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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Philosophical Instructions Lesson Twenty: The Evaluation of Ethical and Legal Propositions Features of Ethical and Legal Knowledge Knowledge of ethics and law, sometimes called ‘evaluative knowledge’, has features which can be divided into two general groups. One group of features is related to specific imaginative concepts, from which legal and ethical terms are formed. This was discussed in Lesson Fifteen.

The other group of features concerns the shape and form of evaluative terms. Legal and ethical knowledge may thus be explained in two ways: one is in the form of prescriptions and commands and prohibitions, as is seen in may verses of the Noble Qur’ān; and the other is in descriptive form, the from of propositions which have the logical forms of subjects and predicates or antecedent and consequent, which is employed in other verses and narrations.

We know that prescriptive expressions are not propositions and do not have truth values, so one should not ask whether they are true or false. If one does ask this question, the answer is neither one nor the other, but it is simply prescriptive.

Indeed, with respect to commands and prohibitions, it may be said that they potentially indicate the desirability of the object commanded for the one who commands, or the undesirability of the object of prohibition for the one who prohibits, and because of this potential indication, they may be said to be true or false.

If the object of command is really desired by the one who commands and the object of prohibitions is really detested by the one who issues the prohibition, the prescriptive expressions, according to what they potentially indicate, are true, and otherwise they are false. Some Western thinkers have imagined that the consistency of ethical and legal rules is based on command, prohibition, obligation and warning, in other words, that their essence is prescriptive.

Therefore, ethical and legal knowledge is not considered to have truth value. Naturally, they believe that there is no standard for their truth or falsity, and that no criterion for recognizing their truth or error can be produced. This idea is wrong. Without a doubt, ethical and legal rules can be expressed in the form of descriptive expressions and logical propositions without prescriptive meaning.