Reflections on Contemporary Arab Moral Thought: An Investigation of the Relationship Between Ethics and Politics

The study explores models of contemporary Arab moral through the lens of the relationship between ethics and politics, given that moral philosophy today is closer than ever to major political problems related to justice, equality, and freedom. The paper points to a reduction of politics to ethics and of ethics to heritage, which has led to the emergence of several Arab ethical narratives. The first considers ethics as an ideal fixed in time that transcends society and politics, while the second assumes that "ordinary people" are responsible for the alleged decline in morality. This study argues that the assumption that Arab ethics must choose between ethics of heritage or modernity is false. Quantitative surveys demonstrate that ordinary people in the Arab region are ethically open-minded, and no longer bound by ideology in their political thinking, just as they no longer link ethics with identity, contrary to the stereotypical perceptions of both Arab and Orientalist intellectuals.

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The study explores models of contemporary Arab moral through the lens of the relationship between ethics and politics, given that moral philosophy today is closer than ever to major political problems related to justice, equality, and freedom. The paper points to a reduction of politics to ethics and of ethics to heritage, which has led to the emergence of several Arab ethical narratives. The first considers ethics as an ideal fixed in time that transcends society and politics, while the second assumes that "ordinary people" are responsible for the alleged decline in morality. This study argues that the assumption that Arab ethics must choose between ethics of heritage or modernity is false. Quantitative surveys demonstrate that ordinary people in the Arab region are ethically open-minded, and no longer bound by ideology in their political thinking, just as they no longer link ethics with identity, contrary to the stereotypical perceptions of both Arab and Orientalist intellectuals.

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