Eternity of Moral Values

Supplement 1

Among modern European philosophers, Bertrand Russell has elaborated this issue seriously. In his book A History of Western Philosophy, Russell states his viewpoint while discussing Plato's philosophy.

Plato has sublime ideas on the topic of ethics. In his view theoretical wisdom and practical wisdom are of the same kind and he looks at them from the same point of view. Regarding the concept of good in ethics he holds that morality means that man should seek what is good, and the good is a cognizable reality independent of the soul. That is, the object of human quest is the same in ethics and objective sciences, as in mathematics or medicine, which are concerned with external objects independent of the human mind.

According to Plato moral values are realities independent of man, so man should try to know them as he tries to know any other reality.

Here it becomes clear that early Muslim philosophers had selective approach in relation to the views of the ancient philosophers. They accepted some of their views and discarded their incorrect views without indicating what they were accepting and what they were discarding. So far as ethics is concerned, they accepted many of Plato's views but they rejected this idea of Plato, and with justification.

While discussing Plato's views, Bertrand Russell expresses his own viewpoint. He says that we have to analyze the issue of ethics and see where it leads to. How did Plato think when he said that the good exists independent of us. Then he proceeds to analyze in a way very similar to the Allama's analysis.

Russell holds that good and evil are relative terms whose meaning is determined by man's relation to objects. When we wish to achieve a goal, we say of a means that helps us attain that goal that `It is good.' Now, what is meant by saying of a certain thing that `It is good'? It means that in order to achieve that goal we ought to use this means. The very `ought to use is equal to saying `it is good.' Hence it is wrong to hold that the good is an objective quality inherent in a thing.

Plato thinks that goodness is inherent in things, like whiteness or roundness etc., while it is not so. For example, when we say `Honesty is good,' it is because of a goal which we have chosen. In other words, it is good for us for achieving our goal and therefore we ought to employ it. Yet, it does not mean that it is good for everyone. It is good only for those who have such a goal. Otherwise if one had an opposite goal it would not be good for him.

Bertrand Russell and other philosophers applied their logical analysis to ethics. They come to the conclusion that `good' or `evil' are normative in nature. The mistake of the philosophers down to the present day is that they have thought ethical issues to be like those of mathematics or science. Their approaches to ethics has been similar to their approach to mathematics and physics. For example, as in physics one studies the nature of the magnet to discover its properties, in ethics as well they thought that good and evil are discoverable properties of things.

Q: Ethical issues are like scientific issues with the difference that they belong to different realms; otherwise the criterion is the same in both the cases.

A: There is no difference between this domain or that. For example, when man speaks, his speaking is a concrete fact no matter whether what he says is true or false. Does this speech have an external and objective property called `good' or `evil'? No. Truth or falsehood do not have any objective quality called good or evil. Basically, the meaning of good and evil are determined in term of goals. Truth helps one to achieve one's goal, therefore, one must be truthful.

Here the property of goodness is attributed to truthfulness. Lying, owing to its effects, prevent individuals and society from achieving their goal. Therefore, one must not lie and lying is bad. Here one does not have anything except "one ought to say" and "one ought not to say" Good and evil are abstracted from `ought' and `ought not.' Of course, it does not mean that ethics is devoid of reality. Later on we will explain it.

The Europeans thought that they had discovered a very new idea and even today it is a live issue in European philosophy and enjoys wide acceptance. In their view, the ethical theories of Plato, Aristotle, Kant and the like are outdated. They have finally reached this viewpoint. As I said, the early Muslim philosophers also have dealt with this issue and a shortcoming of Allamah Tabataba i s work is that he does not relate it to their ideas.

According to Mr. Ha'iri, one of the questions he was asked to answer in a test (in the West) was concerning the relation between theoretical and practical sciences. As the theoretical sciences are related to the practical sciences, they are not isolated from one another. In modern terms, theoretical science constitutes world view whereas practical science constitutes ideology, as in the case of dialectical logic and materialist philosophy which constitute the Marxist world view and their ideology is also based on their world view.

Now the question is how can we derive a prescriptive and normative judgement from factual premises? If the premises are descriptive, no problems arises if the conclusion is also a descriptive statement. For example, we may say A is equal to B, and B is equal to C; therefore, A is equal to C. However, in the other case the reasoning will have this form: A is equal to B, and B is equal to C; therefore, it ought to be that . . . . How can we drive a normative judgement from a descriptive proposition? Is there any syllogism whose premises are factual and its conclusion is normative and prescriptive? I am not saying that there isn't. But if it exists, how should it be analyzed?

The point is that this topic is a live issue in the West. Russell and his like-minded philosophers are of the view that eternity of moral values is meaningless.

Until this point my purpose was to clarify this point that good and evil are not objective and concrete properties of things that can be discovered, as is the case in theoretical sciences. That is, it will be wrong to investigate ethical principles by such a method, for it confuses between normative and factual propositions. However, it may be asked whether there are two types of norms, one mutable and the other immutable. This is another point of contention which we have with them (European thinkers).

Incidentally Allamah Tabatabai is also of the view that norms are of two types, immutable and mutable. He has not discussed immutable norms-and the entire issue in general-in any great detail, but he bases his theory on two types of norms. For immutable norms he has given the examples of justice and injustice, stating that the goodness of justice and the evil of injustice are immutable, and there are many mutable norms as well.