Dr. Sajoo’s Presentation.
Hello class,
Couple of weeks ago, Dr. Sajoo came and shared with us interesting thoughts about ethics and Islamic ethics. Ironically, I think the most important lesson I learned this day was the importance of arriving to class on time. I loved his ability to come up with examples on the spot that fit exactly in the context of his speech! Although, he did not say much about us being late, he made it clear to us that it was unprofessional.
I have never taken any courses about ethics. So, I found what he presented very interesting. He distinguished between law and ethics. He also, differentiated between Islamic ethics and medical ethics. He referred to ethics as a principle which addresses questions about morality and highlights concepts of bad and good. On the other hand, he referred to Law as the set of rules to achieve a ‘moral society.’ This summer, I am going to take a course about Medical Ethics. In Islam, Medical ethics should be contained within the various aspects of Islamic ethics. In this course, I would like to see how both work together/against each other.
Rima
April 14th, 2010 at 11:58 pm
Dr. Sajoo’s class really made me want to take an ethics course after his lecture. As many of us hadn’t taken an ethics class before, he explained the difference between law vs. ethics (law: negotiate rule, see how to enforce it; ethics: behind the ‘why’ have those rules and what makes them good), morals vs. ethics (how they are codependent on the other; morals = rules of right vs. wrong. Ethics validates morals- in order to reach the decision made with morals, one needs to figure out what is a ‘good life’ to oneself), and intention vs. actions (what goes into an ethical issue); intention we study the conscious motive (which is what ethics is interested in) whereas with actions, we look at the consequences (of family, self, community, etc.) which is what the law is interested in. I liked how he also added in the ‘myths of religious (Islamic) ethics’, where he discussed the views of some scholars who thought that ever since the end of the Golden age that that was the end of the ‘useful’ age of Islam, and how beforehand most of the works and theories accredited to us was only translation of Greek works (they’re called myths for a reason as I’m sure we’ve completely dislodged most of those arguments during class discussions).