This paper sets out to explore several dimensions of the science of
‘ethics’, but above all to frame it as a science of the soul, within the
context of a ‘meta-ethical’ discourse. By paying particular attention
to the role of an integral metaphysics within the ambit of the classification of the sciences, it seeks to both determine the parameters
of ethics and also underline the relationship between modes of being
and modes of action. This relationship is further explored within
the context of passages from Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ‘Arabī’s Futūḥāt.
An approach to ethics from a metaphysical point of view, in the
Akbarian sense, serves to establish that the ontological approach
to ethics is firmly rooted in our tradition, one that is premised on
a transcendental definition of the human being. Modern ethics, in
contrast, is characterized by an inability to transcend the imposture
of a pragmatic psychologism. Right ethics in this scheme, therefore,
stems from right theology, in turn providing a right economics and
thus ensuring a right politics, when premises are declared, certain,
and founded on an ontological order of reality.