Idea
This claim invites us to view values as a historical product, not as final truths given in advance. The aim is not to negate ethics, but to uncover the layers in which norms are formed and how they acquire their legitimacy. In this sense, critique is directed at the origin of judgments and their limits, not at diminishing the value of people’s moral commitment.
Concise Formulation
Metamoral science deconstructs the sources and historicity of values
Its Place in the Book’s Argument
This claim comes within Arkoun’s attempt to broaden the horizon of religious and moral critique together. He links the understanding of values to the history of their formation, so that ethics does not remain confined to ready-made formulas or to the authority of tradition alone. The claim therefore serves the book’s project of questioning what appears self-evident within monotheistic discourse.
Why It Matters
The importance of this claim lies in the way it opens the door to understanding Arkoun as a critic of the sources of legitimacy, not merely as someone objecting to certain judgments. It also helps read his call for an ethical horizon broader than inherited divisions. Without it, his position could be understood as a rejection of ethics, which is not what the material says.
Brief Evidence
It deconstructs the sources and historicity of values and subjects them to critique The establishment of a “science of metamoral” or a new universal ethics that deconstructs the sources of values
Reading Questions
- Does Arkoun want to criticize ethics itself, or the historical sources of ethics?
- How does this view change the way we judge religious values?
Documentation Level
High: the claim appears in a clear location in the book’s material.