Assessment of Larijani's View on the Semantics and Ontology of Moral Obligation

Metaethics deals with conceptual and propositional principles of ethics. It comprises four arguments: semantics of ethics, epistemology of ethics, ontology of ethics, and logical discussion. The most important part of semantic of ethics and analysis of moral concepts are those concepts used as predicate in ethical propositions and include obligation and value concepts, such as “good”, “bad”, “should” and “obligation” respectively. Existence of moral concepts propositions and their mode of being are all dealt with in ontology of ethics. Much work has been made on “moral obligation”. The present article, however, is to examine the viewpoint of professor Larijani who has taken a big step in explaining metaethical debates by distinguishing ontological considerations from semantic contemplations on “moral obligation”. His view on moral obligation is similar to the theory of G. E. Moor in “moral goodness”. Therefore he is semantically intuitionist and ontologically realist. But the problem is that he has not offered any valid proof for his claim. The only argument presented in favor of his view is appeal to conscience to which the opponent of this theory can also appeal