Examination and Analysis of al-Farabi's Moral Thought

Farabi is a prominent Muslim philosopher who has offered important and effective discussions on ethics. These discussions are scattered in his various works. Ethically, Farabi is categorized under the teleologist moral thinkers, because he considers felicity and salvation as the end of ethics and the supreme intrinsic good. According to him, some factors such as: knowledge, training, and society are effective and useful in approaching salvation. He regards the virtues as the mean state of human faculties. On this basis, vices are defined as going to extremes. He also believes that moral properties are acquired and thus human voluntarily actions arising from the free will are morally qualified to evaluation. He has endeavored to make his moral discussions on the base of rational and logical arguments and offer a kind of philosophical ethics. On the other hand, he tried to harmonize his moral thoughts with religious teachings. There are also some ambiguous points in his moral thought such as: the illusion of relativity in knowing and approaching salvation, which can be solved by referring to his other discussions. In this article we try to explain and examine Farabi's moral thought.