Q&A: Does Jewish law obligate all Jews?
Does Jewish law obligate all Jews?
Question
In last night’s lecture you argued that rule by Jews has halakhic significance because “Jewish law obligates all Jews.”
In my opinion, that sentence cannot be correct.
As I understand it, a normative system can be “binding” in one of only two cases:
1. A circular definition: the group it binds consists of people who accept the system as binding on themselves
2. There are actual sanctions for violating the system’s laws
By analogy to another field: the claim “traffic laws obligate every road user” is true because there are two groups whose union is “all road users”:
1. The group of users who accept traffic laws as binding on themselves (for them the definition is circular)
2. Everyone else, because actual sanctions exist
By contrast, “the rules for polite use of cutlery obligate all diners” is not a correct claim, because there is only the subset for whom the claim is true by virtue of the circular definition.
Before the modern era, the claim that “Jewish law obligates all Jews” was only circular and therefore precise. One could have replaced “the Jews” with “those who are obligated by Jewish law.” Today, when the definition of “Jew” is more complex, it is already similar to the other examples. Therefore the claim is incorrect, because the group of “all Jews” is far larger than the group of Jews who are obligated by Jewish law, and as for the rest, there are no sanctions.
Answer
I completely disagree. First, there are sanctions. In the World to Come (and perhaps also in this world), and perhaps also forms of corruption that result from violating Jewish law. Second, why is the matter of sanctions essential? It may be binding even if there are no sanctions. Think about the laws of morality. They obligate all human beings (including those who do not accept them upon themselves. We regard them as moral criminals, meaning that we assume they are obligated and in violation), yet there are no sanctions attached to them (I mean moral laws that are not included in state law, of course). By the way, in halakhic law too there are many laws that have no sanctions attached to them. In fact, they are the majority. Positive commandments carry no sanctions, and so do many prohibitions (there are no death penalties or lashes nowadays, and a prohibition linked to a positive commandment, or to monetary payment, or one involving no action, and so on—in all these cases one is not punished even when there is an ordained religious court). So are we not obligated by them? Where does this strange assumption come from?
Discussion on Answer
I’m not sure I understood (coercing myself as opposed to yielding to impulses? On the contrary, acting because of sanctions is coercing myself). But it seems to me that this is the point of disagreement between us.
Beyond semantics (obligated / required), from my perspective I am obligated in something because it is binding (valid), regardless of whether there is a sanction attached to it. And that is true even if I did not accept it upon myself, like moral laws. Here too, even if I did not accept them upon myself and there are no sanctions, I am still obligated and in violation; and that is definitely not yielding to impulses, but follows from the very existence of an external command by a valid authority (in my view there is no morality without an external binding source. See the fourth notebook on my site, part 3).
It seems to me that this is connected to the question of altruistic acts discussed in columns 120 and 122 on my site.
I’m trying to understand what “obligation” means to you and how it manifests itself.
When you say “I am obligated,” do you mean:
1. A factual claim about reality? If so, isn’t that identical to “someone with authority demands something of me” (which is wording that makes it clear that this is a claim about reality)?
2. A claim about yourself—you recognize the demand made of you and respond to it? If so, then again it comes back to self-acceptance.
3. Something else entirely?
Have a good week.
It’s close to 1, but I won’t be able to answer precisely until I understand what you mean. The question is what you mean when you speak of someone with “authority.” An authority is someone whose commands are binding, so the term authority simply hides obligation within it. If you do not understand what obligation is according to my view, I don’t know how to interpret the term authority in your view.
But perhaps we’ll get farther if you try to answer what obligation to moral rules means in your opinion. Do you think a person is obligated by moral rules? In what sense? Is it only because he accepted them upon himself? If someone did not accept them, do you have no criticism of him? And if you do criticize him, what is that based on? Isn’t it based on an “obligation” that applies to him even without his accepting it upon himself?
Have a good week. I had a feeling that would be the response..
A. In Hebrew, as I understand it, “obligated” is in the passive form. Let me illustrate simply: “I must get up in the morning” is different from “I am obligated to get up in the morning.” In both, something/someone compels me to get up.
B. I’m not dodging—generally this is a hard question and my answer changes over time. As of this evening: in my opinion, even the claim “moral rules obligate every person” is not simple. What defines the moral rules you are referring to? The categorical imperative? “Love your neighbor as yourself”? Google’s “Don’t be evil”?
So the answer is complex:
A. Regarding “In what sense is a person obligated by moral rules”
1. I obligate myself to behave morally.
2. I demand of myself to be part of a society that obligates moral behavior, and I demand of society to realize that obligation in moral behavior.
3. I expect other people in society to behave as though they accepted moral behavior upon themselves. Their motivation and inner world do not interest me. I have no idea whether they are “really” obligated to moral behavior.
B. The attitude toward “someone who has not accepted moral behavior upon himself”
I relate to him as a suckling from the human family (“he is compared to the beasts that perish”). As stated, in practice I will settle for “as if.”
C. Regarding “moral rules”
In Tosafot on Bava Batra 12b, Rabbi Isaac asks why a verse is needed regarding the trait of Sodom, since it is obvious from reason (= you don’t need an authoritative source). Some of the “moral rules” are rational, and some are not intuitive. I cannot expect everyone in society to live by “Love your neighbor as yourself.” I’ll settle for a minimum (say—Don’t be evil).
And if you ask about the definition of good and evil (so that we can understand what is bad in order to avoid it)—for me these are social conventions (as in Maimonides).
I don’t think there’s any point in escaping into Hebrew and semantics (which I don’t agree with). It also doesn’t matter what the moral rules are. All of these are evasions of the question. As far as I’m concerned, choose whatever moral system you like. Just answer me the following question:
Given the moral rules you have defined, are you in fact claiming that a person is not obligated by moral rules unless he accepted them upon himself? Why do you expect people to act as if they accepted the moral rules if they didn’t accept them? In my opinion, behind this you are hiding our loaded term (because you too assume that they are obligated by it even if they did not accept it upon themselves).
A. Without precise use of language, how can one convey complex ideas?
B. The term may simply be unsuitable, not loaded.
C. I do not think everyone is obligated by *moral rules* because I’m not naive. That is a claim about reality, and it is clearly false. There are thieves, rapists, etc.
“moral rules obligate all people” can, in my opinion, at best be a metaphor. “All people are obligated by moral rules” is a clear and false (logical) claim.
I am not “claiming that a person is not obligated by moral rules unless he accepted them upon himself,” but I think that is the primary layer of meaning of “a person is obligated.” As I wrote, the answer to the second question—“why do I expect it”—is: because they are members of a group whose code requires such behavior.
There are groups—for example ISIS fighters—from whom I do not expect moral behavior. They are human beasts in the literal sense. The reason one can and should judge them for war crimes (= behavior extremely contrary to moral rules) is to instill the moral code in the rest of society. If, hypothetically, only two people remained in the world, me and an ISIS fighter, I would have no intention of punishing him for his actions. I would behave as though I were left with a predatory animal.
My terminology is completely precise in my opinion, but I don’t want to get into questions of terminology. I think the point is clear enough as it is.
You’re returning again to the question of punishment. I’m asking whether you condemn or judge him. Why do you say he is an animal: is that only a neutral description (like a cat), or a judgmental statement (he is not okay because he should have been a human being and not a cat)? If you judge him, then we are back to the point that for you too there is obligation even without acceptance. If you do not condemn him—then that is exactly our dispute: whether there is an obligation that exists and stands even without accepting obligation toward it.
My “animal” claim is neutral. I can still demand not causing harm to others without demanding obligation, because of empathy—I assume those others do not want harm done to them.
On the other hand, in a closed group that is committed to social codes toward the outside world but within itself violates moral rules that do not involve causing harm, I would not condemn them. It’s hard for me to find examples of this, because there is no way to be immoral (to do wrong) without doing harm to someone. Maybe—if I thought homosexual relations were immoral, I still would not be able to condemn a homosexual couple who in every other respect are committed to moral discipline.
So what if they don’t want it? Does everything someone doesn’t want become something I’m obligated to honor? I do want to harm them.
I didn’t understand how you moved to doing wrong that harms no one. I’m talking about doing wrong that does harm someone. Why shouldn’t I do it? I feel like it.
I’m not interested in why you don’t do harm. As far as I’m concerned, you can want to harm others (although I am obligated to refrain even from wanting to do harm). I will be satisfied if in practice you do not do harm. Otherwise, I am obligated to morality and therefore I will try to prevent you from harming others.
The only obligation I can refer to (on any subject) is my own.
Good, so that is our point of disagreement. You do not judge anyone for anything; you only try to prevent actions you don’t like (for some strange reason of personal taste) as much as you can (and with no justification, of course). And I do judge, and my attempt to prevent such actions is based on the fact that he is in the wrong, not on some arbitrary personal taste of mine.
By the way, in my opinion you are acting in a blatantly immoral way, since you are acting arbitrarily against others without any justification. And as noted, I do judge people 🙂
If that is your justification for not doing harm—that too is acceptable, as long as you make sure not to cause harm.
As long as I prevent harm and do not cause harm, it does not trouble me if you think I’m moral or not (but in any case, if in your opinion I’m unaware that I’m doing harm, I’d be happy for you to enlighten me so that I can uphold the only obligation that matters—my own).
I still can’t formulate your position for myself (and that was my original question):
1. What is the meaning of your claims “the laws of morality obligate all people” or “the laws of the Torah obligate all Jews”? Is there a way to restate them by replacing “obligate” with its definition?
2. If this is a claim about reality, then isn’t claiming that it has implications for how one ought to behave a failure of the naturalistic fallacy?
And one more small thing about “I do judge, and my attempt to prevent such actions is based on the fact that he is in the wrong”—it seems to me that the approach that says “there is good and evil in reality, I know what they are, I judge accordingly, and I am obligated to implement the conclusions of that judgment” has led to considerable horrors in human history.
Religious faith has also led to horrors, so let’s give that up too. And by the way, the view that I do not judge also leads to horrors. Everything leads to horrors, so a consequentialist argument doesn’t really do much for me.
And besides, what’s wrong with horrors? That you feel bad about it? So what?
1. I explained as best I could. If that didn’t help, then we are probably using two different languages that cannot be translated into one another. My translation: everyone must do it.
2. It is a claim about normative reality. There is no naturalistic fallacy regarding ethical facts. See the fourth notebook, part 3, on the site.
Aren’t you using “obligate” in place of “demand”?
An obligation, as I understand it, can come only through coercion (I “coerce myself” [otherwise I’m just being dragged along by impulses] or someone else coerces me).