We examine a hitherto unstudied debate, turning on the epistemology of value judgements, between Ashʿarīs and Baṣran Muʿtazilīs late eleventh twelfth centuries. Al-Ghazālī al-Rāzī countered Muʿtazilī ethical realism, here defended by al-Malāḥimī, developing an emotive subjectivism underpinned increasingly sophisticated psychological accounts motivation. Value they maintained, arise not from kno...