The purpose of this paper is to explore the relations between various forms of moral realism and some views about religious ethics, particularly, religious ethics in the Islamic tradition, although much of what is said will apply to ethical views in other religious traditions, as well. First, there is a brief historical review of the rise of moral realism in the twentieth century. Second, the major types of moral realism are distinguished. Third, it is argued that for each of the major types of moral realism, from robust moral realism to minimalist moral realism, religious views of ethics can be formulated that are compatible with both realism and its denial. In each case, however, the religious ethicist must pay a price for taking on realism or its denial. Finally, it is argued that the position taken by major Muslim philosophers in the tradition of Ibn Sina through Mulla Sadra is one that concurs with the non-realist position on a number of significant points.
al-Sadr, Ayatullah Muhammad Baqir; A Short History of Ilm al-Usul (Karachi: Islamic Seminary Publications, n.d.), part 3; on-line at URL =http://www.al-islam.org/usul/.
Arrington, Robert; Rationalism, realism, and relativism: perspectives in contemporary moral epistemology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989)
Blackburn, Simon; Essays on Quasi Realism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993)
Blackburn, Simon; Ruling Passions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998)
Blackburn, Simon; Spreading the Word (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984)
Boyd, Richard; “How to be a Moral Realist” in Essays on Moral Realism, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, ed. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988)
Dancy, Jonathan; Moral Reasons (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993)
Emon, Anver; Islamic Natural Law Theories (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
Frankena, W. K.; Theories of Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
Heineman, Robert; Aristotle and Moral Realism (London: UCL Press, 1995)
Horgan, Terry and Mark Timmons; Metaethics after Moore (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)
Inati, Shams; tr., Ibn Sīnā and Mysticism: Remarks and Admonitions: Part Four (London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 1996)
Javadi, Mohsen; “Moral Epistemology in Muslim Ethics”, Journal of Religious Thought: A Quarterly of Shiraz University, 11 (summer, 2004)
Kramer, Matthew; Moral Realism as a Moral Doctrine (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009)
Legenhausen, Hajj Muhammad; Introduction to special issue on Contemporary Islamic Philosophy in Iran in Topoi, 26:2 (2007)
Lerner, Ralph and Muhsin Mahdi; Fārābī translated in Medieval Political Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1963)
London, Alex John; “Moral Knowledge and the Acquisition of Virtue in Aristotle's Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics” the Review of Metaphysics, 54 (March 2001)
Lovibond, Sabina; Realism and Imagination in Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983)
MacIntyre, Alasdair; a Short History of Ethics, 2nd ed., (London: Routledge, 1998)
Mahdi, Muhsin; Al-Farabi and the Foundation of Islamic Political Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001)
McDowell, John, “Virtue and Reason,” The Monist, July 1979, 331350, Values and Secondary Qualities, in Morality and Objectivity, ed. Ted Honderich (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985)
McNaughton, David; Moral Vision (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988)
Moore, G. E. Principia Ethica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903)
Munitz, M. ed. Identity and Individuation (New York: 1972)
Munitz, M. Naming and Necessity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980)
Murdoch, Iris; the Sovereignty of Good (London: Routledge, 1970)
O. Brink, David; Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989)
Platts, Mark; Ways of Meaning (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979)
Putnam, Hilary; “Explanation and Reference” (first published in 1973) reprinted in Putnam (1975)
Putnam, Hilary; “Language and Philosophy” in Mind, Language and Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975)
Reeve, C. D. C.; Philosopher Kings: The Argument of Plato‘s Republic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988)
Reinhart, Kevin; the Boundaries of Muslim Moral Thought (Albany: State University of New York at Albany Press, 1995)
Sylvester, Robert Peter; The Moral Philosophy of G. E. Moore (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990)
Timmons, Mark; Morality without Foundations: A Defense of Ethical Contextualism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999)
