A Review of Moral Semantics in Farabi’s Thought

Moral semantics is one of the subjects of moral philosophy which discusses the semantic analysis of moral conceptions and propositions. Moral semantics has a close relationship with the ontology of ethical terms that solves many problems in moral philosophy. Major issues in moral semantics are the s tudy of the concepts of subject, predicate, and concepts in morality, such as perfection and happiness. This research intends to find Farabi’s innovation by review of ethical concepts in Farabi’s thought. Farabi considers the morally good as the relationship between moral actions and their result. He offers an explanation of the absolute good, rejects ethical relativism and proves realism about the morally good. He takes wisdom, in the special sense of the word, the virtue of a human unders tanding that intellects the bes t of things through the supreme knowledge. The supreme knowledge is a kind of rational knowledge with which humans get knowledge of the attainment to his perfection, through the firs t cause. Farabi by this meaning of wisdom explains the nearness of God and the need of man to God, even in achieving ultimate perfection. He by the definition of wisdom explained the kind of moral reality and the way to ultimate perfection in moral philosophy. It seems we can regard the explanation of the higher degree happiness through knowledge by presence of the relation of human perfections to the firs t cause, as completion of Farabi’s theory.