Abstract

This paper is an ‘interdisciplinary research’ on ‘ethics’ and ‘Iranian ancient culture and languages’ that describes ‘Zoroastrian Ethics’ by analyzing Avestan and Pahlavi texts such as AVESTA, Dēnkard, The Book of Arda Viraf, and Wāzagēčand ī Ādurbād ī Mahraspandān school’ and the doctrine of tashkik al-wujud in Mulla Sadra’s al-Hikma al-Muta’aliya. The consequence of the ‘relation between finite and infinite’ in ‘Zoroastrian theology, ontology, and metaphysics’ is the ‘firm belief in the reality of the individual soul, and in its capacity for activity’ in ‘Zoroastrian Ethics.’So, the main idea of ‘Parsi Ethics’ is the fullest realization of the vital forces and the consequent disappearance of the opposite tendencies. The Persian genius for ‘utilitarianism’ and ‘pragmatism’ enters into the scheme of righteousness and justice. This ethics appreciates industry, self-control, and veracity in the individual life and righteousness, regularity, and social accord in the social life. The reverse of this ethics is an abstract stiffness that will not accommodate itself to life and whose irrational consequences are often inimical to life. This paper shows that so many years before a ‘linguistic turn’ and a ‘big change in the common opinion about life, industry, and innovation’ that occurred during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in northwestern Europe and caused the ‘Industrial Revolution,’ and then ‘modern economic growth,’ the main elements of ‘capitalism’ existed in ‘Zoroastrian Ethics. ’