Ma`rifat Falsafi

An analysis of “good and bad” and “value statements” is an important issue in analytic ethics (meta-ethics) as one of the most disputed branches of philosophy of ethics. Although such issues in their current form are new to the field, their roots can be found in the history of ideas in different disciplines. In the history of Islamic thought, one can trace such issues in a variety of disciplines such as ethics, principles of jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh), philosophy, and theology. Muḥaqiq Khurāsāni (Ākhūnd), a prominent figure in uṣūl, has analyzed this issue and came up with a theory that is regarded by many as an innovation without any precedent. According to him, “good” and “bad” means “sympathy and antipathy to the faculty of reasoning”. This article is an attempt to present, analyze, and evaluate this theory, while differentiating three domains of semantics, ontology, and epistemology.