ʿAllama Tabatabaʾi’s and Carla Bagnoli's Views on the Problem of the Nature of Moral Judgments

Abstract

ʿAllama Tabatabaʾi and Carla Bagnoli are among philosophers who believe in an integrative approach to non-realist cognitivism. In their view, the phenomenology of moral judgments indicates neither realism nor non-cognitivism. Believing that the nature of moral judgments is normative and practical, they do not deny the objectivity of moral judgments, and argue that they are cognitive, indicative, and have truth value. Tabatabaʾi presents the theory of figurative perceptions to justify his claim, and Bagnoli justifies it on the basis of constructivism. This paper will compare the two integrative views of Bagnoli and Tabatabaʾi. After exploring the problem of the nature of moral judgment, Tabatabaʾi’s and Bagnoli’s views are introduced and, in conclusion, it is argued that although Tabatabaʾi’s theory of figurative perceptions lacks the perspicuity found in Bagnoli’s works, they both have similar analyses of the phenomenology of moral judgments and they both use constructivism to justify their claims.

Keywords

• moral judgments
• constructivism
• figurative perception
• allama tabatabaʾi
• carla bagnoli