Dialectical Roots for Interest Prohibition Theory

TL;DR

This paper critically examines traditional arguments against interest, showing that they rely on authority-based reasoning and do not adequately justify prohibiting interest in modern financial products like savings accounts.

Contribution

It provides a survey of dialectical roots for interest prohibition and demonstrates their limitations in justifying interest bans on contemporary financial products.

Findings

Arguments for interest prohibition rely on authority-based reasoning.

Dialectical roots do not justify interest prohibition for savings accounts.

Traditional arguments are insufficient for modern financial contexts.

Abstract

It is argued that arguments for strict prohibition of interests must be based on the use of arguments from authority. This is carried out by first making a survey of so-called dialectical roots for interest prohibition and then demonstrating that for at least one important positive interest bearing financial product, the savings account with interest, its prohibition cannot be inferred from a match with any of these root cases.