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The 7 th Theory of Knowledge Conference
Conference theme: Origins of Ethics: where do Ethics come From?
Organized by ACS
February 18, 2016
AUB – West Hall – Bathish Auditorium
Keynote Address by:
Fr. Boulos Wehbe
Orthodox Archdiocese of Beirut – Notre Dame University (NDU)
I am honored and privileged to be with you, and I thank ACS, and namely Ms.
Chatila for inviting me to address you today upon the suggestion of my good friend and parishioner Mr. Samer Madbak. I hope to learn from you a lot during the discussion slot after my talk, and highly salute you and value your presence, praying for your continued wellbeing, success and joy with your instructors and families.

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The origin of the word “Ethics” comes from the Greek word Ethos, in plural, ethea, originally meaning "accustomed place." I have tried to weave a meaning of the word ethics, which interestingly is always used in the plural, and have come up with the following definition/explanation: it is a system of moral principles, or the ethics of a culture, specifically denoting the rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group, culture, etc.: medical ethics;
Christian ethics, etc.
One of the first thinkers to give it ample analysis was the famous philosopher
Aristotle, one of his books carrying the title “Ethics.” Before Aristotle came his teacher Plato, and before Plato came his teacher Socrates. Socrates was a landmark in the debate of what ethics or ethical principles: are ethics absolute or are they situational or relational (relative?). The pre-Socratics taught that ethics were relative, and that the most important thing was to achieve success - a kind of “the end justifies the means.” Socrates claimed that ethics were absolute and that no reason can exist for going against what they demand. In the middle ages in Europe, people used the term to refer to the “science of morals.”
But the question that I would like to raise with you today is: are ethics absolute or relative, and where do religious ethics, or the ethics associated with a certain religion, fit in? I would like to offer an alternative approach to this question.
In the Gospel according to St. Mathew, Jesus Christ says: “So in everything, do to others as you would have them do to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets
(or the Old Testament).” (Mt 7:12) It is also attributed to the prophet Muhammad by one the companions or sahaba, Anas ibn Malik, to have said: “None of you has faith until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself” (recounted in Muslim tradition in various variations.) The quote from Christ is dubbed by Christians as
“The Golden rule,” and it has become a driving motto for people from the various walks of life, echoed in other religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and even underlying the UN Charter of Human Rights. It is in a way the underlying principle of democracy. Applying it may insure a stable mode of decent human interaction. But is applying it alone enough to insure a lack of immorality, violence or vision?
It is vision which I would like to spend much of the rest of this talk on. VISION. I will refer again to Christ, who forwards the following commandment: “Be wise as serpents and meek (or innocent) like doves” (Mt 10:16). What does he mean?

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Choose an ethical course in accordance with what the situation demands? In a way yes, but largely no! The yes part comes from the following dilemma: if for example
I know a truth, shall I say it? If for example I am a cardiologist in front of a seriously ill person, do I tell him what he is suffering from bluntly and risk him dying from the shock? If my father lied in front of others, do I contradict him in front of them or remain silent?
It is here that these 2 principles fuse and intermingle. How do I know what to do, when to be wise - in some translations of the Bible they put the word “shrewd” instead - or when to be innocent? Or is shrewdness or wisdom a contradiction of meekness or innocence? My answer is no. Both are attitudes we are called on to take, depending on the good of the other or others whom I am dealing with. Sometimes not speaking is wise, sometimes speaking is not. At times being innocent or meek saves a situation, while in others it destroys it. But “knowing” what to do is a byproduct of the first 2 quotations I referred to from Jesus and Muhammad. Knowing what to do is not a purely mental decision, it is rather a moral or an ethical one. It is a decision based on the higher good.
But what is the higher good? To know what it is, Christianity offers the principle of
LOVE, while Islam offers the principle of MERCY. Love in Christianity is the essence of God; it is the underlying principle behind the way God deals with man, in its case in and through the person of Jesus Christ, God who became man to fuse with and save mankind. In Islam, out of the 99 attributes of God, or ىنسحلا الله ءامسأ , mercy is the only concept one which is portrayed in 2 attributes: ميحرلا نمحرلا.
While
Christianity teaches that one must love his fellow human beings as himself, which is to say that one must also love and do good to himself without being selfish, the
Quran opens every recitation and prayer with these 2 words, even saying that God sent the prophet Muhammad as “a mercy to mankind” (Surat al-Anbiyaa’: 107.)
In Christianity, love should the basis of all human thought, action or speech. A person is called to be in close contact with God to be able to apprehend what this love is, which he is called to emulate or to act upon. It rests on the fact that God the
Father sent God the son to become human, and showing mankind through his behavior and actions how to be totally unselfish, even to the point of dying on the cross to save mankind. The apostle John, who wrote the 4 th Gospel teaches in his 1 st letter in the New Testament of the Bible that it is impossible to claim to love God whom we do not see while not loving our brothers whom we see (1 Jn ch. 1) But this

4 is not something anyone can comprehend by only using the mind, for the mind is governed by logic and interests, while love rises beyond that to embrace the higher good, as we have alluded to. Love which is partaken to man from God himself tells a person what to do, how to do it, and when to do what needs to be done. However, this is needs continuous effort to maintain, the kind of effort that resembles the wellbeing of a tree or plant: it needs daily work and effort. It needs God to work.
In Islam, the principle of Mercy is at the heart of what this religion is all about. God is characterized by نيملاعلا بر in the Quran. It is said that once a sheikh was delivering his sermon or “khutba” in a mosque, in which he was calling people to dislike others and hate them, and rhetoric of this sort. He was continuously referring to God as
نيملاعلا بر, while a person in the audience kept on interrupting him by shouting aloud: نيملسملا بر. Upon this, the sheikh said to him: God in the Quran is
نيملاعلا بر, to which the attendant replied: if he is نيملاعلا بر why did you keep on confining him to Muslims?
Unfortunately many Christians and Muslims, and of course adherents to other religions or ideologies or even persons, keep on doing that. Ethics for them is only applied in the immediacy of their families or circles, but they deny practicing it when it touches the general good or others in general. We go back: is ethics absolute or relative? I would like to offer the answer that when it is rooted in and stemming from
Love or Mercy, it offers a 3 rd alternative.
Our conference is asking the question about where does Ethics come from. In my opinion they stem from need; from the need for standards, commonality, and concerted behavior, or to maintain order where and when chaos may prevail. Some have suggested that it is innate in the collective make-up of man, and that Ethics are what the Social Sciences call “a cultural universal,” i.e., which has existed in all cultures and societies. I certainly believe that, and I add that there are many kinds of ethics, like the ethics which govern the work of a doctor or those that govern the work of an auditor, and one must accommodate to the stipulations of the sphere he is his. In many cases ethics may be culturally formulated, such as the ethics pertaining to sexual conduct or public behavior or what have you. But I add that from a religious point of view, mainly taking Christianity and Islam, Ethics rest on
Love in the case of the first and Mercy in the case of the second. Socrates refused to escape from his prison due to his conviction that he, as a good citizen, had to obey the rules of the state – in his case execution by drinking the poison – while Aristotle

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I think that the commandment of Christ on wisdom and innocence, resting on his other commandment to how to treat ourselves and others, are a flashlight to shed light on which course of action to take, and when or how to take it.
I wish you a successful conference.