Faith and Its Meaning – Lesson 23

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I do it quietly. What I do, I do; it’s not going to cause anyone else in the world to evade taxes. Now again, it could be that everyone else will evade taxes too, but even if they do, it won’t be because of me. So my consideration whether to evade or not evade taxes amounts, all told, to two hundred shekels for the state. That’s it. Don’t turn it into an apocalypse. So why not evade taxes? Another example, obviously, another example: should you go vote in elections? My eternal argument with my son. He says there’s no point at all in voting in elections. Why? Because you don’t have the slightest influence on what happens. Now, you don’t have the slightest influence on what happens for many reasons, because all the parties are the same, that’s one thing, but beyond that, simply because when could your vote possibly have any influence? If the party you care about gets an exact round number of seats minus one vote. Let’s say each seat is fifty thousand votes, and let’s say the party I want to vote for is Balad. I want to vote for Balad, okay? Now Balad gets two hundred thousand votes minus one. In that situation, if I vote for Balad, then it got one more seat. Or it passed the electoral threshold, if you like, but it got one more seat, so I had an impact. And my vote created some effect on the seat map. Some effect, one more seat, okay? What are the chances of that happening? Absolute zero, absolute zero. I’d bet my life on it. I’d bet my life—if anyone wants to bet me a thousand to one, I’d bet my life—that such a situation will not happen. What are the chances that you land on an exact multiple of fifty thousand votes? Or forty-eight thousand five hundred forty-nine, yeah, whatever, just some number that determines what a seat is worth. Minus one—what are the chances that happens? No chance. So if that’s the case, notice what this means: the vote you put in—not that it has a small effect and all our effects accumulate—the vote you put in the ballot box… has zero effect. Not a small effect—zero effect, total zero. Not approximately zero, not a small effect, not something cumulative—zero effect, period. Zero, you affect nothing. So why waste time going to vote at the ballot box? Again people say: yes, but what if everyone didn’t vote? That’s no good, we want a functioning democratic system. We’d be sorry, but we’d like to have one. So yes, it’s worth going to vote; we wouldn’t want everyone not to go vote. And again I’ll answer what I answered in the previous question. I won’t go vote, but I won’t tell anyone that I’m not going to vote. The fact that I’m not going to vote won’t cause others not to vote too. They’ll make their decisions however they make them. But what I do affects only my one vote, and that one vote has no effect whatsoever. Therefore, in consequentialist terms there is no reason in the world to go to the polling station. And there is no reason in the world not to evade taxes. Not just two hundred shekels—even ten thousand shekels, even a hundred thousand shekels. There is no reason not to evade taxes in consequentialist terms. So Kant tells us: yes—and notice, there is a non-consequentialist principle here. And that principle says this: when you calculate whether to evade the money or whether to go vote, you need to conduct a hypothetical experiment. This doesn’t go, maybe it does go, with the old way of thinking, but not in the accepted consequentialist view that if you do it then others will do it too, or they’ll do it to you. You steal, they’ll steal from you. If you don’t vote, others won’t vote either; if you evade taxes, others will too. No, that’s not the point. We do a hypothetical thought experiment. Suppose everyone evaded taxes. Would the world created in that situation be a good world or a bad world? Clearly it would be a bad world; I wouldn’t want there to be such a world. So don’t evade taxes—that’s the conclusion. Not because your tax evasion causes others to evade taxes too. It doesn’t cause anything; the consideration is non-consequentialist. It’s not because if you evade taxes there will be a problematic outcome. No. It’s an essential consideration; it’s called deontological. Not a consequentialist consideration. It’s a consideration that says: I have a test through which I pass my action in order to know whether it’s a moral action or not. What is that test? Imagine, in a hypothetical world, that everyone did this, everyone did this act—would that be a good world or a bad world? If it’s a good world, do the act; it’s a moral act. If it’s a bad world, don’t do the act, because it’s immoral. But notice, this is not a consequentialist consideration. It’s simply a test that checks whether the act under discussion is positive or negative, whether it’s good or bad, that’s all. Such a test. It has nothing at all to do with the question of what will actually happen as a result of my act. What will actually happen as a result of my act is completely irrelevant here. Is the difference clear? Is it clear why this is not a consequentialist consideration? Tell me, so I understand whether you’re with me or not. What do you say? It seems clear, I think. Yes, okay? Can I continue? I just want some feedback. Or maybe those who aren’t following just aren’t here, I don’t know, there are all sorts of darkened screens here. Okay. Maybe I’ll give you an example, a current example. Someone once asked me: suppose on the Sabbath you get stuck outside your home and the door is electric, outside the building, and the door is electric and there’s a siren. Are you allowed to press the buttons to open the door so you can get into the safe room? Seemingly danger to life overrides the Sabbath. I told him that in my opinion it’s forbidden. Why is it forbidden? To understand that, we have to understand why we go into the safe room. Here—this is a current application of Kant. It’s current and halakhic / of Jewish law, and a direct application, notice. Why do we go into the safe room? People will immediately say: because of danger to life. Nonsense of the worst kind. There is no risk whatsoever for someone who doesn’t go into the safe room. The probability is so tiny that there is no real risk you’ll be hurt. The chance of a car accident is much higher. So why go in? If I ask consequentially what will happen if I don’t go in—the answer is nothing, nothing will happen. Except what? If in fact everyone doesn’t go in, right? If everyone doesn’t go into the safe room, then yes, some people will get hurt. After all, somewhere a missile does hit. Or at least some of them do, right? And there the risk is no longer small risk—on the contrary. The probability is almost certain that someone will get hurt if everyone doesn’t go into the safe room. Right? Now when I make my personal calculation, in my personal calculation there is no consequentialist problem with not going in. But if all of us make that calculation and don’t go into the safe room, then some people will get hurt. That’s obvious. So in my own calculation the probability is really negligible, there’s no reason to go into the safe room. But the categorical imperative tells me: yes, but if everyone did that, then someone really would get hurt. I say, fine, someone would get hurt, but what are the chances it would be me? How does it help if I go into the safe room? Am I going to cause others to go into the safe room? The only question is whether I go in or not, and that pertains only to me, and my chance of being harmed is zero. So why go in? So Kant says here, correctly, that consequentially this has no implication at all, but the rule is that I examine the act of going into the safe room: is it a good act or not? So I ask a hypothetical, non-consequentialist question. Hypothetically, if no one went into the safe room, would that be a good world? The answer is no. Therefore one needs to go into the safe room. Not because there will be bad consequences—that’s not a consequentialist consideration. It’s a hypothetical test that examines the act under discussion. I perform a hypothetical thought experiment, and according to it I determine whether this act is a good act or a bad act. That’s all, not consequentialist at all. What does that mean? First of all, here is a good explanation for why to go into the safe room, because in the simple consequentialist consideration they’re always pumping into us—danger to life and saving lives and all that—let me tell you, nonsense of the worst kind, just brainwashing. There is no risk, a negligible risk. I wouldn’t move a step to avoid such a tiny risk. I’ll give you another example too, by the way, one of the examples: those guys who were supposed to collect wine, as I told you last week, and each one said, instead of wine I’ll put in water. Ah, so in the end they opened the barrel and there was water there. There’s a whole field in moral philosophy—this is really mathematics, mathematical philosophy of morality—and there they discuss these kinds of accumulation problems, problems of accumulation of effects. And it definitely relates to the categorical imperative; I have two columns about this on my website. In any case, let’s return for a moment to Jewish law. So I argued like this: if I get stuck outside the house during a siren and the door is locked on the Sabbath, locked door. Then after all, I’m not in danger to life; I’m not in danger that justifies violating the Sabbath. You don’t violate the Sabbath for such a tiny danger; it’s entirely insignificant. There is a chance, there is some chance. Fine, but it’s negligible. The probability is low, but there is such a chance. So what? There’s also a chance that when you step outside the door someone will run you over, and that chance is bigger. And are you allowed to step outside the door? Yes, you are. Meaning there are probabilities so tiny that we don’t take them into account; certainly we do not violate the Sabbath for such a tiny probability, that’s nonsense. So what? But still you have to go into the safe room. Why do you have to go into the safe room? Because of the categorical imperative, and the categorical imperative does not override the Sabbath. If I formulate it roughly like this: if the whole world were stuck outside the door on the Sabbath, it would be permitted to violate the Sabbath. Because then it’s clear that some of them will get hurt, and all of us need to go in because we don’t know which of us will be hurt. But since, essentially, this is a case that happens to individuals—inherently it happens to individuals—then with regard to individuals there is no consideration of the categorical imperative. There is such a consideration, but it does not override the Sabbath. So the act of entering the safe room is, from the standpoint of the categorical imperative, something one should do. But you can’t say that entering the safe room is required under the laws of danger to life, and therefore it does not justify violating the Sabbath. Here’s a nice halakhic / of Jewish law implication of this discussion of the categorical imperative. Not only halakhic / of Jewish law, but also a good way of understanding how we conduct ourselves today: why go into the safe room, why obey instructions. All these things—they keep selling us this nonsense, and people are stupid enough to buy it, that this is danger to life and it saves lives, following instructions saves lives and all that bullshit. Nonsense of the worst kind. There is no risk, an absolutely negligible risk. My personal going into the safe room saves no life whatsoever. But clearly, if everyone goes into the safe room, that saves lives. So therefore. But look at it differently: if you’re talking about one missile or something like that, look at the situation we have here now. They sent some three hundred missiles, they’ll send three thousand missiles too. Let them send three thousand missiles—I’ll sit on the roof and play the flute. There is no chance I’ll get hit. Yes, you say. Of course, what do you mean? No chance. Till now they’ve sent I don’t know how many, four hundred missiles, five hundred missiles, I don’t know, something like that at least, the Iranians—I’m only talking about the Iranians. How many were hurt? Eight, I don’t know, ten. That’s two weeks of car accidents. Do you stop driving a car? No. There’s no chance. We see these images and it sends us into hysteria, but you need to think rationally. Think rationally, and someone who thinks rationally isn’t afraid of things like that. It’s not that there’s nothing to fear. You need to obey instructions, and obey instructions not because of fear. Obey instructions because that’s the right thing to do. Because there is the categorical imperative. Wait, but if you hear the Home Front Command alert and you reduce these ten million people to the people living around you, let’s say there are ten thousand people around you. That’s something else, obviously. So if I know, if I know the missile is coming to the five houses among which I live, then clearly the consideration is different. And that never happens. That’s it, that’s the point. But it never happens. What? But the Home Front Command. What? But it never happens. Such a siren covers an area where a million people live. What are the chances it hits me specifically? Zero. When the Home Front Command tells you that, say, in Oranit there’s a siren—the Home Front Command never tells you that in Oranit there’s a siren. The Home Front Command gives you a list of I don’t know how many hundred localities in which a million people live. Oranit is in there too, right. So what? So every time the Home Front Command puts Oranit under alert, does a missile fall on Oranit? Not to mention that Oranit too is a community of several thousand people. Yes. There’s no chance at all, it’s a waste of time—don’t buy into that propaganda. Submit to the instructions, but not to the propaganda. The propaganda is stupid. In any case, for our purposes, I’m just sharpening through this the point that the categorical imperative is not a consequentialist consideration. In a moral consideration, okay? Now if that’s so, let me ask a question. So if that’s the case, now I’m discussing whether to evade taxes, okay? Let’s see: consequentially, of course evade taxes—why do you care, you get a hundred thousand shekels, the state won’t lose anything from it, this one benefits and no one lacks anything. You gain, no one else loses—why not evade taxes? And here comes the categorical imperative. And it’s not consequentialist. The categorical imperative. Now I ask: who on earth is going to cause me to obey the categorical imperative? Even if Kant is right that the moral command says not to evade income tax in terms of the content of the command. Now I’m showing you why the fact that this is the content of the command still doesn’t solve the problem, because now I say okay, I understand that this is the moral command—but why should I obey it? Why should I care about making a hundred thousand shekels when no one loses anything? Because the moral command, in some abstract sense, says one should pay income tax? Let the moral command dance a hora. Why should I fulfill it? You need God for that. There needs to be, behind this command, a legislator who gives this command validity and causes us to obey it. Again—not punishment, not because of punishment, but because He gives it validity, and therefore it obligates us. Without that, even if I make the calculation and reach the conclusion that this is the moral act, the question will still remain: fine, this is the moral act, but I need a hundred thousand shekels. And no one loses. No one loses. So what’s the problem? Why should I obey, according to this, at all? This sharpens things very much. The fact that the command is non-consequentialist sharpens very much the question that exists even if the command were consequentialist. But it sharpens the question even more: the fact that the command says, don’t evade taxes—that’s logic. It has nothing to do with the Holy One, blessed be He; He didn’t legislate it, it’s imposed on Him, fine, I understand. Now I ask: imposed on Him, imposed on Him, everything’s fine—but I can evade the tax. It may be imposed on me that this will be a bad act, but in practice I can still evade. What on earth is supposed to make me not evade in practice? Nothing. Unless I understand that there is an authoritative factor, the Holy One, blessed be He, who expects me not to evade taxes, to act properly. That is the only thing. Otherwise I see no reason in the world to give validity to moral rules. Not to determine that this is what the moral rules say—their content—that’s a different matter; that can be done without the Holy One, blessed be He. Also a question, in light of what you’re saying: a person who doesn’t believe, a person who doesn’t believe, an atheist—why does he pay taxes then? Because he’s an idiot. He’s an idiot? Obviously. There’s no question at all. I don’t know, there are people who aren’t idiots and pay anyway. I didn’t say he lacks intelligence; in this matter he’s an idiot. Interesting. Either he’s a hidden believer—we talked about this in the moral argument. It may really be that he thinks morality is valid and he acts accordingly; he’s simply not aware that he believes in God, because without that there is no valid morality. Either he’s a hidden believer, or he’s an idiot, or he says: I pay taxes because I feel like paying taxes, it makes me feel good that I pay taxes. Only I’d say—if he really thought a little more, he’d say, forget it, I’d rather have a hundred thousand shekels. I’m not buying it. This is exactly the moral argument. The moral argument says: listen, do you really think you should pay taxes? Then don’t tell me stories—you’re not an atheist. Because if you were an atheist, you wouldn’t really think that. And this very much sharpens the need for God as the one who gives validity to the moral command. Not in terms of the content of the command, but in terms of what gives it validity. Now, I want to pull the rug out a little from under the argument I just made. And here I want to present to you an interesting claim, at least in my view. In game theory, there is what’s called—I assume you know it—what’s called the prisoner’s dilemma. What is the prisoner’s dilemma? It’s a situation where they catch two suspects, say in theft, and the police have no evidence. So they want at least one of them to cooperate and inform, confess, and inform on his friend, who also stole. So they offer him a deal. They offer some kind of deal. Now I’ll share the screen with you. The deal is like this: they tell each of the prisoners, look, if you keep silent and the other one also keeps silent, each of you gets one year in prison. If you keep silent and the other informs, ten years. So the other one—and prisoner B keeps silent—he’ll go free. So whoever informs goes free, and the one who is accused gets fifteen years inside. Okay? Now, and likewise the reverse, if prisoner B keeps silent and A informs. If both inform, then they get five years. Okay? Now do you see the table? Let’s examine the table. Prisoner A is the bold font, and prisoner B is the regular font, that’s the payoff in the table. Now I say this: prisoner A calculates whether it’s better for me to keep silent or to inform. So he checks. Look, suppose I decide to keep silent, okay? If the other keeps silent, what do I get? One year, right? If the other informs, what do I get? Fifteen. Right? So what’s better for me? Meaning, if I keep silent, I could end up with fifteen years, right? That’s the worst case. If I inform, then if the other keeps silent, I get off with nothing. If the other also informs, I get five, right? So it’s better to inform, right? Now you understand that if you do the same calculation for prisoner B, you get the same result. The columns are like the rows. So that means that both of them will conclude that it’s better for them to inform, right? The outcome of such a game, the expected outcome, is that both sit for five years. Both sit for five years, right? Is that the best outcome of the game? No, it could be one year. That’s a much better outcome, right? You can see it. Because both can get one year. When does that happen? If both keep silent. Right? Something interesting comes out here: if each prisoner individually calculates what is best for him to do, each of them will inform. Right? And then the result will be five and five. By contrast, if they do the calculation together, what’s called a coalition strategy—not each one separately, but they formulate a strategy together—then they can reach a better result. Even though seemingly the previous result was profit maximization, because that result is: each one calculated what is best that I will get, right? But no—not best. Because if they calculate together, they can reach a better result for both of them. Each of them will get one year. Except that if the prisoners sit together and talk and formulate a strategy together, then maybe indeed they will agree to stay silent. Right? But if there is no communication between us, then if I decide to stay silent, I’m taking the risk that he’ll decide to inform. And then I’ll get fifteen. Therefore I’ll decide to inform, even though that won’t bring the best result for both of us. So both of us will decide to inform so as not to get completely screwed. Meaning that if we formulate strategy together, we can reach a better result than if each of us tries to maximize his personal gain. Right? Now, I’ll say more than that. What happens when there is communication? We can formulate a strategy together. And after we’ve formulated the strategy together and decided that both of us will stay silent, one of them can still go afterward into the interrogator’s room and inform. So he agreed with me to stay silent—fine, he agreed. So what? Then he comes out with perfect profit, he comes out with zero, and I get fifteen. Right? Meaning even if we agreed between ourselves on a strategy, there is no way to ensure that each of us will keep the agreement. And therefore, whether we have communication or not, if we don’t trust one another, we won’t be able to carry out a joint strategy, and we are doomed to get five and five, not one and one. The trust between us—if we have trust—then both of us will stay silent and get one and one even if we didn’t talk to each other. Because each one will make the calculation on his own and understand that if we want to get the best result, it is worthwhile that each of us stay silent. You don’t need to talk for that. Right? And even if we do talk, it’s the same thing. The whole question is whether there is trust between us or not, whether we are good people or not good people. Good people arrive together at a better result than bad people, even though all the bad people are trying to maximize their benefit, their utility, in the best possible way. That is a fascinating result of the prisoner’s dilemma. Now, I want to show you where this page appears. Where does this page appear? It’s column 122 on my website. Okay, fine. About the prisoner’s dilemma you can also search online; I didn’t invent it. Now, what I want to claim—and this is on my website, and by the way I also saw someone mention this somewhere, but I don’t think they really got it in full force—the categorical imperative of Kant is simply the prisoner’s dilemma. Suppose I’m considering whether to evade taxes. Okay? I’m not telling anyone that I’m evading taxes, but I know that every individual also makes this same calculation for himself, right? And he too says: I’m not telling anyone anything either, so I’ll evade my two hundred shekels, he’ll evade his two hundred shekels, and we’ll all evade. What will be the result? A disaster. The state treasury will be empty, aside from gifts from the Americans. Yes, the state treasury will be empty. By contrast, if none of us tries to maximize his own personal gain, but instead thinks altruistically about the good of the collective, we will all profit more when we do not maximize our personal gain. The only way to reach a result of a state treasury that is not depleted, that has money in it, is only if all of us obey the categorical imperative and trust one another that the others too will obey the categorical imperative. Because understand: if I make the calculation of the categorical imperative and I do not evade taxes, I’ll just come out an idiot. Because everyone else will evade taxes—they don’t care about the categorical imperative—so I took care of the state treasury, and the state treasury will have my two hundred shekels divided among ten million citizens. My two hundred shekels. Right? There’s no logic in behaving like that. It can only work if… first, we all have trust in each other, and we also understand that each of us will do his best so that the general situation will be as good as possible. And notice, this is an interesting point, because what comes out is that altruism, or the view that says let’s do what is best for the group, really brings a result that is better for all members of the group than the attempt to maximize my personal profits separately. Even though supposedly we usually think that the wicked profit, on the self-interested level. They’re wicked, but on the self-interested level they profit. No. A society made entirely of wicked people is a very bad society, a society in serious trouble. A society of righteous people will usually be a society that flourishes. And this is an interesting evolutionary result. And I think that this is one of the reasons evolutionary researchers explain the emergence of altruism this way. How did our altruistic tendency arise? Because it has some survival value. We profit from it in the long run. So in the end, what comes out of this is something very strange. When you make the personal calculation, then it’s completely obvious what you should do: evade taxes, don’t go vote in elections, nothing. But understand that everyone, rational people, should all be making this calculation. What kind of society will come out of such a situation? A society with no state treasury, no parliament, no government, nothing—anarchy. Anarchy and poverty. That’s what comes out of such a calculation. So you’ll say, but what good does it do if I’m a righteous person and don’t evade my own two hundred shekels? Others will keep ruining the whole thing. If that’s really the case, then we’re finished. But if many people understand this, then even though each individual, when he examines his conscience, would prefer to evade, he will be righteous and not evade, and then all of our situation will be better. Something truly absurd comes out here, and many people don’t notice it: Kant’s non-consequentialist consideration is the only way to reach the optimal outcomes—to actually be consequentialist. Do you get the catch? Precisely if I make the non-consequentialist calculation, we will reach the best results, assuming all of us make the non-consequentialist calculation, or enough of us make the non-consequentialist calculation. Meaning, precisely this non-consequentialist conduct is what brings about the results. Someone who acts consequentially will evade taxes, and then what will the results be? He personally will profit more. He personally will profit. No. Because he also needs the state treasury. He’ll have two hundred shekels, but he won’t have education, no police, no security, and nothing else, because the state treasury is empty. So with those two hundred shekels he won’t have anything to buy, because even Bazooka gum won’t remain in the store—they’ll rob it, there’s no police. So in the end something rather absurd comes out here. Each of us is required to make a non-consequentialist calculation—not to ignore the consequences, but after each of us does that, we will arrive at the optimal result on the collective level, on the macro level of the whole world. So in the end the categorical imperative also does consequentialist work, but it does indirect consequentialist work; it does consequentialist work for the whole society. Because understand, we can continue this discussion—my argument with my son never ends—because now I say, right, he understands that this is so, but still, why not evade taxes right now, two hundred shekels? Because everyone will make this calculation, or they won’t; I have no control. If they do, we’re finished; if they don’t, I gained two hundred shekels. So it’s still worthwhile for me to evade two hundred shekels of income tax. Even after all the pilpul about the categorical imperative and the prisoner’s dilemma. In the end I’ll gain my two hundred shekels, because whatever everyone else decides, they’ve already decided; it doesn’t depend on what I decide. So what is at stake when I make the decision is only my own two hundred shekels. So why not evade? Understand that this is a knot you can’t get out of. When you look at it consequentially, in the end, if your consideration is only consequentialist, you will gain two hundred shekels and arrive at disastrous results. And only if your consideration is non-consequentialist, genuinely non-consequentialist, only then will you arrive at the best results. It’s really absurd, it’s a loop. Only non-consequentialist thinking brings results, and consequentialist thinking always brings the worst results. Now this can of course bring us back to the question of—okay, so where is God in this game? What do you mean? I asked earlier: if in fact I don’t evade income tax not because of consequences, but because it’s forbidden to evade income tax because this is the moral command—then I understand why to do it, apparently because I am obligated to God, who demands it of me. Without Him, I don’t see why a person should be obligated to some law like this that has no consequences. And now suddenly we discover that this law does have consequences. The thinking is non-consequentialist, but in the end a collection of non-consequentialist thoughts brings the optimal outcome. So there are consequences here. So actually there is logic in behaving this way even if I think consequentially, and we don’t need a source—we don’t need God as a source to give validity to this command. I think the proof still stands. Why? Because in the end, as I said before, as my son keeps saying all the time, fine, but why shouldn’t I evade two hundred shekels of tax right now? After all, whatever everyone does, everyone does. If they believe in God and are moral people, excellent—then the state treasury will be full and I’ll gain my two hundred shekels. If not, then the state treasury will be depleted with or without my two hundred shekels. So in any case I will evade two hundred shekels of income tax. Meaning that for a person who doesn’t believe, there is no reason not to evade income tax. There is no reason in the world. If he doesn’t evade income tax, he is an idiot. Because he profits and no one else loses. The loss is caused because each of us behaves that way. That’s true, but when I make my own calculation, what I do doesn’t affect everyone else. Whatever they decide, they decide. So it is not correct to present this as a consequentialist consideration. It has consequences, but the consideration is not consequentialist. And for a non-consequentialist consideration, you need God to give validity to such behavior, to cause me to behave that way. Because otherwise why should I do it if it has no consequences? And the consequences come specifically from my evading taxes or my not going to vote in elections, or my not going into the safe room to hide. Same thing. The fact that people don’t get hurt is a result of the fact that each of us is enough of an idiot to be persuaded by the absurd arguments of the Home Front Command. Everyone is hysterical that it’s terribly dangerous because the safe room saves lives and so on, and therefore they go into the safe room. And because all of us are idiots who go into the safe room because we believe the Home Front Command that it’s dangerous, that’s why lives are in fact saved. But when I make my personal calculation whether to go into the safe room, then if I go in, I’m an idiot. Because it won’t help. There is a difference between paying taxes and going into the safe room because here you have another factor, the laws of the state or of the place that are binding. Why should I obey the laws of the state? Why should I obey the laws of the state? If I don’t obey the laws of the state, then what? They’ll catch me? The police. Al Capone murdered dozens of people and sat in prison for tax evasion. One second, that’s part of the same propaganda that I expect intelligent people not to buy. Why? If I don’t go into the safe room, no one catches me. But that’s a fact you can’t argue with. It’s a fact you can’t argue with that they caught Al Capone. And it’s a fact you can’t argue with that usually crime pays if you do it right and on a small scale. Fine. So they caught someone—so what? That’s exactly it. People also occasionally get hurt if they don’t go into the safe room. That’s the whole consideration of an intelligent person who doesn’t take all kinds of tiny probabilities into account even though they wave them in front of his eyes and tell him it’s danger to life. Fine. Okay. So the point is this: either it’s a collection of idiots, or a collection of very moral people who go into the safe room because of the categorical imperative, not because of the danger. I tend to the first possibility, by the way. I think we’re alive because we have enough idiots among us who go into the safe room because they’re actually afraid. One indication is: are you really afraid? All the people who are truly afraid—that’s the balance of idiots. And the people who go into the safe room because one should, even though they aren’t afraid—those are the moral people. And since in our world there are lots of idiots, thanks to them we are here. The world exists because of the crazies, as was said. Okay, so those are just comments regarding the categorical imperative. I just want to conclude, and here I finish all the proofs for the existence of God, but I want to conclude the moral argument with a few reflections. We still have a few minutes left so I’ll do that. Look, there are… there are various reflections on the moral argument. First of all, I’ll do this very briefly because I want to finish the matter with this. First reflection: but look, there are many people who don’t believe in God and behave morally. Right. We talked about this, right? I said that this proves nothing. It only proves that they’re inconsistent or idiots or whatever. Or that they just do what they feel like because it warms their belly. It proves nothing. The question is whether people really think morality is valid, not whether they behave morally, that is, do good deeds. And even if they think morality is valid, it is entirely possible that they are simply hidden believers. They think they are atheists because they simply missed the fact that you cannot both be an atheist and think there is valid morality. So you have a philosophical error. You are simply living in contradiction. And therefore the fact that there are atheist people who are moral does not constitute evidence against this argument. I already discussed that. Then another reflection that comes up, and I also discussed it of course, is judgment as instinct. Why do you judge someone else who behaves immorally? You do things this way because that’s pleasant for you; he does things differently because that’s pleasant for him. So he’ll say: I judge him because it also pleases me to judge, that’s why I judge too. There is no philosophical justification for that judgment. There is no validity to moral laws. Just as it pleases me to do good, it also pleases me very much to judge people who don’t do good. So I’m willing to accept that claim, and that’s fine—it justifies the fact that you judge. But one has to remember: that is not judgment. Because judgment means determining that someone else behaved incorrectly. You are merely performing a psychological act to satisfy your own needs, and that is not judgment. Judgment in the philosophical sense is determining that someone behaved incorrectly. Okay? Therefore it is pseudo-judgment, but not really judgment. Now true, if that really is the meaning of your judgment, then this proof cannot speak to you. But if you really judge, if you really think the other person is not okay—not just that you enjoy thinking he’s not okay, but you really think he’s not okay—then you need to assume that there is some legislator in the background. That’s regarding judgment as instinct. Another thing, or feelings of disgust—yes, it’s the same thing. Why do I do this? Because of a feeling of disgust. It disgusts me that someone does evil. It disgusts you? Then take a pill. That also proves nothing. There are claims that say: right, there is an external source for morality and morality is valid, but it’s not the Holy One, blessed be He; there is some external factor, and that factor is society. Society. As a citizen of society, I am supposed to obey what society determines, and therefore we don’t need the Holy One, blessed be He, in order to give validity to moral rules. There is the social contract, there is social agreement that one should obey moral laws, and that is good enough. We don’t need some superhuman, metaphysical factor to give these laws validity. But that cannot be correct. Why? Think about why that cannot be correct. Someone can come and say: it’s correct, but he’s not talking about morality. What happens in Nazi society? Nazi society legislated that one should kill Jews. So if that’s the case, is killing Jews moral? No. Why not? Because society legislated a law that is immoral. Didn’t you understand? If the morality of the law is a product of the fact that society legislated it, then you cannot say that society legislated an immoral law. That’s like a square triangle. Therefore it is obvious that there must be some external standard that determines what is a moral law and what is not. And after that society can legislate it, and I can say that it legislated a moral law or legislated an immoral law. If it legislated an immoral law, I will not obey. And again we’re back to: okay, so who determines which law is moral and which is not? So it isn’t society’s legislation. Then what is it? It must be some factor that is essentially good, that cannot legislate otherwise, and that gives validity to moral laws. Therefore society is not an alternative either. That’s not even a reflection. Another reflection—yes, think about the Nuremberg trials. What happened at the Nuremberg trials? They judged the Nazis for what they had done. The most common argument, the most common defense argument at the Nuremberg trials, was: I was obeying orders, right? That was the law, I received orders, or that’s what the law determined; a citizen must obey the law. One of the most far-reaching constructions created at the Nuremberg trials was the idea of a manifestly illegal order. What does that mean? That you can judge a person for obeying the law. That sounded oxymoronic. By virtue of which law are you judging him? After all, when you judge someone, you have to judge him by virtue of some legal system. There is such a legal system, you are bound by it; if you violated it, we judge you and you’ll get punished. Okay? Which legal system was the one by virtue of which the Nazis were judged at the Nuremberg trials? After all, the law that was valid for them was German law. German law, according to German rules, determined that one should kill Jews. How can you judge them for that? So there they spoke about there being certain universal human laws that do not depend on the legislation of this or that particular society. This is the legislation of all humanity. Yes, but of course all humanity never legislated anything of the sort. I do not recall an assembly of humanity in which people sat and legislated a set of laws. And I also do not recall that I voted in elections for the constitutional assembly of all humanity. So why does that obligate me? These are just words. In the end you cannot escape this. We must recognize the existence of some objective, universal legislator, and by virtue of him one can judge people who do not heed his voice. If he does not exist, there is no way to do this. The Nuremberg trials could not have existed if there were no God. Because there is no source by virtue of which you can judge those people. The legal source from their standpoint was German law, and they obeyed German law. But it’s not legal. What? That it’s not legal. Yes, and what does “not legal” mean? Not legal according to what law is it not legal? After all, there is the cosmopolitan, universal law. Yes, but nobody ever established that law. The judges in Nuremberg supposedly decided it. No, they didn’t decide it. They claim there is such a law and it obligates everyone in the world, whether it was legislated or not, it makes no difference. Why? Without saying it, without putting it on the table: because it was legislated, because the Holy One, blessed be He, legislated it as Creator of the world, and that’s it, and it obligates everyone. And you cannot legislate laws of your own that contradict the law of the Holy One, blessed be He. That’s an interesting point. Yes. The last issue I want to touch on is the challenge from evolution. The challenge from evolution basically says what I spoke about earlier. Why do I behave altruistically? Because this altruism has survival value, and evolutionary processes instilled in me the tendency to behave altruistically. We spoke about this earlier, yes, like the prisoner’s dilemma. Meaning, a society that behaves altruistically is a more flourishing society, more successful, more survivable. So obviously there are evolutionary mechanisms that instill altruistic behavior within us. It has been imprinted in us. Therefore I don’t need God as legislator to explain why I am obligated to the altruistic law, to the moral law. Moral rules were simply implanted in me by evolutionary processes. That’s the claim. Now here—and this is a subtle point, but notice, it’s correct. Subtle, but correct. The evolutionary explanation merely explains why the feeling or tendency to behave altruistically arose in me. But that is not the question I am asking. I am asking why I am obligated to behave altruistically. Not why there is a tendency to do it. Why I have a tendency to do it is a scientific question. One can give scientific explanations for it—evolution. A good explanation can explain why it arose. But when I ask what gives this law validity, evolution cannot give validity to laws. Evolution is just nature, natural processes. They cannot give validity to laws. If evolution made someone else differently, and he has no tendency toward altruism, do I have a claim against him? No, he has a different tendency, so he acts differently. Therefore the fact that evolution created the altruistic tendency is a scientific description. But a scientific description cannot provide a normative explanation for the validity of these laws. That is the naturalistic fallacy we spoke about: facts cannot explain values or norms. The fact that altruism arose through evolutionary processes does not mean altruism is valid. I can say: altruism arose in me through evolutionary processes, but I decide to ignore it. Can you say I’m wrong? What do you mean, wrong? Am I forbidden to go against things evolution instilled in me? Evolution also instilled in me pleasure from speaking gossip. Now I decide to go against evolution—am I wrong? Is everything evolution instills in us automatically okay because evolution instilled it? Obviously not. So why not? What determines which laws that evolution instilled are okay and which are not okay? Remember, it’s like society’s legislation. There has to be an external standard that determines what is good and what is bad. After evolution instills something good in me, I’ll decide to obey it not because evolution instilled it in me, but because I understand that it is good. It just happens that evolution also instilled it in me, or not just happens. But if evolution instills something bad in me, I am supposed not to act that way even though evolution instilled it in me. Why? Because it is bad. Which means that the definition of good and bad is not a product of evolutionary processes, because if it were, then everything in me would by definition be good. Including the urge to speak gossip. You see that all these challenges basically miss the whole idea of morality. That is why I prefaced this whole idea with a long discussion of what morality is. Morality is not behaving however I feel like, it’s not behaving according to what is implanted in me, it’s not behaving as society expects me to, but rather doing what is right—the categorical imperative. And all these alternatives are not the categorical imperative. They all explain: you do it because society decided, because humanity decided, because you feel like it, because evolution instilled it in you, because it brings you one benefit or another. All of those are not doing it because it is right. When I speak of a moral person, I mean a person who thinks one should follow this law because it is right, and then I ask him: what determines that this law is right, or who determines it? And you have to arrive at God in order to say that this is the right way to behave. There is no such thing as right and wrong or good and bad unless there is some factor that gives validity to those concepts. That is the claim. Good. So that is the moral argument. I’m stopping here, and in fact here we’ve finished the entire move of the whole year in which we discussed four routes for proving the existence of God. What I would like to do—I think there are two meetings left, I think, until the end of the semester—in the two remaining meetings I’d like to move from the philosophical God to the religious God. Until now I have only proved the existence of some entity. For example, an entity that legislates morality, or an entity responsible for our perceiving the world correctly, or an entity that created the world, or the perfect being. It doesn’t matter; each argument assumes its own God. But up to this point we have only proved the existence of God—or gods, various kinds. Okay? Now the question is how that connects to putting on tefillin and keeping the Sabbath. Okay? So that’s what we’ll talk about in the last two meetings. Which will take place on campus, I hope. We’ll see, we’re waiting for instructions; we’re under the categorical imperative, we operate according to instructions even though there is no danger. Okay, more power to you, more power to you, thank you very much. Goodbye. Thank you very much. Thank you, Rabbi. Thank you, Rabbi.