Choice, Lesson 5

Table of Contents

• The libertarian picture and the topographical outline
• Actions not done out of choice within a libertarian worldview
• Rabbi Ilai, harm reduction, and meta-Jewish law
• Statistical laws, Maimonides on Egypt, and the law of large numbers
• The bees example and the mistake of inferring from statistical determinism
• The next stages, brain experiments, and criticism of scientific consensus
• Implications: fatalism and determinism
• Implications: moral and legal judgment and punishment

Summary

General overview

The text sets a deterministic picture against a sober libertarian picture, and presents a model of a “topographical outline” in which education, environment, genetics, and brain structure exert pressures but do not necessarily dictate the outcome. It argues that even within libertarianism there are actions that are not done out of choice, and it maps out three main exceptions, using halakhic concepts like mit’asek and Rabbi Dessler’s distinctions about the point of choice. It then presents possible implications of determinism for fatalism and for moral and legal judgment, and emphasizes that this is not merely a theoretical discussion but one that touches on our conception of punishment, responsibility, and philosophical and scientific attempts to decide the question of free choice, including criticism of claims by brain researchers that this can be settled in the laboratory.

The libertarian picture and the topographical outline

The text rejects the caricature of libertarianism as action in a vacuum, and assumes that even in a libertarian picture a person is influenced by education, environment, genetics, and brain structure. It describes the totality of these influences as a topographical outline within which the person acts: in the deterministic picture, the person is like a little ball or a stream of water whose path is unambiguously dictated by the terrain, whereas in the libertarian picture the terrain exerts forces but the person can veto them, climb “up the mountain” despite the difficulty, or avoid “going down into the valley” despite the convenience. It argues that difficulty and ease are not the same as good and evil, and that the value system is “laid over” the topographical outline from the outside, so that the slope indicates only natural tendencies and psychological ease, not the value of the action.

Actions not done out of choice within a libertarian worldview

The text states that recognizing free choice does not mean that every action is done out of choice, and it presents three exceptions. It defines an irresistible impulse as a state of loss of control that can result from an internal malfunction or an extreme situation, and argues that the distinction between an irresistible impulse and a normal action דווקא points against determinism, because in a deterministic world all actions have the same status of compulsion. It connects this with Rabbi Dessler’s concept of the point of choice, according to which there are actions below the point of choice, where a person is “clearly” going to withstand the test, actions above the point of choice, where there is “no chance” that he will do the right thing, and the real dilemmas lie in the middle. It adds a second exception of inattention and identifies it with mit’asek, distinguishing between mit’asek and an unintended act, including the example of plucking leaves on the Sabbath without awareness, and the claim that mit’asek is “permitted” according to a common understanding because there was no decision. It brings the view of Rabbi Akiva Eiger, who in a responsum argues that mit’asek involves a rabbinic prohibition, and explains this by saying that the lack of alertness itself lies within the point of choice and therefore carries some responsibility, similar to the concept of inadvertent sin, which requires a sacrifice when it includes negligence and is not close to coercion. It presents a third exception of actions of “picking versus choosing,” in which there is no real dilemma and no serious considerations either way, and gives as an example the Libet experiment, where pressing a button “whenever you decide” is not a value-laden choice but a meaningless action that could just as well be randomized, and therefore sheds no light on the question of free choice.

Rabbi Ilai, harm reduction, and meta-Jewish law

The text cites the statement of Rabbi Ilai: “If a person sees that his impulse is overpowering him, let him wear black, go to a distant place, and do what his heart desires,” and describes a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) about its meaning. It presents one interpretation according to which this is advice meant to cool him down and help him overcome the impulse, thereby preventing the sin, and explains that this interpretation stems from an unwillingness to accept that Jewish law would give advice on how to sin. It presents the view of most of the medieval authorities (Rishonim), who understand it literally as harm reduction, when a person foresees failure because of an irresistible impulse, in order to reduce desecration of God’s name, and identifies this as a halakhic recognition of situations that lie above the point of choice. It cites the Rif and the Rosh, who write, “And the Jewish law does not follow Rabbi Ilai, for we hold that everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven,” and explains that they reject compromise with impulse even when a person estimates that he will not withstand the test. It adds that Tosafot in Chagigah seems to imply that the Jewish law does follow Rabbi Ilai, but argues that even then this is not a “halakhic permit” for the transgression but a meta-halakhic legitimization of harm reduction. It compares this to conscientious refusal in law, and distinguishes it from a manifestly illegal order, while describing recognition of the meta-legal legitimacy of refusal together with paying a price for it. It adds a political aside that Yuli Edelstein presented his refusal to comply with a High Court decision as conscientious refusal, but it was argued that he paid no price and that political interest stood behind it. It gives another example from a column on a website about Rabbi Amsalem’s permission to immerse in drawn water under certain conditions in a case where immersion was otherwise prohibited, and frames this as advice for minimizing sin rather than as a permit. It presents the view that it is not appropriate for a rabbi to give an individual “instructions for minimizing prohibitions,” but in public guidance there is room for this on the assumption that some at the margins will fail, and it connects this to the statement, “Better that they eat meat of animals that were slaughtered though near death,” as a justification for directing the public toward harm reduction.

Statistical laws, Maimonides on Egypt, and the law of large numbers

The text argues that a central difference between determinism and libertarianism is that the determinist sees influences as determining the outcome, whereas the libertarian sees them as influential but not decisive. It claims that on the statistical level there will not be much difference between the positions, because even the libertarian will accept psychological and social “laws” as averages, but will treat them as statistical laws rather than deterministic laws governing the individual. It cites Maimonides in the Laws of Repentance, chapter 6, on the punishment of the Egyptians in light of “And they shall enslave them and afflict them four hundred years,” and Maimonides’ claim that each individual Egyptian had free choice even though the collective determination still came about. It presents the Raavad’s difficulty: if every Egyptian has free choice, all of them might choose good and the decree would not be fulfilled. The text answers that Maimonides relies on an idea resembling the law of large numbers: with respect to a large public, one can expect with high probability a certain kind of behavior even when each individual is free, similar to dice throws converging to a distribution. It presents the determinist position, according to which inability to predict an individual is merely a matter of complexity and lack of information, so that with complete information and suitable equipment one could predict a person’s entire future; and in contrast the libertarian position, according to which even with full information the law remains statistical because the person’s decision remains an element that is not dictated.

The bees example and the mistake of inferring from statistical determinism

The text describes an Israeli study published in Nature on bees choosing between an option of 80% high sugar concentration and an option of 100% lower sugar concentration, and says that the bees prefer the stable option in a pattern resembling human beings. It argues that inferring an essential identity between bees and human beings from this statistical similarity is a mistake, because even if human beings have free choice, one can still get the same result at the level of distribution across a large population. It expands on this by saying that presenting gene studies or brain studies as proof that a person is a “deterministic gene machine” ignores the fact that statistical laws are also compatible with a libertarian worldview, and therefore nothing is decided by this.

The next stages, brain experiments, and criticism of scientific consensus

The text presents a plan for what comes next: moving from the presentation of the two pictures to clarifying practical and moral implications, and then moving on to arguments for and against determinism and libertarianism, including philosophical arguments and scientific arguments. It mentions Benjamin Libet and the beginning of a wave of experiments from the 1980s, including “split brain,” and argues that the motivation for the discussion is the feeling that a consensus has emerged among brain researchers that determinism can be decided in the laboratory. It argues that at present there is no way to show this, and that sweeping statements by brain researchers reflect a lack of understanding of the philosophical meaning of scientific findings, a phenomenon common even among intelligent experts.

Implications: fatalism and determinism

The text presents fatalism as an implication people try to derive from determinism, and for this it brings the story “Appointment in Samarra,” attributed to Somerset Maugham and known through the book Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara, in which flight from death leads directly to the meeting that had already been decreed. It also adds the parable “The Tale of Oisín” from Richard Taylor’s book Metaphysics, in which an attempt to escape the written future leads to its realization. It presents the “lazy argument,” according to which if everything is dictated there is no point in making an effort, but argues that factually determinism does not imply fatalism, because even in a deterministic world money comes from work as part of the causal chain. It presents Luther and Calvin as representing a Protestant deterministic conception that is not fatalistic, and in fact demands diligence and effort as a way of revealing that a person belongs to the “elect,” and connects this to Max Weber’s Protestant thesis about the sources of Western success-driven culture and neurosis. It adds that deterministic brain researchers continue to work hard and do not sit at home, and from this it concludes that at least in practice determinism and fatalism do not overlap.

Implications: moral and legal judgment and punishment

The text presents a common libertarian claim that determinism undermines moral and legal judgment, because the person is “compelled” and every action is like an irresistible impulse. It brings a deterministic counter-response, according to which the judge too is compelled to judge and has no choice, but argues that the determinist still judges on a cognitive level and attributes evil in a considered way, and does not merely feel emotions forced upon him, so there is an inconsistency here. It presents a deterministic justification for punishment as a utilitarian act of correction/training and deterrence that shapes the “topographical outline” in order to prevent future sin, and attributes this to Maimonides in his description of the purpose of punishment as changing the conditions of behavior. It argues that such a justification changes practical decisions about punishment, and in particular turns the claim of irresistible impulse into an irrelevant one, because punishment is not a response to guilt but a tool for preventing recurrence. As an example, it cites discussions surrounding house demolitions and the question whether punishment is effective, and argues that in a model of sanction for bad choice, “who cares” if it achieves no benefit because “he deserves punishment,” whereas in a deterministic model future benefit is the criterion. It mentions an article in a law journal about free choice in law and neuroscience, and argues that the meeting between them is problematic because there are no tools to deal with the deterministic implications for concepts like criminal intent, and that the deterministic world erases the basic concepts of criminal law. It concludes by saying that the debate affects practical life, and that the philosophical and scientific arguments and their connection to the implications for fatalism and morality will be examined later on.

Up to now I’ve set two pictures against one another: the deterministic picture and the libertarian picture. It’s important, so let me summarize the picture. The deterministic picture is simple. I’ll summarize the libertarian picture, because that’s what will accompany us from here on. Contrary to the almost caricature-like view of libertarianism, as if we’re talking about action inside a vacuum, an action in whose framework there are no influences on the person, where a person acts in a completely free way with no limitations and no influences on him—not environment, not education, not genetics, things like that—because supposedly all of those are determinism. So of course that’s not true. I described it through some model in which, let’s say, there is some kind of… I describe all the influences on a person—education, environment, genetics, brain structure, whatever you want. All of that is described as a kind of outline or topographical map within which the person moves. If he were just a little ball or a stream of water, then the topographical map would dictate the path in a one-to-one way. From where to where would you get if you are in a certain place? I’ll tell you where you’ll be in the next place. And in the analogy, the idea is that our environment basically dictates where we’ll go or what we’ll do. That is the deterministic view. In the libertarian view, the outline exerts forces on me, influences, tries to take me to certain places or push me away from other places. But unlike a little ball rolling on a topographical map, a person who is on a topographical map can decide to climb the mountain even though that means losing potential energy, it’s uncomfortable, it’ll take effort—but he can decide to do it. Or not to descend into the valley even though that’s very comfortable—he can decide not to do it. And therefore the environment, the topographical outline, is shared by both pictures. The question really is not what the environment is, but who is inside the environment. Is the person a little ball or a stream of water, in the deterministic view, or is the person some kind of creature that can also decide to veto, to go against the pressures or influences of the environment? And I said that this environment—let’s say there is some mountain that represents a direction that is very hard for me to go in—that doesn’t necessarily mean that this direction is a good direction. Or a direction that is easy for me to slide into—the valley—doesn’t necessarily mean that this direction is a bad direction. A person may have very natural tendencies to do good, and it suits me to do good, it is called for, it’s comfortable for me to do good, and therefore I have a valley in the direction of good actions, not in the direction of bad actions. We always have a tendency to think that if something is too easy then apparently it’s not right, or if something is good then it has to be hard. No, not necessarily. In principle, there can be hard and easy actions in both the positive and negative directions. Therefore the topographical outline has nothing to do with the question of good and evil. The topographical outline relates only to the question of whether it is hard for me or easy for me, whether my natural tendencies take me in that direction or, on the contrary, stop me from going in that direction, or are neutral if it’s level ground. So on level ground it’s neutral—I can go, I can not go, there are no forces influencing you and no forces stopping you. That is the topographical outline. What is evil and what is good is imposed on the topographical outline. Meaning, it is a value issue. One has to decide whether a given direction is good or bad regardless of its height or steepness. There is no connection between those things and whether that direction is good or bad. That is basically the picture in a nutshell of the libertarian view. Before I continue, I just want to note that even in the libertarian view, as part of that same classification of libertarianism—I mean the caricatured, naive one—it’s clear that even in a libertarian view there are actions that a person performs not out of choice. In other words, the fact that I say a person has choice does not mean that every single action a person performs is done out of choice. This is again a very common attack by determinists, and in my view, if anything, it attacks them, not the libertarian. I’ll bring two mechanisms that… one mechanism, maybe the obvious and known one, is the mechanism of an irresistible impulse. When a person is sometimes in a state where, let’s say, some sort of frenzy takes hold of him, suddenly some impulse overcomes him and he cannot cope with it, and he reacts in a certain way that is not under his control. There are all sorts of claims for exemption from responsibility in court that can be based on a psychiatrist saying that the person acted in a way over which he had no control—an irresistible impulse. Does such a thing testify to determinism? Absolutely not. Even in the libertarian picture, where a person has free choice, that does not mean that everything is done out of free choice, as I said earlier. There can be moments or situations in which a person enters some situation where he has no control, he loses control, either because something in him malfunctioned or because the external situation is really very, very difficult, some kind of provocation that perhaps no reasonable person could withstand. It could be, I don’t know. So maybe even a reasonable person in such a state—it doesn’t have to be someone with something wrong in his head. It’s somewhat connected to the concept known from Rabbi Dessler about the ‘point of choice,’ which I mentioned last time, where Rabbi Dessler says that there are actions regarding which it is clear that we will withstand the test. For example, if I see someone on the street whom I don’t like, I won’t kill him—not because I overcame my inclination and chose not to kill him, but because it’s not even an issue over which I have any hesitation. It’s below my point of choice; there it’s clear that I’ll behave properly. There are situations above the point of choice—those are situations where there is no chance I’ll do the right thing; it’s above my spiritual level. Meaning, it’s something like this: there’s no chance, I can’t meet this very high standard—to dedicate my entire life to benefiting others and run around the world and the universe, I don’t know, looking for all kinds of creatures and people who need help. That’s a very high level; almost no one in the world is capable of doing that. Not because he failed to meet it—it doesn’t even come up for discussion for him, except among very, very rare people. So that is above the point of choice. The dilemmas in which we are tested, which we confront, are dilemmas that lie between those two, in some zone regarding which we really do hesitate yes or no. It’s not too easy and not too hard, and there, in the middle, that’s where we are tested—whether we choose good or choose evil, or do not choose. So therefore in this context, when I speak about an irresistible impulse, I’m speaking about what is too hard. Meaning, I behave improperly, but not as the result of a decision; it’s not under my control, meaning this is not a test I can withstand. Now for each person, of course, what counts for him as such a test is a personal function—each person according to how he is built, his tendencies, his strengths, his abilities, his inclinations and impulses. Therefore each person has a different point of choice, but apparently everyone has some point of choice beyond which these are actions in which he probably will not succeed in withstanding the test. And therefore an irresistible impulse exists also in the libertarian worldview. It is not a derivative of a deterministic worldview—and I would even say the opposite. From the very fact that we distinguish between a state of irresistible impulse and a normative action for which we bear responsibility and can stand moral or legal judgment, that very distinction is actually evidence against determinism. Because in a deterministic world all actions are irresistible impulse. Meaning, all our actions are really the result of an impulse—it doesn’t matter right now what its intensity is—but an internal impulse that determines what we will do. It doesn’t matter whether I’m sweating and trembling with rage and therefore I do it, or whether I do it calmly and serenely. In all those cases, in the deterministic picture, the person is really acting under external or internal constraints—we talked about that—but under constraints, meaning not under his control. Therefore, on the contrary, precisely the distinction between irresistible impulse and normative action indicates that at root we are talking about a libertarian worldview. Because precisely in the libertarian worldview one can say that unlike normative actions, there are certain kinds of actions in which we operate differently. On the deterministic side, all actions are like that. Therefore this distinction actually belongs to the libertarian argument. That is the first exception: action not out of choice within the libertarian worldview. The second exception, which splits into two—or I said two that are really three—the second exception is actions in which, within their framework, I do not choose. It’s not an irresistible impulse; I could withstand it, but I don’t choose. Why? Here this divides into two kinds, at least two kinds. One kind is lack of attention. Simply lack of attention. I did something and didn’t notice that there was actually some dilemma here that required attention and a decision about what I’m going to do. Sometimes a person reacts instinctively without choosing. Now again, it’s not an irresistible impulse in the sense that if he had stopped he could have chosen and withstood the test; it’s not something he is unable to withstand. Rather, it’s something he doesn’t even notice is a dilemma—he is simply what in the language of Jewish law is called ‘unaware involvement.’ And in such a case, then the person performs an action not out of choice even though we are speaking within a libertarian worldview. A person has choice; it’s not that fundamentally we deny that a person has choice. On the contrary—precisely in the picture where a person fundamentally has choice. But there can be situations, as we said, of irresistible impulse; there can be another situation, which is a situation of my acting out of lack of attention—I did not choose. By the way, in this matter it’s very interesting, because in Jewish law, when I connected this to the concept of ‘unaware involvement,’ it is accepted to think that such a case is permitted—not just exempt, but fully permitted. When you do some action out of lack of attention, you don’t even know that you performed some prohibited action; you simply did something in your usual way and something happened there. This is not unintentional action. Unintentional action is when someone drags a bench in order to move it from place to place and creates a furrow. But in unintentional action the person knows a furrow may be created here; it’s just not why he did the action, and therefore it is not ‘unaware involvement’—it is unintentional action. In ‘unaware involvement’ we’re talking about someone who is not even aware that at the same time some action is being performed. He walks by a bush on the Sabbath and somehow plucks leaves from the bush—he doesn’t even notice, he is simply walking down the street. So that is ‘unaware involvement,’ and not unintentional action. Because if it were unintentional action he would be liable—it might even be an inevitable result. But no, it is ‘unaware involvement.’ What happens in ‘unaware involvement’? So I said, the simple assumption is that in ‘unaware involvement’ it is permitted. And the reason, again, is that an action not done out of choice is not an action for which one can judge a person, even in a libertarian worldview, because you didn’t decide at all in that context. It wasn’t even before your eyes that there was a dilemma here, and therefore there is no decision of yours here; rather, you simply went along innocently. For that a person is not held accountable. But interestingly, the position of Rabbi Akiva Eiger, as is well known in a responsum, is that in ‘unaware involvement’ there is a rabbinic prohibition. And the question is why there is a rabbinic prohibition. What—this isn’t something I decided, by the way. So clearly what Rabbi Akiva Eiger claims is that since this does ultimately belong to your point of choice—if you had been more alert and noticed, then yes, you could have made the right decisions—then the fact that you were unfocused or inattentive and did not notice that you had entered a situation in which you were violating a prohibition—that itself is a prohibition. Do not violate the prohibition of reaping on the Sabbath. It is not a Torah-level prohibition of labor, but regarding the very fact that you were not focused, yes, that you brought yourself into such a situation—for that there is a rabbinic prohibition. And the underlying reason why one can say such a thing at all is precisely because ‘unaware involvement’ is not an irresistible impulse. An irresistible impulse is not a rabbinic prohibition; with an irresistible impulse you are coerced. In ‘unaware involvement’ you are not coerced. You are coerced once you are already in the situation, because you don’t even know there is a problem. But you are not coerced in the sense that, if you had been focused, you would not have entered that situation. Like when they talk about negligence—why does inadvertent sin require an offering? Because inadvertence is a kind of negligence; you should have paid attention. Inadvertence close to compulsion—yes, inadvertence where one really could not have noticed—does not require an offering. Such inadvertence does not lead to exile; it does not require an offering. The kind of inadvertence that requires an offering is inadvertence that contains some degree of negligence in what he did, otherwise it is compulsion and not inadvertence. So also in ‘unaware involvement,’ same thing. So that, I said, is the second type: actions that are simply due to lack of attention. The third type, which also consists of actions I could have chosen but do not, are actions that I’ll later call—we’ll see this more later—actions of ‘picking’ versus ‘choosing.’ Choosing is choice; picking—I don’t know how to call it, how to translate it into Hebrew—just doing something. These actions, for example, those who know Libet’s experiment, which we’ll get to later—Benjamin Libet, the American neurologist in the 1970s and 1980s of the previous century—he did a series of experiments trying to check whether a person has free choice. Without getting into it, because we’ll still talk about it, the case he examined was a person sitting at a table with a button on the table. He tells the person: press the button whenever you decide to do so. And he did all sorts of measurements there to see whether the person chooses to do it or does not choose to do it but rather it is dictated to him from within. That is Libet’s experiment—for anyone who once heard us talk about it in Ra’anana. In any case, one of the strong criticisms of these experiments is that pressing a button is the kind of action that belongs to picking and not to choosing. In other words, because when to press the button—now, or in ten seconds, or in half a minute—is not a dilemma with considerations this way or that way. So when I decide that I’ll press now or in ten seconds, it’s not that there’s some dilemma between considerations here and considerations there, and a decision must be made, deciding in favor of one option and against another. It’s just a trivial action. In such an action I’m not performing an act of choice because there is nothing to choose among. And that’s what I talked about last time, because this is like equal-valued objects—I can cast lots. In other words, there are no considerations here or there. And therefore here it’s not because of lack of attention as in the second example; it’s also not an irresistible impulse as in the first example; it is simply an action that does not present me with a dilemma. An action that does not present me with a dilemma, does not depend on anything, has no price in good or evil whether I do it this way or another—there too I am not choosing. But I am not choosing because no dilemma stands before me. Not because there is no choice in the world and I have no free will, but because in such a situation there is nothing to choose between. Okay, so that is the third type of action done not out of choice, even within a libertarian worldview. And therefore this is very important, because many times in these discussions people show: look, see, these circumstances caused a person to act this way; he had no choice. And people think this is an argument against libertarianism, or that it is an argument showing that the world is deterministic. Usually arguments like that show the opposite. They show the opposite because they show that our simple assumption is that a person does have control and does have choice. And if here there was a particular situation in which the person did not choose, then this exception proves the rule. This exception basically comes to say that in normal conduct it is not so. But there are cases where yes, there are cases where I do not do it out of choice. So those are the three exceptions. I’ll perhaps bring an example, again a halakhic, meta-halakhic example. The Talmud in Moed Katan and in Chagigah and in several other places brings the saying of Rabbi Ilai. Rabbi Ilai said: if a person sees that his inclination is overpowering him, let him wear black, go to a distant place, and do what his heart desires. So Rabbi Ilai’s claim is basically—and there is a dispute about this among the medieval authorities (Rishonim). Rashi there in Moed Katan brings two interpretations, and also in other places where this appears there are Rabbeinu Chananel and Rav Hai Gaon and other positions—two main positions among the medieval authorities. One position among the medieval authorities says that this advice—to wear black and go to a distant place—is really advice that will help him deal with the inclination. If you see that you have a strong inclination that you can’t cope with, go to a distant place, relocate somewhere else, wear black, and this will help cool you off. Meaning, it will help you cope so that in the end you won’t perform the act. What stands behind this interpretation—which is of course not the straightforward reading of the Talmud—is the unwillingness to accept that in Jewish law there could be advice telling a person how to commit a prohibition. In other words, it says to him: listen, if you have a strong inclination, there’s no choice, you will probably sin; at least minimize the damage—go to a distant place, wear black. Impossible, say those commentators. It must be that this is only advice that will help you cope. It cannot be that Jewish law gives you legitimacy to commit a sin, as long as you minimize the expected damage. That is the view of some medieval authorities. But most medieval authorities do not learn it that way. There is Rashi and the Rif and the Rosh and many, many other medieval authorities, Tosafot—they do not learn it that way. Rather they understand the Talmud in its straightforward sense: that Rabbi Ilai basically says to a person, if you see that you have—in the language I used earlier—if you see that you have an irresistible impulse, then go to a distant place and wear black, at least minimize the damage. Meaning, you’re probably going to do it. What can you do? You probably won’t succeed in coping, so instead of fighting and failing here, and then there will also be desecration of God’s name and all kinds of problematic things, go to a distant place, wear black, so they won’t recognize you and won’t notice. You will commit the transgression, but at least there won’t be desecration of God’s name; you’ll minimize the damage. That is of course the plain meaning of the Talmud. Problematic as it sounds, but it is the plain meaning of the Talmud, and that is how most medieval authorities interpret it. What does this actually mean? In practice, this is probably the halakhic expression of the state I earlier called an irresistible impulse. An irresistible impulse means: I feel—only here I even foresee in advance that something like this is going to happen to me, meaning I have some degree of control over the situation. I see that I’m going to fail here, I have no chance to cope, and therefore I have some very, very strong impulse that I can’t overcome, so they tell me, okay, then we give you legitimacy to give in, to compromise with this impulse, but try to minimize the damage—go to a distant place. And this is a halakhic recognition of an impulse that cannot be overcome. In this context it’s interesting to note several things. First, the Rif and the Rosh there in Moed Katan write: the law does not follow Rabbi Ilai, because we hold that ‘everything is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven.’ Meaning, the Rif and the Rosh basically claim that true, this is Rabbi Ilai’s opinion—they understand like Rashi, not like Rabbeinu Chananel and Rav Hai Gaon but like Rashi. This really is a permission to commit a prohibition while trying to minimize damage, but they say this cannot be codified as Jewish law, because the Talmud says elsewhere, ‘everything is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven,’ or in other words, things that concern fear of Heaven are in your hands; they are not in the hands of Heaven. And if it is in your hands, then when you see that your inclination is overpowering you, then overcome it even more—cope with it. In the end, a person must not compromise even with something that appears to him like an irresistible impulse. That is what the Rif and the Rosh say. And Tosafot in Chagigah implies that the law does follow Rabbi Ilai, but even one who says the law follows Rabbi Ilai probably does not really mean literally that this is halakhah. Because it cannot be that Jewish law says you are allowed to violate a prohibition. All one can say here is that the meta-halakhah says that we relate to this as a legitimate decision. Like, say, in the legal context, one could compare this to conscientious objection. There is a difference between conscientious objection and a manifestly illegal order. A manifestly illegal order, as in Kafr Qasim for example, is an order such that one who carries it out will stand trial. And the one who gave the order gave it without authority; it is against the law. And if you obey the order and say ‘I obeyed orders,’ that will not be a defense and you will stand trial. The order is illegal. That is one matter. But conscientious objection, which people often confuse with that, is something else. Conscientious objection means saying that the order is plainly lawful, but in terms of your own value system you are unwilling to carry it out. It crosses a red line for you; you are unwilling to obey that order. In a situation where it really is a clear red line from your own personal standpoint—not from the legislator’s standpoint or society’s standpoint. From the standpoint of the legislator and society it crosses no red line at all; it is a lawful order and, in principle under the law, you are obligated to carry it out. But from your own personal standpoint, it is an order that crosses a very significant red line; at the value level you are unwilling to obey such an order, and you refuse. Of course the law does not permit you to refuse, but legal philosophy recognizes the meta-legal legitimacy of such a decision—provided that you accept the consequences. Meaning, if you refuse and then go to jail, people still see you as a normative citizen. You violated the law, because the order was lawful; no one will tell you it was a manifestly illegal order. It was a plainly lawful order, but we recognize a person’s right to act according to his deepest values, and it cannot be that even the values that society sees as most correct completely crush the values of the individual. So the middle way that legal thought found is that it is not permitted to you—you are legally obligated to do it—but if you chose to refuse and accepted the consequences, they look at you as a legitimate person. Meaning, you will sit in jail, of course, because otherwise everyone would do it; you have to pay the price. But if you paid the price, then it’s okay. By the way, this is very interesting in the context of—and this is just a short political remark, impossible without it—Yuli Edelstein essentially presented his refusal to comply with the High Court’s decision as conscientious objection. He basically said: true, it’s a High Court order, but my conscience doesn’t allow me to do it and therefore I resign. He paid the price, and once you pay the price, that was basically the subtext there, once you pay the price then there is a certain legitimacy to conscientious refusal. Except that of course he paid no price whatsoever, so that is a different argument, and now he insists on returning to the very chair from which he resigned, so that places a very big question mark over these excuses. Especially since there was nothing all that profoundly conscientious there in my opinion; there was a political interest there. But fine, that’s just a parenthetical remark. I return to our subject: Rabbi Ilai’s law seems to me to be comparable in a certain sense, at least, to conscientious objection. Basically, you are forbidden to do what you’re doing, but if you estimate that you will fail, I’ll understand if you go to a distant place and at least try to minimize the damage. I see that step as a legitimate one. In this context, I wrote not long ago a column on the site about Rabbi Amsalem’s permission to immerse in drawn water if there were to be a prohibition, say, on women going to immerse. There is no such situation at the moment—they are allowed—but he said hypothetically, if such a situation were to arise—and there are places in the world where apparently this was the case—where women are forbidden to go immerse, then Rabbi Amsalem found some sort of permission under very specific conditions: if there is a very large bathtub, a jacuzzi, I don’t know exactly what, with a large amount of water, even if it is drawn water, one can immerse. Then perhaps it is a rabbinic prohibition or something like that, but at least the issue of menstruation-related impurity is solved that way. So he sent this to me, I corresponded with him about it a bit, and in the end I also wrote a column about it on my website. I told him that I agree on the principled level; I just think he’s not presenting it correctly. Meaning, it is not right to present it as a permission; it should be presented as an option for minimizing sin or minimizing damage. If someone sees that he will not—in principle it is forbidden, a rabbinic prohibition, and a rabbinic prohibition is still a prohibition. But if someone sees that he is going to fail and will not be able to withstand it over time, then I say to you: listen, it is already preferable that you immerse in drawn water, because then at least it will only be a rabbinic prohibition and not a Torah-level prohibition. That is advice for minimizing damage, not a permission. If you present it that way, I think you are right. If it is a permission, I’m not sure I agree with that permission. And that is basically the meaning of what I said earlier, that Rabbi Ilai’s permission is not a halakhic permission but a meta-halakhic permission, like what people say about conscientious objection. So the claim is basically that Rabbi Ilai’s law also reflects an irresistible impulse, and an irresistible impulse is of course not a permission; it is a claim of exemption. An irresistible impulse does not mean that what you did was permitted; it only means that you do not bear responsibility for your act. So that is basically what Rabbi Ilai says to a person: if you feel that you are going to fail anyway, you have no chance, it is beyond your point of choice, in such a situation I give you advice to minimize the damage—but it is not a permission. The Rif and the Rosh claim that even that should not be said, meaning that one should not give advice for minimizing damage. And therefore, that is what they say, the law does not follow Rabbi Ilai. The point is that the law does not follow Rabbi Ilai—but Rabbi Ilai himself did not state a legal ruling, that’s the point. Rabbi Ilai’s ‘law’ is that it is permissible to give such advice, and the Rif and the Rosh say that according to Jewish law one may not give such advice. And Rabbi Ilai too does not say that it is permitted—that is my claim. This reminds me of an urban-legend sort of story that someone once came to a rabbi—I heard this from some rabbi who had once been in South America; I think Rabbi Galinsky told it—there was some rabbi in South America whom someone came to and said: listen, one of my community members came to me and said, ‘I eat kosher every year from the beginning of Elul until Yom Kippur—for forty days I eat kosher while Moses did not eat or drink, so in identification with Moses I eat kosher.’ So he asks the rabbi whether he should start from the first day of the new month or from the second day of the new month. So yes, I once had some argument with Aviezer Ravitzky, and Ravitzky said that he would tell him to start on the first of the month—‘you’ll gain one more day of eating kosher.’ And I argued that I don’t answer such questions, that I don’t answer questions of halakhic damage control. If you ask me, you have to eat kosher all the time. If you ask me how to minimize a prohibition, decide for yourself; I do not give instructions or guidance or advice on how to minimize prohibitions. A rabbi should not be an adviser for halakhic damage control; he should say what is permitted and what is forbidden. And the claim was because of that Rif and Rosh on Rabbi Ilai: Rabbi Ilai basically gives some sort of damage-control advice, and the Rif and the Rosh say the law does not follow Rabbi Ilai—and again, Rabbi Ilai too does not say that this is the law; he only says that one may give such advice, that it is proper to give such advice. And the Rif and the Rosh argue against him that such advice should not be given. Therefore I think it is not right for a halakhic authority to give such advice. But there is room here to distinguish, and that is what I wrote in the column on the site. Why in Rabbi Amsalem’s case did I support it? Because there this was a public ruling. When a private individual comes to me and asks a specific question, I need to tell him: cope with it. I am not allowed to tell him: listen, do it this way, at least then it will be a lighter prohibition. But if this is a public ruling, the assumption is that among the public there will be some who will fail, because the public is made up of many shades, many different types, and there will also be those on the margins who will fail. When you give a ruling to the public, then you are allowed to give a ruling to minimize damages. And that is the Talmudic idea, ‘better that they eat slaughtered animals on the verge of death’—the passage that people always quote in this context. And I think that is the difference: there it is about a public ruling. And in a public ruling, one can indeed give advice to minimize halakhic damage. Fine, and back to our matter: what I really want to claim is that even in the context of a libertarian picture, there can be actions that are not done out of choice but are done in other ways. Just to conclude this part of drawing the two pictures against each other—I think I also spoke about this a bit last time—in the sober libertarian picture, as I described it here, where it is basically clear that the libertarian too agrees that education and inclinations and environment and genetics all have influence. All true; he does not deny those facts. Those are simple facts. He only claims that the influences, the topographical outline, what I described through the surrounding topographical outline—those influences are influences, but that is not what determines the result. It does not dictate the result. It influences the result. That is the difference. For the determinist, that is what determines the result. For the libertarian, that is what influences the result. Therefore on the statistical level there will not be such a great difference between a libertarian and a determinist. Because on the statistical level, when I formulate some psychological law, the libertarian will accept it and the determinist will accept it as well. But the determinist will accept it as an inviolable law, and the libertarian will accept it as a statistical law. But statistically, on average over many people, that really will be the behavior. But that does not mean that each individual person cannot decide to behave differently. In other words, if I take a given topographical outline and place on it a thousand people, I assume there will be more people who go in the direction of the valley than people who decide to climb the mountain. So the average picture for the libertarian will be the same picture drawn by the determinist. Therefore in averages, in the big laws, it will look the same. The difference is how I relate to the individual person. Regarding the individual person, given a certain topographical outline, can I determine what his behavior will be in a deterministic way? That is what the determinist says. Or not? I can determine on average, but the person can decide that he won’t do it. I mentioned Maimonides in the famous dispute there about the Egyptians in chapter 6 of the Laws of Repentance—I’m not actually sure—but Maimonides asks there: how were the Egyptians punished? After all, the Holy One, blessed be He, had already said at the Covenant Between the Pieces, ‘they will enslave them and oppress them four hundred years.’ Meaning, He decreed it upon the Egyptians, and He hardened Pharaoh’s heart, when the Holy One, blessed be He, is essentially bringing about the whole thing. So the question is why were they punished? The Ra’avad says: what do you mean? In chapter 5, just before that, you explained to us that there is no contradiction between God’s prior knowledge and human free choice. So here too, the same thing. Maimonides says more than that—Maimonides says: so why indeed were the Egyptians punished? Maimonides says: because each Egyptian had choice. Only on the collective level, the Holy One, blessed be He, decided that they would enslave Israel. But each Egyptian had choice. About this the Ra’avad asks, aside from the previous question, what do you mean? Suppose every Egyptian individually decides not to enslave Israel, chooses the good. Then how will God’s decree be fulfilled, that the Egyptians in general will enslave Israel? If each and every one has choice, then in principle at least there is a possibility that all will choose good. So how can this prophecy given by the Holy One, blessed be He, to Abraham—‘they will enslave them and oppress them four hundred years’—be fulfilled? The answer, I think, is one Maimonides senses. Maimonides says exactly that there: the Ra’avad’s first question, which throws us back to chapter 5 in the Laws of Repentance about foreknowledge and choice—that is exactly what Maimonides says; that concerns the individual. But with regard to a large public like all the Egyptians, there the Holy One, blessed be He, can determine that generally this will be the behavior, while true, each Egyptian has choice, but the law of large numbers will in the end cause it. The law of large numbers will in the end cause there to be at least some certain percentage of Egyptians who enslave Israel. And in a theoretical, hypothetical sense, all the Egyptians could choose good and therefore it indeed would not happen. But that does not happen. And with the law of large numbers, when you have enough people and each one chooses—as with dice. I roll a die; each roll is really uniformly distributed among the six possible outcomes. But if I roll the die a sufficiently large number of times, the result will be one sixth on each face, with a fair die. Even though in each individual roll the outcome is completely free and not dependent on all the other outcomes. Actually not ‘even though’—because of that. Meaning, because the result does not depend on all the other results, therefore the distribution is uniform. Meaning, therefore all results will have the same weight. So too with the Egyptians: the outcomes on the large scale are determined by what the Holy One, blessed be He, determined. Each individual Egyptian has choice, but the overall picture in the end will, with very, very, very high probability, be what the Holy One, blessed be He, determined. True, on a very esoteric level there could be a very, very hypothetical situation in which this is not true and all the Egyptians choose good. Yes, that could happen—or the Holy One, blessed be He, would remove their choice, or it really would not happen. It could be. For our purposes, what I want to say is that the same way we should relate to all the social sciences and human sciences within a libertarian worldview. We should relate to them in exactly the same way as we see in Maimonides. The libertarian is not supposed to deny the results of the social sciences and human sciences—like sociology and psychology and social psychology, all these things. These are laws that can certainly be accepted also within a libertarian worldview. But we see them as statistical laws and not as deterministic laws. Meaning, they determine what will happen among human beings on average—that will be the result obtained. But that does not mean that for each individual person that is exactly what will happen. And that is an important point, because I want to make clear what I do not mean. Even the determinist does not see the laws of psychology as absolute laws that are true of every person in every situation. But for him it is only a matter of complexity. Meaning, because we do not have the full psychological information—neither about psychological science nor about the mental structure of the specific person standing before us, because it is very complex—and because I don’t have that full information, therefore I will never be able to predict with certainty what that individual person will do, not only what the group will do. That is how the determinist sees it. But in principle, say I finished all the research and have a machine that images his brain and I know how to decipher everything, and I have full information both about the person and about the laws of psychology—then the determinist in principle claims: in such a state I could know exactly what that person will do until the end of all generations. And that is the deterministic view. True, right now that does not exist, but it does not exist only because I simply don’t have all the information; it is too complicated. By contrast, the libertarian claims that even if I had all the information, the law would still be statistical. The law would be true, but true statistically. And why? Because beyond the topographical outline—even if I have its complete diagram—there is still always the person’s decision. A person can decide to act this way or that way. So in a place where the outline is very specific, statistically I can know how a large group of people, or in a large number of cases for a given person, how this business will nevertheless behave. Statistics also works in a libertarian picture. Let me perhaps give you an example. There are some Israeli researchers who got an article into Nature. Nature means it’s a very important article, about the behavior of bees. They studied bees and saw that their behavior is very similar to human behavior. They gave them—in some experiment, never mind—to choose between two options. One option in which in 80% of cases they receive—bees love sugar, they love sweet things—so in 80% of the cases they get a very high sugar level. And if they choose the second option, then in 100% of the cases they get it, but at a very low sugar level, or a lower one. And the question is what they prefer after some time, once they see that this is the characteristic of choosing right and this is the characteristic of choosing left. Yes, there were two jars, and in this jar sometimes they put 100 grams of sugar and sometimes nothing, but in 80% of the cases it is 100 grams of sugar. By contrast, there is that jar where there are always 50 grams of sugar, always. Meaning, every time you go there you get something, but less sugar. Now the question is: what do you choose? It turns out that the bees prefer the stable jar. They want one bird in the hand, not eight birds in the tree. Meaning, give me a lower sugar level—but for sure I get it every time. And in this sense it is like human beings. Among humans too, usually this is the behavior: they prefer something in which they gain every time, but gain less, rather than something that can give you a very high gain but not with certainty. Even though the expected value of the higher gain is higher, of course—if the expected value is lower then there’s nothing clever about it—but the expected value of the higher gain is indeed higher, and still they prefer the lower expected value as long as the gain is certain. And then a whole discussion started there about whether bees are human beings and what is similar and what is equivalent, and my feeling was—I read a report on the article, I didn’t read the article itself—but the report on the article once again drifted into those regions of ‘what’s the difference between bees and humans? You see that everything is the same, the whole earthly workshop is one—bees, humans, everything is the same.’ And again, this is of course the same mistake. Because surely among humans there will sometimes be people who choose the other way; I assume among bees too there will be bees that choose the other way. But the law is a statistical law. Now, on the statistical level, the libertarian too agrees that there are laws, that circumstances dictate what I will do—on the statistical level. He only claims that for the individual act, the individual person, that does not necessarily tell me what he will do. But if you test this across many human beings or many bees, you will get the same result even if humans are not bees, even if humans have free choice and free decision and are not deterministic machines. There is no reason there should be a statistical difference between humans and bees, at least with large enough numbers. So again, it’s the same mistake. Every time they bring some study about some gene responsible for whatever and things like that, they immediately jump to the idea that a person is just a deterministic machine of genes and does not make decisions. And again, that is the same mistake. It has nothing to do with it, because once you are speaking statistically, statistically the libertarian too accepts all the laws of the natural sciences, the human sciences, and the social sciences; he sees them as statistical laws and not as deterministic laws. Okay, I want to move on. Up to here, I’ve basically finished the first part of this series, which was to place the two pictures opposite each other. Now of course we have to move on, and in the next stages I’ll try to proceed in this way. First stage, I want to see what the implications are—meaning, if these are the two pictures, where does this touch life? What are the practical, philosophical, moral implications? What does it mean for our lives if we are determinists or libertarians? And of course this is not independent of the next stage, where I want to see arguments for and against determinism and libertarianism. Why isn’t it independent? Because obviously the implications for life are connected to the arguments. Meaning, if I show you that there is this or that implication for life, that can be an argument in favor of determinism or against determinism. If I show you what happens in life in light of the expected implications, from that one can draw a conclusion for or against determinism. Therefore the question of the implications and the question of deciding who is right are connected to one another. And also in the question of deciding, I’ll want to talk both about attempts at philosophical arguments to decide and about scientific arguments to decide. In the last two generations such arguments have also come up, starting in the 1980s of the previous century—I mentioned Libet, who basically started much of this, and the whole split-brain issue. So there are also scientific attempts to decide this question. And really my whole motivation for getting into this in the book I’m relying on—the reason I wanted to write the book was the feeling I got that somehow in the last few decades a consensus has formed among brain researchers that the question of determinism can be decided in the lab. Meaning, one can simply test and see whether indeed we are subject to a deterministic picture or not, and there are all kinds of experiments they do to show this. My claim is that, at least for now—one can’t know what the future will bring—but at least for now there is no way to show this, and no one has actually shown it. And all the very decisive talk of brain researchers simply reflects misunderstanding. And this is a phenomenon that is perhaps very disappointing but common as well: experts, and intelligent people too, are often not always sensitive to the philosophical meaning of the scientific findings they present, and that is where mistakes come in. We’ll still talk about that. So first of all I want to talk about implications. The implications are usually in two main planes: morality and fatalism. They are connected to one another. The question of fatalism is basically the view that if you are a determinist, you ought to be a fatalist. And a fatalist—here, I’ll read you a passage that I think represents fatalism very nicely. Yes, it’s taken from Somerset Maugham. It’s a play by Somerset Maugham, and it’s a very well-known passage. There is a book called Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara, and in the opening of the book he brings this passage from Somerset Maugham. So it says—Death told this story: there was a merchant in Baghdad, and he sent his servant to the market to buy food. A short time later his servant returned, trembling. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘just now in the marketplace a woman in the crowd jostled me, and when I turned, I saw that it was Death. It was Death who jostled me. Yes, Death pushed me there—I suddenly ran into him in the market, and he looked at me, and made a threatening gesture with his arm.’ ‘Please, master,’ the servant says to the master, ‘please lend me your horse and I will ride far from here and escape my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.’ The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted and rode, dug the spurs into the horse’s flanks, and raced away as fast as he could. The master went down to the marketplace. ‘He saw me,’ Death now tells it, ‘the master came down to the marketplace and saw me standing in the crowd. He suddenly saw me. He came to me and said: why did you make a threatening gesture toward my servant when you saw him this morning? Why did you threaten my servant this morning?’ So Death answers him: ‘I did not make a threatening gesture. My hand rose of itself in surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.’ Meaning, I had arranged to meet him in Samarra, and suddenly I saw him in Baghdad—I was really astonished. So of course the man drew the obvious conclusion and fled to Samarra so that the angel of death wouldn’t catch him in Baghdad. There are all kinds of stories like this—Oedipus, of course, is the same story, basically—and many other places, and these fatalistic views which say that what is going to happen is going to happen. I think maybe I mentioned—I don’t remember anymore—the story of Osmo, yes, the story of that… in Richard Taylor’s book called Metaphysics. Richard Taylor is an American philosopher. He has a very nice book called Metaphysics. In one of the chapters he gives a parable that explains what fatalism is. A teacher in an American town enters the local library in a town called Orosmo, and he sees on the shelf a book called The Story of Osmo. Well, interesting, it catches him, so he opens the book and starts reading. It says in the book: Osmo was born on such-and-such a day in such-and-such a place—which is exactly the date and place where he was born. He starts getting anxious. He was born to such-and-such parents and lived there and studied in that kindergarten and that class, and the teacher was this one, and they did this to him and there was that. Everything matches what happened in his life. Then the story moves on—he finished eighth grade, he went to teacher’s seminary, became a teacher in that town. Of course at some stage it gets to the point where he arrived at the library in that town and saw on the shelf a book called The Story of Osmo. He opened… and all this is written in the book, yes? He opened the book, and the book says that Osmo could not—he closed the book; he could not read any further. Of course on the next page it was expected that what would happen to him tomorrow and in the future would be described. But in the end he couldn’t restrain himself; he continued reading. And in the book there it was described that on such-and-such a date Osmo would be killed in a plane crash on the way to New York. Say that, for argument’s sake. Osmo was hysterical. At that very time he was actually supposed to fly in an entirely different direction, not toward New York at all. So he got on—he wanted to get away, like the appointment in Samarra—and in the middle of the journey a storm starts, and the captain tells the passengers: there is a storm and I have to change course; I’m flying toward New York. And Osmo is in terrible hysteria. He goes into the cockpit—yes, there are only two pilots there, not four—he goes into the cockpit and starts fighting with the… starts fighting with the pilot, and of course as a result the plane crashes over New York. Again, same story of fatalism. And basically what these things express is that if we live in a deterministic worldview, then in a certain sense nothing depends on us; everything depends on the circumstances. And since that is so, there is nothing to do. Some people will sit and loaf at home—what is called the lazy argument, basically. There is no need to prepare for an exam, no need to go to work, no need to do anything. A kind of Druze approach, yes? Fatalism is a Druze kind of outlook that every arrow has an address, every bullet has an address, and if it is supposed to hit me then it will hit me anyway. Nothing depends on my effort, because the world is a deterministic world. So that is one implication raised in this context, in the context of determinism versus indeterminism or libertarianism. There is a lot to discuss about this implication. It is not simple, because still, in the end, it is clear that if I don’t go to work I won’t have money—even in a deterministic worldview. In a deterministic worldview, what brings me money is work, and all of that has to be. But even in a deterministic worldview it cannot be that I don’t go to work and still have money. Meaning, money comes according to natural law; money comes when one goes to work and gets a salary or income. Okay? Therefore many argue that fatalism does not follow from a deterministic worldview, because in the end you still have to go to work to get the money. And in a certain sense this is Calvin and Luther, yes—the beginnings of Protestantism in the Christian world. And basically this is the Protestant worldview to this day, at least in theory, which says this is a deterministic worldview but not a fatalistic one. It is deterministic in the sense that everything that happens to me is predetermined, but it is not fatalistic in the sense that it requires a person to be diligent and exert maximum effort to achieve the predetermined results. There is a sort of paradoxical statement there, that by striving and succeeding you discover retroactively that you are among the elect whom the Holy One, blessed be He, loves, and therefore from the outset you were destined for success. Now in my view this is nonsense, I don’t know, it’s really just an oxymoron, I don’t know how they live with that. But this is, for example, an attempt to escape this trap and hold a deterministic worldview without fatalism. And in a certain sense, Max Weber’s Protestant thesis basically argues that all the Western neuroticism we know—that achievement-oriented mentality, where even in psychiatric diagnosis we judge a person by whether he manages to function autonomously or relies on his environment, yes? If he doesn’t manage to function autonomously, that is one of the important parameters in psychiatric diagnosis—all that is basically drawn from Protestant sources, because Protestantism demands achievement from you. All this Western achievement culture, this neuroticism, basically has its foundation in Protestantism. So Protestantism not only does not derive fatalism from its determinism; it derives the opposite—it derives overactivity in order to achieve results. Not just ‘leave it, there’s nothing to do, do whatever, be a Druze.’ No—hyperactivity. Therefore at the factual level, though I still think there is a philosophical problem here, it is at least clear as a matter of fact that fatalism does not always go with determinism. Determinism does not always go with fatalism. That is one implication. By the way, all the determinists, including those among the neuroscientists, invest enormous effort in their research. They don’t sit at home and say, ‘Well, the research will come to me anyway even if I don’t do it. I’ll be able to write articles without writing them. I’ll get tenure at the university even if I don’t write articles.’ It doesn’t work like that. They keep working very hard. Therefore they too are not fatalistic people, even though they are conscious determinists and intelligent people. I think, by the way, there is some subtle philosophical problem here—we may discuss it later—but first of all, factually, it is clear that fatalism does not always go with determinism. Determinism does not always go with fatalism. That is one implication. The second implication is the implication of judgment—both moral judgment and legal judgment. A very common claim says that you cannot judge a person if you believe in a deterministic worldview. Because in a deterministic worldview the person was essentially compelled to do what he did; he is not to blame for it, he did not make a decision, and therefore there is nothing to judge him for—not in court and not in moral judgment. Meaning, you cannot judge him as a bad person because he did not choose what he does. As I said earlier, from the determinist’s perspective every action is an irresistible impulse, not only the specific actions that we present as such. Every action is basically an irresistible impulse, and therefore one cannot judge. This is a very common claim that libertarians raise against determinists. What is the claim here? Fine, so one cannot judge. What’s the question—why is this a claim against them? The claim against them is because the determinist himself does judge. Usually, both in the legal world and in the moral world, determinists take part in this activity. They too judge other people, and therefore apparently they are inconsistent, and in this they actually reflect some implicit conception that does believe in human free will. But it’s not so simple. Why? Exactly—there is already a comment here I see in the chat. The counterclaim says that of course they have no choice but to judge. The judge is a human being. And just as I am compelled to steal, he is compelled to judge me for the theft. Meaning, what do you mean there is no point in judging? ‘There is no point in judging’ means you are really assuming that I have a choice whether to judge or not to judge, and then you say: why are you judging? There is nothing to judge; the world is deterministic. But if the world is deterministic then I too have no choice whether to judge or not judge. Therefore this whole business is some kind of fixed game, and there is a point in judging. Beyond that, perhaps the claim here goes further. Against this—and this is a very common claim—I personally do not agree with it. I do agree with the basic claim, and why? Because true, I have no choice, but if I am aware that I do this because I have no choice, then the negative connotation should not accompany it. When I see a mass murderer, I get very angry at him. But anger is a psychological matter. Meaning, perhaps there is a mechanism built into me that causes me to get angry at such people. But I, as a fully developed determinist, a brain researcher, a geneticist, know that this whole thing is really just mechanisms built into me. Therefore, at the cognitive level, I shouldn’t really judge him. What I should do is feel feelings of judgment, but not judge. And I argue that even the greatest determinist still judges people. Judges not in the psychological sense; judges in the cognitive sense. Judges in the sense that he sees them as bad people in a considered way. Even if he is not angry, even if not that, he claims that they should be punished and judged and all kinds of things like that. And that is indeed a significant argument against determinism. The claim that one has no choice but to judge is a claim about the mechanisms occurring in me psychologically, the autonomous mechanisms acting on their own. But the substantive judgment that I make, where I decide whether a person is wicked or righteous—that is already not simple as a determinist’s judgment. But here another claim arises, and I’ll do it briefly because I want to finish this today. Here another claim comes up, the claim that says: true, I need to punish this person even though he is not guilty and even though I too have no choice—fine. But I do this in order to correct his ways. And this takes us back to the question of fatalism. Why? Because punishment itself acts on his mind in such a way as to prevent future sin. Meaning, punishment is not a sanction for wickedness, but punishment is a means to program the person so that he will never return to it again. That is what Maimonides says. Meaning, the purpose of punishment is basically to change the topographical outline within which the sinner acted, in a way that places a high mountain in the direction of the sin. Then that deters him from going in that direction and from sinning. So punishment basically works in a deterministic way. Once the person knows that if he steals he will go to prison for thirty years, that itself will deterministically prevent him from stealing. This can of course justify punishing people, but for different reasons. Meaning, the libertarian claims that punishment also has the justification of a sanction upon a person who chose evil; he deserves a negative sanction. The determinist says there are no sanctions and they didn’t choose and there is no such thing—but he will still agree to impose punishment. Why? Because for him punishment is not educational—let’s not call it educational—but conditioning. Meaning, he wants to condition the person not to return again to the same thing. What does he do? Like conditioning animals. You receive punishment, you know a severe punishment awaits you, and that itself will prevent you—it will prevent you from sinning. By the way, there is a practical difference between these two things, and therefore this still isn’t a sufficient explanation. For example, should one punish someone who has an irresistible impulse? I wrote an article not long ago—they invited one from me for a law journal—on the issue of free choice in law and neuroscience. This subject is already fairly popular in the United States; in Israel they deal with it very, very little. And this encounter is highly problematic because… I’m recording, I’m recording. There aren’t the tools to deal with this situation. And that is very unfortunate, because brain researchers too do not have the tools to deal with the implications of what they say, and they speak there in a way that reflects mistakes in understanding the philosophical meaning of what they are saying, many times. In any case, in the article there I spoke about this: should one punish someone who acted under an irresistible impulse? From the deterministic world’s perspective, undoubtedly yes. Why should I care if he is not guilty and it was an irresistible impulse? Punishment is not a sanction for guilt. Punishment is meant to ensure that this won’t happen again in the future. If the punishment will ensure that such impulses won’t attack you again, then you get punished. What difference does it make whether you have an irresistible impulse or not? That is an irrelevant argument. The only relevant argument is if the punishment won’t achieve the goal—as often comes up around house demolitions. People say, for example, that house demolitions are ineffective. People who murder will murder even if their house is demolished. Suppose that’s true—but say it is effective. What does that mean? There is no point in punishing. Why no point? Because the assumption is that punishment’s role is to achieve future benefits such as deterrence. But if punishment is a sanction for an action that is wrong, then why should I care that it won’t achieve the goal? He deserves punishment. Meaning, the conception of punishment has implications for practical decisions—what punishment do I impose, and for what. Therefore, true, the determinist can explain the mechanism of punishment according to his own view too, but there will be implications. Meaning, from the determinist’s standpoint an irresistible impulse is an irrelevant claim. It should be deleted from the law books. Irresistible impulse is not relevant. You can only bring arguments such that a psychiatrist says the punishment will not help for the future, then we won’t punish. But if the psychiatrist says, ‘Listen, he is not guilty; he acted under an impulse he could not cope with,’ so what? The role of punishment is to ensure that such an impulse does not arise again. That is from the determinist’s point of view. From the libertarian’s point of view—not so. The libertarian sees punishment also as a sanction for the criminal act you committed, for the criminal decision you made. And here, if it was an irresistible impulse, then you do not have criminal responsibility for the matter; you were not required to make the decision. Therefore the whole concept of criminal intent, almost all the most basic concepts of criminal law—and not only criminal law, by the way, though mainly criminal law—are erased in a deterministic world. And for some reason everyone ignores this. Therefore I think that although there are excuses for many of these arguments against determinists, in the end I do think many of them are not consistent. Their position in the theory of punishment and in moral and legal judgment is not consistent with their deterministic view. From a deterministic view there ought to follow consequences different from those of the libertarian worldview, and this debate has consequences in the practical world too. It is not true, as people think, that this has no practical significance and is just a hypothetical philosophical discussion with no real meaning. Fine, I’ll stop here. For now I only talked about the two pictures. Today I more or less briefly presented the implications—I talked about fatalism and moral and legal judgment. In the next stage we will enter into the arguments for and against, both a priori philosophical arguments and scientific arguments, and we’ll try to see whether this question can be decided, and with it also the implications—fatalism and morality—by means of those arguments. Okay, now I think your microphones are under your control, so anyone who wants can turn them on. Thank you very much and Sabbath peace. Thank you very much, Sabbath peace. Thank you, Sabbath peace. Okay, Sabbath peace.