The Review of the Semantics of Moral Virtues and Vices from the Perspective of Allameh Tabatabai

Moral semantics is one of the topics of moral philosophy that studies the definition of moral concepts, explains the truth, and determines the range of these concepts. Based on an analytical approach and an intellectual explanation, this study addresses the questions of the significance of moral virtues and vices and how we should understand them from the viewpoint of Allameh Tabatabai. Because of its unrealistic and relativistic nature, which leads to chaos, Allameh rejects the sociological approach to the semantics of moral virtues and vices. Instead, he explains the virtue-based and after-life-based approaches through perfection. In his view, the virtue-based and after-life approaches aim to attain worldly and after-life perfection. In moral semantics, however, the monotheistic approach emphasizes divine love as a means of approaching God. According to Allameh, virtues and vices are determined through comparison; therefore, they are philosophical concepts. Hence, the same method applied to philosophical concepts should be used here. In this respect, Allameh abstracts the meaning of these concepts by comparing voluntary behavior with the aim of the Islamic specific morality that is commensurate with human nature. It seems that Allameh has not specified the role of custom and intuition in the semantics of virtues and vices.