Abstract
This chapter considers how a natural law-based, common morality framework might be received within Sunni Islam, and thereby addresses Prof. Palazanni’s essay on Christian-Catholic perspectives on cultural pluralism and bioethics. Specifically, I critically examine the notions of moral norms being susceptible recognition by human reason alone and human rights emerging from shared humanity, through the lens of Sunni Islamic moral theology. The first part of the essay describes the tension between Islamic paradigms of moral normativity and rights and those common to universal bioethics and human rights theories, while the later portions introduce concepts germane to Islamic theology that can be used to further dialogues aimed at generating a minimalist consensus around shared ethical values for practical policy ends.
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Notes
- 1.
In this paper, I adopt Prof. Mohamed Fadel’s usage of the English term moral theology to refer to the Islamic science of uṣūl al-fiqh. As Prof. Fadel notes in so far as uṣūl al-fiqh is concerned with the scriptural sources of moral obligation, the processes of moral assessment, and moral epistemology it is a moral science. And since uṣūl al-fiqh is primarily concerned with how God judges human acts and strives to reach the truth regarding moral propositions it is a theological discipline. Consequently the mapping of terms is apropos even if not precise. In Sunni Islam there are two doctrinal schools of theology: the Ash’ari and the Maturidi. These two creedal systems undergird the orthodoxy within the tradition and the extant schools of Sunni law.
- 2.
The four extant Sunni schools of law are named after their founders who laid the foundations of the particular legal theory and juridical devices of the school: Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi and Hanbali.
- 3.
Mu’tazili doctrine held God’s justice to be His essential characteristic and the lens through which to analyze all of His actions and commandments.
- 4.
In this context the Islamic ethico-legal construct of maslaha mursala deserves mention. This construct refers to considerations of human interests that secure benefits or repel harms from humanity that are harmonious with the objectives of Islamic law but not specifically found within the scriptural sources. For our discussion it is important to note that these considerations (the harms repelled or benefits secured) are “discovered” or “labelled” by the exercise of human reason, and that some schools of law consider the construct of maslaha mursala as sufficient grounding for moral obligations and others do not. We see here too that reason maintains epistemic authority within Sunni moral theology.
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Padela, A.I. (2017). Rooting the Universals of Bioethics and Human Rights in Natural Law: An Islamic Response to “The Christian-Catholic Religious Perspective: Human Rights, Cultural Pluralism, and Bioethics” by Professor Laura Palazanni. In: Tham, J., Kwan, K., Garcia, A. (eds) Religious Perspectives on Bioethics and Human Rights. Advancing Global Bioethics, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58431-7_19
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