Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1
Ph.D. student of Transcendental Wisdom, Department of Islamic Philosophy and Theology, Faculty of Theology and Ahl-al-Bayt (Prophet's Descendants) Studies, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran.
2
Assistant Professor, Department of Islamic Philosophy and Theology, Faculty of Theology and Ahl-al-Bayt (Prophet's Descendants) Studies, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran.
3
Associate Professor, Department of Islamic Philosophy and Theology, Faculty of Theology and Ahl-al-Bayt (Prophet's Descendants) Studies, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran.
Abstract
There is a belief that the descriptive/prescriptive dichotomy is the linguistic/conceptual representation of the fact/value dichotomy. The descriptive/prescriptive dichotomy implies that terms/concepts are generally divided into two categories: evaluative and non-evaluative. Evaluative terms/concepts are free of any factuality and are not truth nor false ipso facto. In contrast, there are non-evaluative or descriptive terms/concepts that refer to objective reality and being truth and false. Some believe that there are terms/concepts that are capable of accepting both description and prescription at the same time and these terms/concepts, known as thick ethical concepts, have the ability to go beyond the descriptive/prescriptive dichotomy, thus collapsing the fact/value dichotomy. The fact/value dichotomy means that values are not real, objective and a genuine feature of the world. In this research, we analyze two problems in the works of Hilary Putnam and al-Farabi, namely the role of the thick ethical terms/concepts in the rejection of the descriptive/prescriptive dichotomy and thus the rejection of the fact/value dichotomy. and the connectivity between description and prescription and how it is related to the fact/value problem. It is of great significance because realism or relativism of moral judgments and statements are directly dependent on how to solve these issues. Therefore, it has a fundamental position in moral philosophy and practical wisdom, and other moral issues are influenced by it. The purpose of comparing these two philosophers, despite they both support moral realism, is to show the fundamental difference between them in explaining and interpreting realism; al-Farabi views realism from a metaphysical perspective, while Putnam, in contrast, views morality from the perspective of internal realism and common-sense realism.
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