Abstract
Humanity has been interpreting all metaphysical and social phenomena about themselves and their environment through a body of faith that they consider “holy,” and found meaning in their ontological and social existence in this body of faith. In this interpretation process, a person’s level of consciousness is shaped by the faith system they belong to, while their attitudes and behaviors are governed by the same system. Living in a social community, a human’s endless struggle to meet their needs is one of the other indispensable requirements, such as “religion” and “morality” of life. Social life entails that human beings seek a “division of labor” to meet their economic needs and also establish economic relations with each other. For the sake of stability and integrity of social life, necessity of realization of economic relations like all other relations in a specific order and discipline stipulates questioning of how these relations will be arranged. It is put forth in this article that economic life was executed in a form that it was within religion and morality in the theoretical/epistemological context and embedded to all aspects of the social life by the 18th century in when the East-the West adverseness didn’t have a clear meaning: While as governing and binding rules, legal regulations form the legal framework of economic activities, religious/moral values give them direction through shaping people’s structure of individual and social consciousness. This framework made religion prevailing system of values in traditional societies; economic, social and political fields would be determined by the religious rules. Modernity is recognized as the turning point in breaking away of economic activities from religious and moral norms, economics from theology and morality philosophy as a science as well as the differentiation of both humanity’s ontological integrity and of various areas in the social fields of activities that have been intermingled in a way that is similar to this ontological integrity. Therefore, all of this dictates that any article that seeks to examine the relationship between faith systems and economic activities within a society in which the system is prevailingly adopted will need to examine the nature of the relationship between religion, morality, and the economy, as well as the historical adventure of this relationship.
Keywords
Economics Religion Sociology Ethics Pre-modern/ModernShare
Details
- Authors: Selma Karışman
- DOI: 10.12711/tjbe.2016.9.0018
- Year: 2016 / Volume: 9 / Issue: 2
- Page: 235-246
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