Q&A: A Question About the Philosophy Series
A Question About the Philosophy Series
Question
Hello,
It’s not clear to me whether I understood correctly, but it seems to me that in the last lecture it was said that one cannot make moral claims against a person who, for example, commits murder out of some ideological belief. For example, murder motivated by racism. One must, of course, do everything possible to prevent him from committing the murder, and even kill him, but there is no claim against him that he is acting immorally, because he is acting מתוך a sincere belief in the justice of his deed.
I didn’t understand the argument. Why can’t his belief itself be seen as something immoral? Not in the outcome, which is murder, but in the motive for the murder. Murder from a racist motive is immoral because the ideology that one may murder on a racist basis is not moral.
For example, if there were a society in which the norm was that it is okay to murder just for pleasure, or to murder whoever is good—would it not be possible to argue that it is an immoral society? Would it not be possible to argue about each individual in that society that he is an immoral person?
Where exactly is the boundary?
Or perhaps I didn’t understand..
Answer
This is a matter of definition, and therefore not interesting. My claim does not deal with terminology but with essence. Essentially, one cannot make claims against a person who does what he truly thinks is right. Whether you call him “immoral” or not is a semantic matter. In my view, one can make claims against a person only if he knows that what he is doing is not proper. Otherwise he is coerced.
Discussion on Answer
Does that mean that you would not make claims against Hitler? Or Pharaoh 3,000 years ago? After all, they did what they thought was right!
I’m not at all sure that this is what seemed right to them. But if Elijah were to come and testify that this really is what they thought was moral and proper—then indeed I would have no claims against them.
And that is why in the Torah there is no such punishment as, “And you shall come with complaints to that murderer, and bring philosophy books to his house, and he shall read them all his days,” but rather, “The murderer shall surely be put to death.”
Thank you