Moral Concepts and Their Origin with a Finalist Approach to Ethics in the view of Professor Allamah Ayatollah Misbah

Professor Misbah Yazdi (may God prolong his life) divides moral concepts into two types: obligatory (such as "ought to" and "ought not to") and value-based (such as goodness and badness). He believes that the meaning of "ought to" and "ought not to" is the very necessity in relation between a doer's act and its result. Since the result of what is liked for itself and what is desireable for itself are taken as a doer, so it also establishes relation wiht the doer. He also believes that goodness and badness are among philoshophical secondary intelligibles, whose accidences are mental and their qualifications (ittiṣäf) are external. Although he believes that goodness and badness are the agreement and disagreement of act with man's nature, it is necessary to note that while the object of this agreement and disagreement is man, he is not considered from the angle that he has particular taste and preference. Rather he is considered with regard to his perfection which is acctualized outside. In fact, he considers the "ought to" and ought not to" and "goodness and badness" as the instances of the concept "causality" which are abstracted from the casual relationship between man's action by free-will and ideal perfection. Naturally, the relationship between "ought to" and "ought not to" and "being" and "non-being" has assumed clear explanation, so that it will regain its proper position to explain the absolute ethics.