12. A Critique of al-Jabri’s Arab Ethical Reason

The world at large and specifically the Arab World has been experiencing a “value crisis” for decades now. This chapter explores the late Moroccan philosopher al-Jabri and his contribution to the resolution of the Arab ethical crisis. He attributes this crisis to the incompatibility between the different values that comprise Arab value systems, especially the conflict between the values that are authentically Arab and Islamic and the ones internalized from other sources encountered in the course of the Islamic expansion, and now the values of modernity. As a remedy, he attempts to enact an epistemological break between present Arab reality and tradition in order to liberate the Arab mind and usher it into a creative space where Arab societies can renew and reconstruct their paradigm(s) of thought in ways compatible with modernity and at the same time fulfilling of its own modernity. Besides presenting al-Jabri’s view on this particular topic, the chapter also articulates a critique to it and shows its limitations and possible horizons beyond it.