The conceptual position of "right and good" in the dominant discourses in the Islamic Republic

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Ph.D. student in Political Science, Iranian Issues, Department of Political Science and International Relations, Faculty of Law and Political Science, South Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

2 Assistant Professor of Political Science, South Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

The conceptual duality of good and right is one of the most basic issues of political thought,. The superiority and inferiority of these two concepts to each other has been a matter of dispute between even modern political philosophers such as Kant and Rawls. In this article, an attempt has been made to check and analyze the dominant view of the discourses of the Islamic Republic on these two concepts, and if there is one or both of them in these discourses, their precedence and backwardness are also examined. Therefore, by assuming the importance of these two concepts in looking of the political , in this article, we try to find out: How has this duality been reflected in the dominant political discourses in the Islamic Republic? Is it possible to find traces of this duality in the system of intra-discourse meanings and inter-discourse confrontations in the political field after the Islamic Revolution of Iran? The analysis method of this article is based on discourse theory. In the theoretical framework, while referring to the conceptual discussions about the duality of good and right, we have put more emphasis on John Rawls's theory of justice as fairness, which, while trying to present a combination between the categories of right and good, places logical precedence over right. The findings of the research show that the two dominant discourses of reformism/ principalism and their predecessors in the period of the Islamic Republic basically have benevolent approaches and were aimed at an idealistic goal.

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