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Moral Realism and Anthropological Foundations: A Critical Evaluation of Physicalism in Light of the Doctrine of the Immateriality of the Soul

    Authors

    1 Level Four Student of Qom Seminary, Qom, Iran; M.A. Graduate in Islamic Philosophy and Theology, University of Qom, Qom, Iran.

    2 Associate Professor, Department of Jurisprudence and Foundations of Law, Razavi University of Islamic Sciences, Mashhad, Iran; Professor of Advanced Jurisprudence and Principles at Khorasan Seminary, Mashhad, Iran.

    3 Level Four (Sath Chahar) Student of Khorasan Seminary, Mashhad, Iran; M.A. Graduate in Islamic Jurisprudence and Foundations of Islamic Law, Razavi University of Islamic Sciences, Mashhad, Iran.

,

Document Type : Research

Abstract

Within the immaterialist perspective — derived from divine wisdom and the foundations of Islamic philosophy — the human being is held to possess an immaterial soul (nafs mujarrad) endowed with intrinsic dignity, genuine free will, moral responsibility, and the capacity for otherworldly reward and punishment. By contrast, the physicalist approach — rooted in earlier materialist traditions and intensified within the context of secular anthropology and contemporary cognitive science — regards the human being as merely a material and biological complex whose behaviours are exhaustively explicable at the physical level. Consequently, concepts such as free will, absolute value, and moral justice are deemed to lack any real foundation. The central problematic of this research is how the divergence between these two views generates different and at times conflicting ethical theories, and how it leaves decisive consequences in the individual and social spheres of human life. Drawing upon the works of philosophers and analysing the views of thinkers such as Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins, this research demonstrates that the acceptance or denial of the soul’s immateriality seriously transforms ethical, educational, and social foundations. The essential finding of this research —conducted through a descriptive‑analytical method— is that divine anthropology, owing to its comprehensive view of both the material and immaterial dimensions of the human being, is able to furnish a more coherent, meaningful, and inherently dignified ethical system.

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Islamic Philosophical Doctrines
Volume 21, Issue 38 - Serial Number 38
June 2026
Pages 43-74
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