Cell Theory of Morality with an Emphasis on Allameh Tabatabai's Views

The various theories in the field of meta-ethics dissolve when they are reduced to moral principles which lie ultimately at the junction of being either universal or non-universal. The present article is an attempt to introduce a third alternative which is different from the other two. The third alternative treats morality as a living cell with a non-reducible core. The core consists of dos and don’ts. It expands or retracts; in other words, it gets stringer or weaker depending on its presence in the context of religion, ecosystem and the kind of human being. The moral cell has a universal hard core in all different contexts though its realization in different contexts is not universal. The aim is to answer to the following basic question: How can ethics be both universal and non-universal for Allameh Tabatabai? The study concludes that Allameh Tabatabai’s cell theory include four diverse cores. The first core is non-reducible and universal, while the other three can take different realizations and in this sense they are local and non-universal. Some of the decrees and accessories of the cell theory include: first, the division of morals to conventional ethics and transcendental ethics; second, the diversity of recognition and moral judgment; third, the resolution of conflict between pun dependence of religion and morals and independence of the two from each other; fourth, revocation of fixed lines between the necessary, hermaphrodite and extremist sacrificial treatments; and fifth, the substantial difference between moral cell theory and moral relativism.