تربیت‌‌اخلاقی از نگاه نواندیشان‌دینی ایران: مقایسه نظریات مصطفی‌ ملکیان و ابوالقاسم‌ فنایی

1. Introduction

                 The importance of ethics education as a necessary subject in the education of different societies is such that Kant considers it the highest level of education. Ethics education has been of interest in Iranian scientists for a long time and recently it has been seen under religious education section in upstream documents such as “Fundamental Reform Document of Education” (FRDE) (Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution, 2019). The term "Religious Modernists" is applied to a group of Iranian thinkers who have tried to examine the relationship between religion and ethics and present a new interpretation of it during the last few decades. In fact, one of the main goals of religious innovation is the union between tradition and modernity. Since the approach of this current of thought is more compatible with the contemporary world, it can provide an approach that fits the requirements of the new world in ethics education. According to neo-thinkers such as Malikian, the traditional understanding of religion is ineffective in the modern world (Razaiyeh, 2020). Therefore, the ethics education derived from it does not respond to the needs of modern Iranian people (Mohammadi, 2019). According to formal statistics and empirical evidence, the current state of Iranian society indicates the spread of moral harm. In this regard, numerous researches have confirmed the upward growth of moral problems in Iran (Mortazavi, 2021), Yadegari, Sajadieh, & Salehi (2019), Sobhaninejad et al (2018), Vejdani (2017). Eslamian, Takaffoli, Musavi & Arshi (2018) also acknowledged the growing trend of social harm in Iran and concluded that the age of people with anti-social behavior has decreased. In addition, some researchers have confirmed the existence of a moral crisis in Iran (Farasatkhah, 2021; Moghadam Shad, 2021; Mahdavi, Bayat, & Sarukhani, 2020; Vejeh & Rezaei, 2018; Heidarizadeh et al, 2020).

              These findings show that the current situation of moral education is far from the desired and ideal situation and there are various challenges in this field. Delavar, Akrami, & Tamasoki (2019) believe that the situation of moral education is at the lowest level compared to religious-jurisprudential education. Attar, Nateghi, & Erfani (2021) who have analyzed the content of social studies textbooks based on the moral education approach, found that some components of this approach - which play an important role in developing the personality and morals of learners in order to acquire good moral habits - have been neglected in these books. Moradi and Gholampour (2020) have also shown that the components of moral education have not been considered by the authors in a balanced manner by analyzing the content of Persian schoolbooks of primary schools. Yadegari, Sajadieh, & Salehi (2019) showed that the schools and teachers do not make an effort to improve the moral education of students. One of the obstacles is the large amount of formal education programs. Hassani, & Bni Asad (2018) have shown by analyzing the content of primary school textbooks that the appropriateness with the age of the learners and their prioritization are not taken into account in the selection of virtues. Ansari and Mohsenipour (2018) mentioned the coordination of home and school institutions and the elimination of conflict between them as effective factors in moral education. Hasni, M & Vodjani (2016) analyzed the content of primary school textbooks in terms of religious and moral concepts and found that there is no particular coherence in terms of subject matter - which is a reflection of the rational routine of religious and moral education.

                Referring to the current state of Iranian society - which is facing both the consequences of globalization and spread of rigid readings of religion - Shamshiri and Taghavi Nasab (2016) consider relying solely on the holy texts as a grave mistake in the moral education of the young generation. Hasni (2015) pointed out the intermingling and lack of independence of moral education from religious education and believes that moral education is seen under religious education in the upstream documents of the Iran’s educational system.  Also, according to Amini, Hanifi, & Imani, (2019) the amount of attention paid to moral virtues in school textbooks has an inverse relationship with the growth process of students. In other countries, ethics education has been the focus of researchers. For example, Hudson and Díaz Pearson (2018) believe that the connection between ethics identity and moral practice - and the understanding that learners have of living morally - illuminates the context of their participation as citizens of a pluralistic and democratic society. According to Safder & Ch (2018), the moral atmosphere of the school has an effect on the moral education of students. Arweck, Nesbitt, & Jackson, (2005) consider moral education to be subject to four factors namely teacher, educator, society and parents. Jones et al. (2014) also believe that the use of new methods of teaching and cooperative learning can improve the moral identity of learners. While examining the relationship between moral education and culture, Balakrishnan (2010) believes that the development of ethics education is influenced by historical, religious, cultural and social aspects. According to Petrova-Gjorgjeva (2010), there is an inseparable connection between ethics education and civil education, and moral education can lead to the education of public values, respect for the rights of others, and human freedoms. Bohlin (2008) also considers the use of coercion in moral education as an obstacle to the formation of a critical spirit in educators. Since there has been no research related to ethics education from the point of view of modern religious thinkers in Iran, this research seeks to answer below questions:

• What is ethics education from Mustafa Malikian's perspetcive?
• What is ethics education according to Abolghasem Fana’i’s perspective
• What are the differences and similarities between Malikian and Fana’i's approach in ethics education?

             This is a comparatively qualitative research based on the George Bereday’s approach. The method of data collection was documentary studying primary sources (books and articles of these two thinkers) and secondary sources - books and articles- indexed in various international and Iranian databases. The method of data analysis was conceptual content analysis based on a correct and clear explanation of the meaning of concepts through an accurate explanation of their relationship.

3. Findings

        First Step) Description

1. a) Malikyan

               He is a contemporary Iranian philosopher who, in addition to mastering religious sciences, is also well versed in Western philosophy (Razaiyeh, 2020). In his numerous works on reducing human bitterness (Malekian, 2016a), emphasis on human suffering and its origins and ways to resolve it is the main focus of his interest (Malekian, 2016b ; 2018a). He has completed five intellectual courses so far, stages that brought him from fundamentalism to rationality and spirituality (Razaiyeh, 2020). He describes the beginning of his thought path as Islamic fundamentalism minus the violence. Later, he cut off fundamentalism in general and turned to traditionalism and studied the works of Muslim and non-Muslim traditionalists for several years. Then, he was drawn from traditionalism to Islamic modernism. During this period, he was slowly included in the group of religious intellectuals, and from 1997 he also passed religious intellectualism and became fascinated by religious existentialism. From 2001, he passed through it and entered the fifth stage, which he refers to as "rationality and spirituality". He is still in this intellectual period (Soleimani, 2013). The idea of rationality and spirituality is his most important and thought-provoking theory (Razaiyeh, 2020). According to Malikian, culture has priority over politics, and attention to politics to solve society's problems is a type of superficiality. The root of problems should be found in culture and ethics. Therefore, his most important intellectual interests are about "culture-oriented and moral-oriented" dimentions of ethics (Malekian, 2015).

1. b) Ethics education from Malekian’s perspective

            Malekian (2016b) by dividing life into three aesthetic-taste, moral; and religious stages believes that every human lives in one of these stages and some may not be promoted from the first stage to the next stages. Malekian (2018a) considers moral life to be the first condition of a happy or prosperous life and puts moral education first over religious education. According to him, the bigger the human spirit becomes, the more independent her/his morality is from religion, and to be moral, there is no need to be religious anymore. In other words, if one day man realizes that there is no God and no life after death, she/he will still be moral. Of course, this point of view does not mean the negation of religion, but rather the independence of morality from religion (Malkian, 2016b). Therefore, Malikian considers both morality and ethics education to be extra-religious, and since he considers religion to be based on inner faith, he considers it to be in need of morality (Malikian, 2018b). By dividing ethics into religious ethics and secular ethics (Malikian, 1994), he believes that ethics has been religious since long ago, and after the Renaissance in Europe, it was de-religious.

Referring to different viewpoints in expressing the relationship between religion and ethics, he believes that from the point of view of the proponents of the religious nature of ethics, the support of religion for ethics can be proposed in two ways: First, assuming some religious propositions in the definition of morality such as: Good and bad, right and wrong, and must and mustn’t; second, suspending the truth of moral propositions over the truth of religious propositions. Proponents of secular ethics, who believe that religion cannot be the basis of morality, showed that the truth of moral propositions does not depend on the truth of religious propositions by clarifying the necessity of assuming religious propositions in defining moral concepts. Therefore, it is possible to define moral concepts without assuming even a single religious proposition. Also, our knowledge of ethics is not dependent on our knowledge of the truth of religious propositions, and then religion is not a guarantor of the implementation of moral rules (Malkian, 1994). According to Malikian (2015), the measure of the authenticity of a religion is its morality, that is, the more religious teachings lead to the growth of moral virtues in its followers, and the more authentic it is. These points show the priority of ethics education over religious education from Malikians’ perspective. In the moral continuum that can be drawn based on Malikian's thought, religious education is after ethics education and its output. Malikian (2011) also by dividing religious actions into religious and moral ones considers ethical actions to be a common feature of all religions, and if they are separated from their religious context, they still have individual and collective effects and results. With the independence of morality from religion, he is clear about the universality of ethics actions and believes that if acts of worship are considered symbolic, these actions help the stability of moral virtues in a person. He believes that one should try to seriously promote moral actions - as a common teaching of religions - because only with the transformation of the inner state, the external state of man will be changed (Malekian, 2016b).

            In the book “Life Again", he mentions the five areas of human personality, which are: beliefs & convictions-feelings, emotions, volitional, speech and action areas. These areas determine the style and form of life (Malikian, 2018a). In the view of Malikian , beliefs, feelings, emotions; and the will are dialectically and interactively influencing each other, although in this interaction the weight and influence of feelings and emotions on beliefs is more for the formation of will oriented to action. He believes that belief is more important than feelings and emotions in Abrahamic religions, so beliefs must be modified to improve personality. Therefore, from Malikian’s perspective, the weight of "individual moral education" is greater, and in order to reform the society, the moral education of each person should be addressed. He deals with the category of inner satisfaction and considers the achievement of inner satisfaction as the goal of moral education. To achieve inner satisfaction, he points to the view of the Stoics who believed that in order to achieve inner satisfaction, instead of trying to change the world, man should change his desires and wishes. He should try to change himself or in religious terms, give his consent to fate. While Malikian believes that human changes should take place both inside and outside, he believes that how human behavior is formed is dependent on her/his level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. By formulating his view based on Wittgenstein's "theory of forms of life", Malikian (2018b) believes that the forms of life are different according to the level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction within and outside of human beings. Malekian (2009) referring to the methods of obtaining internal and external peace, believes that to achieve it - as a goal of moral education - one can benefit from different ways of focusing on introspection and practical methods - such as exercise and individual and collective methods.

             In addition to inner satisfaction by dealing with inner unhappiness and sadness, Malekian believes that a person with inner satisfaction tries to improve self and the lower the inner satisfaction, the less motivation to change. People who are unhappy with themselves are not interested in change. With the term "deliberate self-destruction" to deal with self-displeasure, he considers it to be a cause of demotivation (Malekian 2018b). Therefore, a morally educated person can achieve existential happiness. Existential dissatisfaction leads to the creation of an unhealthy society. People without a good and valuable life are unhappy and unhappiness causes unhealthy relationships in society. Therefore, in order to reform social affairs, people must be transformed, which is possible through individual ethics education. An unhealthy inside makes the outside unhealthy, and an unhealthy society is the result of the lack of inner health of citizens (Malekian 2018b). Since a healthy society is a pluralistic and diverse society - in terms of thoughts and beliefs - according to Malekian (2016a), only with correct (moral) education can prevent the formation of narcissism, prejudice, bigotry, dogmatism, Superstitions, and the lack of tolerance towards those who do not accept our religion.

                Relying on rationality and spirituality as his main idea, Malikian believes that spirituality is the same as rational religion and rational religion. The rational understanding of religion - which is both right and in the interest of the right - is expedient because today's modern man does not accept worldly, traditionalist and ideological narratives, and it is logically the most defensible conclusion from religion. According to Malikian, spirituality is a moral matter, not a religious one, and to be spiritual, one must have a special view of existence, human beings, and duties in order to form moral teachings. Therefore, a spiritual person has an ontological, anthropological and duty-based education, which is called it “ethics”. Spirituality is not exclusive to ethics and moral teachings are part of it. If morality means self-improvement, spirituality can be moral, but only moral instructions do not include spirituality and are a part of it. With this definition, in Malikian's intellectual continuum, spirituality is placed after ethics and in more advanced stages (Malikian 2016 a).

             In some of Malikian's works (2009, 2015, 2016) the inevitable differences of modern man have been expressed. These inevitable features are: rationality & reasoning as the essence of modernity, secularism, traditionalism and mistrust of the past & history and the crisis of spirituality. Malekian (2016a) considers the difference between modern and traditional Iranian man to be both a historical-temporal and cultural difference. The meaning of culture here is the beliefs, feelings and emotions and human needs as internal components. From his point of view, education is successful if it fits the internal components of modern man, and therefore, he considers ignorance of modern man's characteristics and ignoring it in planning and determining the goals, principles and methods of education as the causes of failure of education. Malekian (2016a), referring to the relationship between traditionalism and successful education, considers pride in the past in Iran's education to be a characteristic of weak, old, declining and defective civilizations, which should be discarded. He believes that order, security, freedom and justice can be established in the society only through spiritual education, because the more spiritual a person is, the more just society - in which freedom, order and security are established - is attainable. Otherwise, the use of force and deterrent tools cannot realize these values. If the learners choose a virtuous moral character without supervision and coercion, they will have a moral life. From this point of view, the government's attempt to moralize the society - especially by coercion - has the opposite result, because moral growth is possible only in the context of freedom (Malikian, 2014). Therefore, according to the role of awareness and choice in moral education, Malekian believes that moral error occurs when a person (student) is aware of his mistakes (Malekian, 2009).

           Therefore, an authentic life is a moral life based on freedom. Some may think that authentic life leads to social disorder, but this problem can be solved with the principle of contractualism. Malekian (2016a) writes in this context: social life is possible based on contractualism. Genuine people can conclude a contract for social life and make it a law. According to him, determining the rules of each generation and period should be the responsibility of the people of the same period, not inherited. Therefore, this thinker believes in the influence of temporal and spatial requirements in the matter of moral education and believes that each age requires its own moral education. Therefore, it can be said that according to Malikian, the education process is based on the teaching of social laws derived from ethics, since Malikian believes in individual moral education, it seems that in order to provide the basis for this education, he also believes in a kind of social moral education through learning laws. Malikian considers the rule of normative ethics, "do as you would like to be treated" to be the most important rule of life and the approved law of all religions.

             Malekian (2014) while emphasizing the role of imagination in moral education also points to the negative effects of illusion and writes: the tendency to moral myopia causes illusion and destroys moral life. Moral short-sightedness means seeing only oneself and others in proportion and degree of closeness to oneself and acting accordingly. Such people have privileges for themselves and their belongings - compared to everyone and everything else. The action of the delusional person is not expedient and moral and it is not effective and does not lead to the goal because it is done with disregard for physical, biological, psychological and social realities and causes failure. Malekian (2009) in response to the reason for living morally, referring to the difficulty and cost of this life, believes in the rationality of choosing the purpose of life so that the usefulness of living morally can be understood. In another place, he considers living rationally as a requirement for living morally, because living without rationality not only causes retardation in terms of mental, intellectual, ideological and cognitive aspects, but also causes deprivation of moral and spiritual values (Malekian, 2016b). Therefore, it can be said that moral life is more comprehensive and deeper than moral action, because being moral requires more than action. In addition to the fact that human external actions must have a positive moral value, motives, feelings and emotions - as part of the inner life. Therefore, the realm of broad ethics is what is observed in moral theories regarding their actions and rightness and wrongness (Malekian, 2015).

              On the other hand, living morally is related to meeting the material needs of people, and the uncertain future of people - in terms of finances, career, etc. - can lower the moral threshold. Having a job appropriate to the expertise in the society reduces work disruption, jealousy, slander, gossip, and flattery. If basic needs are met, people live in society based on moral standards. Therefore, the increase in social damage is related to the lack of material needs (Malekian, 2009). Malekian (2017) by dividing the ethical schools into duty-oriented, result-oriented and virtue-oriented, chose the virtue-oriented ethics and considers it more correct than the others. Despite the acceptance and defensibleness of virtue ethics, he believes that this approach, like other approaches, sometimes leaves us in theoretical confusion and practical indecision. Therefore, when faced with moral challenges, if virtue ethics does not open the way, first only duty-oriented ethics, and in case of confusion and indecisiveness, one should refer to consequentialist ethics.

           Malekian (2015) by criticizing Kant's duty-oriented ethics and John Stuart Mill's result-oriented ethics, believes that the various and important aspects of human moral life cannot be justified by duty-oriented ethics, nor by result-oriented ethics. He believes that a large part of ethics is not covered by the concept of obligation or duty, while Kant's ethics relies on them and these concepts are not able to organize the whole moral life, for example, they are not able to justify virtues. If Kant's concept of duty is not completed with virtue, it is not able to explain all morally correct actions by itself, and for a correct understanding of the "moral self", there is no other choice but to introduce the concept of virtue into the realm of ethics. Therefore, ethics is a continuum, at the beginning of which is duty ethics and minimal ethics - which begins at a young age with the education of social laws - and at the end of which virtuous and maximal ethics and individual ethics are internalized and institutionalized. In fact, with the increasing of the inclusive age, her/his social and minimal ethics decrease and the scope of maximal, individual and internal ethics increases.

1. C) Ethics education from Abolghasem Fana’i’s perspective

           Fana’i, an Iranian moral philosopher, studied jurisprudence in religious centers of Iran, has a PhD in moral philosophy from the University of Sheffield, England. While emphasizing the priority of ethics over jurisprudence in his works, from the position of a philosopher and Islamologist, he emphasizes on the renewal of religious understanding within the framework of rationality. His expertise is in epistemology and modern moral philosophy and traditional ijtihad. His targeted research in the foundations of theology and ethics is a critical encounter with the legacy of traditional Islamic scholars in philosophy, theology, principles and jurisprudence, as well as scholarly criticism of prominent figures of modern Islamology.

1. d) Fana’i's ethics ideas

           According to Fana’i (2019), the goal of ethics education is the training of a free and justice-oriented person, for whom it is important to preserve human dignity. Referring to the gap between knowledge and moral practice, Fana’i (2014) considers ethics education not enough for moral living because it is possible for citizens to know moral values, but the obstacles in society prevent this knowledge from reaching them from mind and action. Knowledge of values and anti-values is the introduction to ethical living, therefore, an efficient and ethical education system is not limited to teaching ethics - through preaching and advice - and tries to provide other introductions and remove obstacles to ethical living. What is currently going on in Iran's education is moral training, not ethics education that goes beyond having an accumulated memory of moral statements and rulings. In fact, for ethics education, the moral knowledge of learners should go beyond the mind and memory, be institutionalized and internalized, become a part of their personality and form of existence. From the point of view of death, citizens can overcome the obstacles of living morally based on their moral identity; until they are able to resist the temptation of immoral behavior by external factors. When ethics education does not lead to the formation and cultivation of moral identity, we cannot expect a moral society because human behavior is a function of his identity, not his mind.

            According to Fana’i (2014), one of the most important social and bioethical obstacles is poverty and deprivation. From his point of view, the government's only teaching of ethics does not make the society moral, and the citizens' living standards and basic needs should be provided to a reasonable extent. In such a situation, most people will not be motivated for unethical behavior. If it is possible to earn money in a legitimate and ethical way, moral values are not violated. Since Fana’i considers the performance and behavior of officials and statesmen to be the second cause of the gap between knowledge and moral practice in society, the government should try to reduce the costs of moral living as much as possible. Referring to the conflict between religious and moral education, Fana’i says that in Iran, the greatest effort is on religious identity, not moral identity. Worse, religious identity has replaced moral identity, while moral behavior is rooted in moral identity not in knowledge about ethics. Fana’i considers this replacement in Iran's education as a result of the wrong understanding of the relationship between religion and ethics in the thought of policymakers. According to him, the reason is the violation of many moral values based on religious reasons. On the other hand, if moral identity was not replaced by religious identity, people would not be willing to ignore their moral requirements (Fana’i, 2014). He considers Iran as a society that is transitioning from tradition to modernity, and an important aspect of this transition is passing from the traditional attitude to ethics and accepting the modern attitude. While the traditional concept of ethics is still valid in the minds of some sections of the society, the support and guarantee of the implementation of ethics has become weak and diminished and yet the modern understanding of ethics has not replaced it. In such a situation, ethics education based on traditional teaching has become ineffective, while the officials of the formal education system - regardless of the lack of influence of the justifying and motivating reasons for the moral behavior of previous generations for today's learners - continue to emphasize the continuation of this wrong method.

              In this regard, he emphasize that in the past, religious identity was a source of justification and motivation for ethical life, but in the modern world, this responsibility has been assigned to human identity. While in the current society of Iran, the human identity has not yet replaced the weakened religious identity. Therefore, from the historical point of view, religion and ethics in Iran have a link without logical foundations, which has actually weakened the moral commitment following the weakening of the religious commitment. He believes that the non-religious society can survive and have a good and orderly worldly life due to the adherence of most of its members to moral values. If the society adheres to moral values despite aversion to religion, that society will not collapse. On the contrary, if a religious society abandons moral values, it will collapse (Fana’i, 2014: 6-5). Referring to the hierarchy of ethics values and reducing them to a basic value, he emphasizes that there are many moral values and some are more important than others. According to him, this point is also true about religious values (Fana'i, 2014).

               Fana’i about relationship between ethics education and imagination states that many immoral behaviors are not due to weak reasoning power and ignorance of moral values, but due to weak imagination’s power and neglecting the position of these values in decision-making and action. According to him, ethics life is about strengthening the power of moral imagination and that a person - before acting and in the decision-making position - can put self in another place through imagination. A person should imagine that if she/he does what wants to do, others will also do it, what will be her/his emotional reaction and moral judgment towards them and their work. Fana’i believes that for ethics education, instead of accumulating the student's memory of admonitions, one should try to strengthen her/his moral imagination. He considers art and literature to be the best and most effective way to train imagination (Fana'i, 2014: 4-3). Fana’i (2016), despite criticizing the conflict between ethics education and religious education does not believe in presenting a rational reason to prove the relationship between these two because ethics education is one of the main goals of the prophets and a significant part of religious texts is devoted to moral issues and moral recommendations.

               Fana’i (2019) attributes the prevalence of immorality in Iran to several causes in addition to the ineffectiveness of the education system. Referring to the relationship between religion and ethics in Iranian thought, he indicated that in the religious society, ethics has a deep connection with religion, but the role that religion plays in the realm of ethics can be positive or negative. This issue largely depends on whether the science of jurisprudence replaces the science of ethics in the recognition of moral duties or not. In the framework of traditional jurisprudence, it has been replaced by ethics, and according to jurists, the duty of the religion’s rule is to accurately determine all human duties. While Sharia only expresses the duties of religion and is not capable of answering all questions and treating moral anomalies. Fana’i (2019: 281-282) considers the freedom of will as a prerequisite for moral responsibility and emphasizes that in the situation of obligatory reluctance, the will of the person replaces the will of the subject in general. Therefore, the external factor forces the learner to do things against her/his will, while coercion prevents the spiritual advancement of people. Fana’i (2016) while comparing the relationship between religion and morality in the West and Islam discussed the causes of failure of moral education. In his opinion, the relationship between religion and morality in the West has more moral, philosophical, and political color, and the degrees of Islam are more theological. Western philosophers consider this relationship more as a direction and guide for behavior, but the attention of the Islamic world is more related to God's attributes and from the theological aspect rather than moral. From a mortal point of view, benefiting from religion and morality in the field of action depends on having an acceptable theory about this relationship and resolving the conflict between them, because according to the common and dominant view, religion is based on revelation and morality is based on reason. Therefore, the question of the relationship between the two is raised as a question of the relationship between reason (practical) and revelation. In this way, it seems that one of the reasons for the failure of Muslims in moral education in the era of modernity is that morality is more than a practical issue, is locked in the field of religious opinions and debates.

            Fana’i, who considers Muslims' perception of ethics and its domain to be incomplete and ambiguous (Behrouzi & Fana’i, 2022), referring to the distinction between individual and social morality and the priority of social ethics, writes, "Morality for Muslims is an individual and otherworldly category that deals with the inner person and it is aimed at reformation, self-improvement and salvation, it is universal and naturally its role in regulating social relations is indirect and subordinate. But in the West and the modern world, ethics is a social institution, overseeing the relationships of individuals and groups, and a basis for collective cooperation. Therefore, its main and primary role and function is to provide and guarantee collective and worldly welfare and happiness and its effect on individual and afterlife perfection and happiness is indirect and subordinate. Therefore, according to traditional Islam, ethics is an individual matter and social ethics has no place in it (Fana'i, 2015). According to him, social ethics is the result of modernity, and the different conception and perception of ethics is one of the key differences between Islamic culture and Western culture. In Islamic culture, the individual and otherworldly aspects of morality are important, but in the current Western culture its social and worldly aspects. Individual morality is mainly result-oriented and hereafter-minded, and social ethics - whether result-oriented or duty-oriented - is worldly-oriented (Fana'i, 2015: 51-57). Fana’i (2019) mentions virtue-oriented, result-oriented, and duty-oriented approaches regarding the integration of ethical theories. Virtue-oriented approach considers the character of the subject as the primary source for moral evaluation. In result-oriented approach, the morality of actions based on their result and utility; and duty-oriented people evaluate the morality of actions based on the inherent characteristics of the actions themselves. Of course, these differences are mostly theoretical and can be combined in practice.

        Second Step) Interpretation

            The study of social problems shows that the most important moral challenges are not directed to a specific or effective institution, although all aspects of education are involved in it. Research indicates an increase in mortality due to alcohol consumption, drugs and suicide (Meynaghiaghdam et al., 2022). Increase in the number of divorces, executions, poverty, prostitution, mental illnesses and increase in prisoners for the crime of drug use, transportation and smuggling (Eslami, & Abdolahi, 2021); increase in cybercrime and its relationship with the generation gap and increase in divorce rate (Amini, Hanifi, & Imani, 2019); existence and expansion of the generational gap (Meynaghiaghdam et al, 2022); and increase in the statistics of crime and delinquency in people under 18 years old (Imani, & Safari, 2020) are evidence of increase in moral anomalies in today's Iran society. Researches in educational sciences confirm the serious challenges in planning and producing educational materials and the lack of application of scientific findings in them. For example, the dubiousness of the moral and religious content of textbooks, inapplicability of the content of courses, lack of solid reasons supporting religious topics, the lack of knowledge of teachers about different ways of teaching moral and religious content, and limitation & threat of freedom of expression (Shamlou,2014).

                With regards to relationship between freedom & spirituality and security in society, Malekian (2016a) believes that only through spirituality can order, security, freedom and justice be established in society. The more spiritual a person is, the more just society can be expected in which the freedom of others is respected. Otherwise, people's immorality cannot be prevented through the use of force and deterrent means. From Fana'i point of view, religious teachings cannot be taught only by transferring data to the learner's mind. Fana'i emphasizes the use of "model" in moral education; models that we can live like and try to resemble them in character, personality, attitude, emotions & feelings, and concerns & worries (Fana’i, & Amir Mahallati, 2021).

Third Stage: Juxtaposition

         After the description stage, while analyzing the moral views of Malikian and Fana'i, the main components of the views of these two thinkers are examined through juxtaposition. The main components of Malikian's moral theories are: Priority of individual moral education; Emphasis on integrated approaches in the field of moral education; Moral life is more comprehensive and deeper than moral action; priority of ethics over religion, priority of secular morality over religious morality in social life; effect of poverty on moral education, and following the principle of education in the process of moral education. The main components of Fana'i ideas are as follow: Precedence of ethics over religion; Emphasis on the use of integrated approach in moral education; Precedence of moral-social education over individual moral education; impact of poverty on ethics education; Emphasizing & recommending use of models in ethics education; Attention to the principle of freedom, and avoiding coercion & reluctance in ethics education (Table 1).

Table 1: examining the contiguity of the main components of Malekian and Fana’i’s ethics ideas

          What Malekian considers important in the field of ethics education are: Necessity of moral education and attention to the different stages of human life; Inner satisfaction as the goal of ethics education; Precedence and priority of individual ethics education over social ethics education; Importance of moral virtue, Emphasizing the integration of different approaches in ethics education; Emphasizing non-use of coercion & reluctance in ethics education and emphasizing avoiding threats to the learner's freedom. Believing in the ineffectiveness of the education system in solving moral crises and emphasizing the priority of ethics over religion, Fana'i considers the goal of ethics to be justice-oriented. According to what was said, the components of ethics education from Malekian and Fana’i's perspectives are presented in Table 2.

Table 2: Components of moral education from Malekian and Fana’i’s point of view

           Fourth Stage: Comparison

           At this stage, we will compare Malekian and Fana'i perspectives about different dimensions of ethics education.

Table 3: different dimensions of ethics education according to Malekian and Fana'i perspectives

            Malikian and Fana’i's views have common aspects, some of which are as follow: Dividing ethics and moral education into secular and religious, considering ethics education as Trans-religious, believing in the intertwining of moral and religious education according to the conditions of Iran society. Also, both philosophers believe that religion should serve ethics and religious education should be a means to achieve the goals of moral education. According to them, in the process of ethics education, attention should be paid to the freedom and agency of the learner and avoid coercion & reluctance. Both thinkers emphasize the importance of imagination in ethics education. Both pay attention to the impact of poverty and deprivation in the process of ethics education and believe that in order to have a desirable moral society, attention should be paid to meeting the minimum needs of the people, and finally, both philosophers suggest an integration approach in the process of ethics education. The most important points of difference between Malekian and Fana’i's views are: a) Malekian considers the goal of ethics education to be inner satisfaction, while Fana'i considers the goal of educating free and justice-oriented people. b) Malekian did not directly mention the method of moral education, but Fana’i emphasized the use of the "model" method and recommended avoiding traditional methods such as lectures and admonitions. c) Malikian has paid attention to the stages of human life, the gradual principle of education and individual differences in ethics education. Also, Malikian's approach to ethics education is individual, and at the same time, in order to provide a suitable platform for his desired approach, he has recommended the education of social laws, while Fana'i, while comparing individual and social moral education in the West and the Islamic world, emphasizes more on social moral education. Malekian considers the lack of recognition of the characteristics of modern man fatality of the combination of religious and moral education and substitution of jurisprudence instead of ethics - and religious education instead of moral education - as the reason for the ineffectiveness of moral education in Iran. Malikian considers spirituality to be the gem of religion, and Fana'i considers morality to be the gem of religion due to the intertwining of ethics and religion. Finally, Fana'i has more attention to the gap between moral knowledge and moral practice.

4. Conclusion

             According to the findings of the research and from the point of view of Fana'i (2018), religiousizing everything in religious societies - including ethics education - is unpleasant and a betrayal of religion and morality. In traditional education, religion has replaced ethics, jurisprudence has replaced ethics, and religious education has replaced ethics education. Proponents of this view believe that if religious identity is strengthened and fattened at the cost of weakening other identities, including human and moral identity, then the goals of religion to reach the desired society will be achieved, while Islam has not come to replace science, philosophy and ethics. The main goal of Islam is to replace previous religions and correct the errors and distortions in them. Putting religion in place of other things is putting an extra burden on it that it cannot carry. Undoubtedly, ethics education is one of the missions of the prophets, but it cannot be said that their mission is realized by strengthening religious identity - at the cost of weakening moral identity. These two missions are not separate, but they are not the same as each other, and they cannot be replaced or reduced to each other. Religiousization of ethics education does not serve religion and ethics, but destroys both. From the point of view of ethics, religion in its essence has a moral framework that must be respected and observed both in the position of knowledge, in the position of implementing religion and in the position of education. In other words, instead of fattening the religious identity - at the cost of weakening the moral identity - you should try to place each of them in their rightful place. Weakening the moral framework of religion is one of the main causes of extremism, violence and terrorism in the name of religion, which is the exact meaning of the word "religious fundamentalism". Of course, this problem is not only specific to religion and religious identity, but other identities - including national, racial, historical, geographical and ideological identity - will also have adverse consequences if they replace the human and moral identity. Fana’i's perspective in relation to the intertwining of moral education and human identity is aligned with the finding of Jones et al. (2014). Religious fundamentalism and secular thought are both rooted in establishing a special identity - instead of the general human and moral identity - and prioritizing it. According to Fana'i (2021), religion is not capable of answering moral questions or treating moral anomalies. Fana'i and Malikian are of the opinion of the integrated application of moral education approaches. For example, it is possible to benefit from duty-oriented and result-oriented ethics at a young age and start by teaching children social rules. As the child ages and reaches the stage of abstract thinking, the approach and methods must be changed so that by mixing moral and critical education, it can respond to the reasoning curiosity of the learners. In fact, with the increase in the age of pupils, the level of their understanding increases and they move towards virtue-based ethics, and the social ethics are reduced and the scope of their internal and individual ethics increased. This finding is in line with the findings of Shamshiri, & Taghavi Nasab (2016).