Religious and Ethics in Relation to secular Ethics from Allameh Tabatabai's Viewpoint

In an innovative categorization, Allameh Tabatabai has divided ethical schools into four major including those of: predecessor prophets, Quran, Greek philosophers, and relativism (the followers of evolution theory). The two former schools are known as elements of religious ethics and the latter ones as secular by Allameh Tabatabai. According to his division and evaluation of the ethical schools, the relation of religious and secular ethics is the same as the relation of deficiency and perfection, and the touchstone of the public and private is considered as absolute. The distinction between the two mentioned approaches lies in benefiting or lack of benefiting wisdom in recognition of concepts, touchstones, discovery, justification and assurance of the ethical values from divine teachings. This issue itself reveals differences between the theoretical and practical aspects of ethics. In religious ethics, true faith to the origin and resurrection as well as practical commitment to religious orders will ensure and prosper the ethical values. And the source of ethical weaknesses existed in religious societies especially Muslims’ ones is due to the lack of attention towards the principles and the lack of practical commitment to the noble teachings of Islam.