ‘Divine Command Theory’. The concept of a command itself implies clarity, unambiguity and urgency and demands immediate obedience without any reflection or consideration. However, that there are reasons behind divine commands was clearly presupposed by the scholars who established qiyds as a source of law (usUl al-fiqh). Otherwise no rule could have been derived from another, and no derived judgment could have been considered a valid judgment. Thus, the ultimate ground for any normative judgment infiqh does not lie in the divine commands themselves, but in the purposes or reasons behind the divine commands. Moral values then are not established by what is commanded or prohibited by God. By His commands and prohibitions He merely indicates normative judgments which are ultimately grounded in moral values.

The implied position of most of usUl al-fiqh scholars is analogous to Abd al-Jabbar’s position in maintaining that ‘God is promulgator and not creator of morality’, regardless of the fact that some of them who adhered to the school of al-Ash 'ari advocated the opposite. In usUl al-fiqh ‘rationalisation in terms of reasons (' ilal) and ends is demanded in order that one possesses the rules of the Shari 'ah in their generality and knows how to apply them’.³³ Rationalisation in terms of reasons and ends contradicts the basic assumptions of Ethical Voluntarism.

In order to understand the Ash ‘arites’ insistence on holding on to theological voluntarism and carefully separating themselves from the Mu ‘tazilites, even when their views resembled those of the Mu tazilites, we should understand the basis of the controversy. The Mu'tazilites, in their attempt to understand the world, adopted a methodology that was based on analogy from the observable to the unobservable (qiyds al-gha 'ib 'ala al-shdhid).

They raised philosophical questions related to various ethical, epistemological and ontological issues, such as human free will, the nature of moral value, the epistemic grounds for moral obligation and the nature of knowledge. The theories that different branches of the Mu'tazilites developed had social, political and, of course, theological implications. Following their methodology, they applied their reasoning to the divine realm and judged divine actions and His injunctions to be good and just, in a sense that appeals to human understanding. For them it was the divine gift of human reason that can serve for understanding both this world and the divine realm. They were known as the people of unity and justice (ahl al-tawhdd wa-l- adl) after the two main principles that they considered the most important fundamental principles that capture the spirit and the teachings of Islam. They sought to understand not only the wisdom of the revealed text, but also the wisdom behind creation, and to explain the existence of human and natural evil. The Ash aris, who emerged from within the Mu'tazilites, eventually developed different theories and opposed the Mu'tazilites, who were later declared as heretics. The method of reasoning ‘from the observable to the unobservable’ seems to have been reversed. In order to account for divine power and omnipotence, the Ash arites maintained that everything including morality is contingent. They denied the role of reason in deriving moral knowledge, and the existence of universal moral principles that can be known by reason. Justice lost its meaning and became nothing more than obedience to divine commands and prohibitions, as understood by those who acquired religious knowledge and status that permitted them to interpret those commands and claim the knowledge of the objectives of divine law. The Mu'tazilite might not have been successful in solving ‘the problem of evil’, which remains a great challenge to theologians in other traditions as well but neither did the Ash ‘arites, who thought that they solved it by scarifying the concept ofjustice and goodness and the concept of common morality and rational obligation.

Nevertheless, the Ash ‘arites could not deny the fact that people from different traditions do condemn injustice and lying, yet what they denied was applying human reason to the divine realm. They eradicated the mere possibility of humans having moral norms and rational principles in order to protect the divine from any possible attempts of humans reasoning His actions. They condemned any idea that could have possibly led to what they considered a blasphemous compromise of divine omnipotence and absolute freedom. Thus they explained the fact that people from different religions and traditions condemn injustice and lying because of mere habits and customs that have nothing to do with reason, rationality and moral knowledge. Replacing common morality with 'dddt (habits and customs) and calling people who have certain norms ahl al- 'dddt and the one who claims to act upon the dictates of 'aql (reason) to actually be acting according to his tab ‘ (natural inclinations), was to cut the way on reasoning that might apply human principle and judge divine action as unjust or evil. Evil became nothing but disobedience to divine commands. Thus, moral values shared by human beings were attributed to the concept of habits ( ‘dddt) and al- 'aql, as the instrument of moral judgement, was displaced by al-tab‘, or the appetitive self, as also mentioned by Sherman Jackson.³⁴

The concept of al-maslaha (well-being or public interest) articulated by earlier scholars was now based on what they considered to be a divinely ordained maslaha and the true ma- qdsid (objectives) were now conceived to be divine. But instead of checking and assessing previously derived legal judgments in light of those objectives or ultimate values (that they claimed to have been derived from the scripture), these divine purposes were actually used to confirm and support previously derived legal judgments, which were often based on considerations other than clear divine injunctions and sometimes on certain injunctions that actually fitted the purposes and the worldview of those classical scholars and reflected the socio-political conventions of the time.

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Source: Abou El Fadl Khaled, Ahmad Ahmad Atif, Hassan Said Fares (Eds.). Routledge Handbook of Islamic Law. Routledge,2019. — 466 p.. 2019

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Common morality theory (CMT) vs. divine command ethics

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