The paper contrasts this self-centred economic model with moral philosophy. Egalitarian ethical theories which include Utilitarianism, Rawls’s theory of justice, Situation Ethics (Joseph Fletcher), and Kantian ethics (Categorical Imperative), all require that, as a necessary condition for morality, one must treat the welfare of others the same as or equally to one’s own welfare.
In extreme situations where a person’s survival is in question, Allah allows exceptions. One can use forbidden things with two conditions. The first is that there should be no desire and the second is that it should not exceed the limit. Then, it would not be morally wrong.
Allah in Qur’an says:
“He has only forbidden you (to eat) carrion, blood, swine, and what is slaughtered in the name of any other than Allah. But if someone is compelled by necessity—neither driven by desire nor exceeding immediate need—then surely Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Surah Al-Nahl 16, verse 115).
The central thesis of the book is that ethical principles of Islam can be condensed into four axioms through which all teachings emanate or can be explained. These axioms are: Unity, Equilibrium, Freedom and Responsibility.
There is too much focus on efficiency, but equity is ignored and is left to politicians and policymakers. He admits that our recommendations become little more than a license for plunder. He mentions that economists have stopped thinking about ethics and human well-being.
This paper attempts to show how ethical piety can lead to endogenous growth through mathematical modelling.
Many professionals today experience a dilemma where they must make a choice between being good humans and being good at their job. They are left to wonder how the principles of love, generosity, fairness, reciprocity, and trust that they know to be true about life in general, do not apply at work. Some resort to the unfortunate conclusion that cold selfish behaviour is “natural” for human beings in economic situations. This is false. One of the prime reasons for moral listlessness at the workplace lies buried in mainstream economic theory.
This article highlights the points of distinction and compatibility between the Islamic and mainstream economics framework. The distinction comes in the decision horizon and the addition of moral filters on the choice set. The difference also appears explicit when one looks at the encouragement and incentive structure for pure altruism in a two-worldly Islamic framework. The distinction is even deeper in values whereby the Islamic framework encourages contentment, pure altruism and self-less behaviour while the mainstream economics framework is at best neutral between the moral content of economic choices.
This article looks at some of the descriptive and prescriptive teachings of Al-Quran and Sunnah (Ways of Prophet Muhammad [pbuh]) on consumption and spending behaviour.
A great number of empirical studies now challenge the position of conceptualising human behaviour only in the framework of a rational, utility-maximizing homo-economicus. Yet, this framework is used for the purpose of simplicity and tractability in situations where abstraction does not result in major loss of focus and information at hand.
On the social equality front, the one paying interest becomes a slave of those who lent him money since the burden gets bigger over time. This leads to dependency and leaves self-empowerment as mere fantasy and ultimately leads towards loss of self-identity, self-honor and destruction of humanity.
Islamic Economics Project 