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.
Islamic worldview does not oppose the use of various tools for obtaining useful knowledge and then using that knowledge for material ends both at an individual and societal level. When one reads Quran, Allah is again and again inviting people to ponder over their creation, environment, ecology, design, variety and balance in the organization of matter in the universe in order to decipher the meaning of life amidst all these manifestations. Question of ‘why we exist’ is the focus of Islam. Question of ‘what exists and how’ is the focus of science. Thus, Islam and science are parallel rather than perpendicular to each other.
For the first time, astronomers have captured an image of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, known as Sagittarius A. Is it necessary to believe in something only after we are able to physically observe it? Scientists like Prof. Stephen Hawking have accepted the fact that black holes exist even though this kind of a physical observation is possible only now. We, as humans cannot see an object which is just a mile away. Science had shown the vastness of observable universe. It will take trillions of years to get to the end of observable universe and we may still not get there as it is expanding at a faster rate.
Recently, NASA has released the earliest clear images of Cosmos in the history of universe. Even if we do not know anything about the Cosmos and how it runs, the fundamental questions about the meaning of our own lives stick in mind no matter whether the universe had and have whatsoever biological, chemical and physical propertie
Corona Virus has affected millions of people and killed hundreds and thousands of people already in more than 200 countries and territories of the world. Almost all routines of life have been affected. Our tremendous journey in scientific, technological, industrial and economic advances has come to a pause for a while in the last few months. As we ponder over origin of Corona Virus, it is high time to also reflect and think over origin of everything. This short book engages and invites readers to together seek answers from science, philosophy, and spirituality.
A reflective human mind would look at the pandemic and will be reminded that this life will end one day for him from one or the other material cause. A reflective mind will keep in mind the scientific and historical evidence that death is as much a fact as is life.
Mainstream economics treats altruism as ‘impure’. It looks at altruism in the paradigm of pursuing self-interest. Economists like Andreoni reason that altruism can be explained through the ‘warm glow’ effect. People feel good to help others as they gain personal and private comfort. They might be doing it because of social pressure, to gain fame, to improve social image, to exhibit status or to avoid the guilt of saying no to a cause in public. The paradigm of self-interest is neutral between a person’s decision to help others or to not help others.
Qur’an is not a book of science. But, to present its basic message, it focuses our attention on different realities, both within our consciousness and in the outside natural phenomena. Modern science has not found any error in Qur’an’s descriptive statements about nature.
As far as understanding the properties of matter is concerned with the objective of making our lives useful, religion does not oppose science at all. There is no inherent conflict between science and religion if the scope of both science and faith are duly understood and acknowledged. Islamic worldview does not oppose the use of various tools for obtaining useful knowledge and then using that knowledge for material ends both at an individual and at the societal level.
It is pertinent to ask what Stephen Hawking also finds perplexing: “We find ourselves in a bewildering world. We want to make sense of what we see around us and to ask: What is the nature of the universe? What is our place in it and where did it and we come from? Why is it the way it is?”
Islamic Economics Project 