Ethics: Between Emotion and Reason (Column 734)

With God’s help

Disclaimer: This post was translated from Hebrew using AI (ChatGPT 5 Thinking), so there may be inaccuracies or nuances lost. If something seems unclear, please refer to the Hebrew original or contact us for clarification.

In recent days a video has been circulating on social media featuring part of stand-up comedian Udi Kagan’s performance, in which he speaks about his post-trauma following his military service. Kagan presents his experiences with great courage and considerable charm, and he does so as a stand-up comedian. Despite the humor—and perhaps because of it—he manages with great talent to pierce the hearts of listeners, helping them better understand the world of a veteran with PTSD, thereby doing an excellent service to the phenomenon, to those who suffer from it, and to the broader public among whom they live.

Precisely because I so appreciated the video, an important point that appeared in it almost in passing slipped by me. This morning I watched a video by my friend Roi Yozevitch, in which he raises a point that may escape the viewer’s eye or ear. He rekindled in me several insights I have discussed here before, and I thought it appropriate to revisit them specifically in light of Kagan’s powerful video.

Yozevitch’s Critique

Although in Yozevitch’s video he didn’t fully sharpen that this is what he meant (a pity), I understood that he wished to raise a critical point about Kagan’s words. But even if he didn’t intend that, I wish to comment on Kagan’s remarks. In the course of his talk, Kagan describes his feelings about what he went through and says he doesn’t understand how he was capable of doing the things he did (see the segment in Yozevitch’s video at 2:50). He doesn’t forgive himself for it, and this leads him to think that he doesn’t know himself. That it’s not the same person who was there, and that someone who did such things doesn’t deserve to live.

Yozevitch rightly emphasizes that Kagan isn’t speaking here about how he viewed what he did or how he experienced it, but about how he could do such things. This is moral self-criticism, beating one’s breast, and not merely trauma due to a difficult experience. Yozevitch argues that part of what causes trauma—or at least intensifies it—is moral remorse. A person who goes through difficult experiences in war but fully identifies with its aims and with the decisions made within it (including the acts he himself did) can still undergo a difficult emotional experience; but if at the moral level he identifies with his actions and sees them as justified, he has a better chance of coping with the difficult experiences and a smaller chance of developing post-trauma. One who participates in a battle that in his view is unjustified, or who carried out actions within it that he considers immoral (such as harming non-combatants), has a greater likelihood of experiencing post-trauma.

I don’t have clinical or research data on this and I haven’t checked it, but he cites this in the name of Jordan Peterson (I’m not entirely sure Peterson actually says this there), and to me, small as I am, it also sounds quite plausible. I would be very interested to see results from a systematic examination of the correlation between the percentage of combat stress casualties and PTSD among soldiers from the “Swords of Iron” war who oppose versus support the fighting and the decisions made within it. My impression is that among soldiers there are relatively few who oppose it. Usually, the moral halo descends upon these prophets only after they’ve been discharged. Soldiers and officers up to the highest ranks, to my impression, don’t truly share the views of the “formers” (even though the newspaper Haaretz occasionally quotes anonymous officers full of criticism of the army. For some reason they are partners in war crimes and do not refuse to take part in them, but they give interviews to Haaretz to air harsh criticism. I don’t know if that’s more strange or more suspicious—decide for yourselves). I would bet that among religious and/or right-wing combat soldiers the rate of combat trauma is significantly lower, but I haven’t checked.

A few days ago I heard an interview with a soldier’s mother who voiced harsh criticism of the war, but said that at home she doesn’t speak about it so her son won’t enter conflicts and will keep focused on fighting. I couldn’t tell whether she was being disingenuous or truly naïve when she spoke on the most popular news magazine on Network B and thought her son wouldn’t hear about it just because she doesn’t talk to him about it at home. But it seems clear to me that her words increase her son’s likelihood of experiencing trauma. And the same goes for all critics of the war. They talk about trauma victims, but by their very criticism they also contribute to its creation, of course. This doesn’t mean one mustn’t voice criticism, and nothing I’m saying here is a moral criticism of them. I am mainly noting a fact, and also criticizing the logic of their critique. The use of post-trauma as a basis for criticizing the fighting is logically problematic, since the criticism itself participates in creating the trauma. It would therefore be better to focus on substantive arguments against the war and policy and not entangle post-trauma in this context.

A Critical Viewer’s Response

It is very hard to remain critical when faced with a clip like Kagan’s. A person has gone through difficult experiences—especially when it happened in public service, i.e., in our service—and it is hard to tell him he is in the wrong. The same is true for families of hostages who oppose the fighting and cry out “injustice” (or “Hamas”) against its prolongation and demand an immediate stop. It’s clear this actively assists Hamas and drastically lowers the chances of the hostages’ return, and it’s also clear there are various interested parties driving these processes and riding on the families’ distress in order to topple the government. It seems that to these manipulators it is indeed worthwhile to sacrifice the hostages in order to topple the government. But when you hear a hostage’s family member, it’s hard to voice criticism (not to mention the hysterical media pile-on awaiting anyone who does).

All the same, we must clearly distinguish between these planes. One can and should fully empathize with the pain and suffering, with the longing for a loved one in captivity, and with what he and his family are going through—and at the same time hold the view that it is wrong to surrender to those feelings and let them run us. Our stance regarding the fighting and regarding a hostage deal should be formed according to substantive, rational considerations and not according to these emotions. With all the sorrow and empathy, in my view it is not reasonable to sacrifice state interests in order to free twenty people who are suffering terribly; and I have explained more than once why, in my opinion, stopping the fighting means relinquishing essential interests of the state. In any case, if that is your view as well, your empathy with Kagan should not blur it, and certainly not change it.

Morality: Between Emotion and Reason

I have often noted that it is common to identify morality with emotion, i.e., to see emotion as the supreme yardstick for the morality of an action or policy. The feeling is that if I have a stomachache—or, more mildly, pangs of conscience—in the face of a given act or policy, then it must be immoral. Not for nothing do people post photos of suffering children in Gaza as an argument for why we should stop the fighting and why this is genocide. Well, no—even if those images were accurate (some of them probably are)—they still do not establish that we are acting immorally. The question is the context and the overall considerations that accompany it. The images evoke a powerful moral emotion, but it is very important to learn to separate that moral emotion from the formation of one’s position, which should be done with reason and not with the gut.

I have written more than once that in my opinion there is a strong correlation between right- and left-wing worldviews and moral conceptions (see, for example, Column 727). The left tends more to identify morality with emotion, and therefore uses emotional arguments to ground a political and moral position. For them, the number of non-combatants killed in Gaza is a decisive argument, and the pictures of suffering and hunger even more so. Heart-rending personal stories of those who are suffering are the measure by which one should set moral positions and military and political policy. By contrast, the right does not see all this as a sufficient basis for forming a moral stance and policy.

On the left they are inclined to accuse the right of a callous heart, alienation, and moral indifference. Sometimes that may be true, but by no means necessarily. It is possible for a person whose heart breaks at the sight of suffering still to refuse to let emotions run his reason—even in the moral domain. These accusations themselves suffer from that very fallacy. The accusers do not consider the possibility that my heart might break over the suffering and yet I still do not think it is right to stop fighting and thereby cause it. For them morality and emotion are one and the same, and that is how they judge others. Above I noted my conjecture that the rate of combat trauma among soldiers with a right-wing worldview is lower than among those who criticize the war (and it remains to be examined regarding left-wingers who do identify with it—there are such people as well). Of course, even if that is correct, the left will explain that religious/right-wing people are morally indifferent—and we are back to the same fallacy.

We must understand that the fallacy that mixes human empathy with suffering and conflates it with identification with the values (that lead to the suffering, as we have seen) is not merely an intellectual-philosophical mistake. If I am right, then it is a practical disaster. To stop a just war and to forgo important state interests because of misleading emotions is a serious problem. Moreover, it leads to conclusions and actions that are morally flawed. The tragedy is that the very desire (usually sincere) to act morally brings about the opposite. See again Column 727.

Emotion, Reason, and a Postmodern World

I have often written that morality belongs to reason and not to emotion, and that emotions (identified with conscience) are at most one of the inputs we should take into account when making moral decisions; but it is not emotion that should determine the bottom line. Decisions are made with reason and not with emotion. And yet our world is moving more and more in emotional directions. More and more people identify morality with emotion and, in fact, give excessive weight to emotions in general. I have previously shared an amusing story of mine: I was watching “The Voice” with some of my children. Shlomi Shabat was one of the judges, and after watching two contestants he said that his reason leaned toward A but the heart, the heart… it was going with B. Needless to say, the audience burst into applause, and I innocently wondered: what was the decision? Shlomi Shabat didn’t bother to say whether he decided to go with the heart or with reason. Why not? Because it was obvious to everyone that if reason says one thing and the heart another, you follow the heart. That was self-evident to Shlomi Shabat, to the entire audience there, and also to my children sitting with me. When I voiced this question aloud, they fell off their chairs laughing (I don’t recall whether I raised it jokingly or seriously; in any case, my intent was entirely serious).

Which of course brings me to Dov Sadan’s quip, which I have also cited here before. He said that the next person to make a revolution in the world would be a Jewish orthopedist. Why Jewish? Because almost all the revolutionaries are Jews. But why an orthopedist? Because the first Jew to make a revolution in the world was our forefather Abraham and after him Moses, who taught us to think with our heads (“Lift up your eyes on high and see who created these”). The next Jew who made a revolution was Jesus, who taught that everything is in the heart (“The Merciful One desires the heart”). The next Jewish revolutionary was Marx, who taught that everything is in the stomach (capital, economic interests, and needs run us). The next was Freud, who taught that everything is managed below the belt. So if we descended from the head to the heart and then to the stomach and below the belt, the next revolutionary will apparently be a foot orthopedist (a podiatrist).

Beyond the jest, to my mind the process he describes is entirely real. There is indeed a deterioration from reason to heart, to needs and drives. This doesn’t mean people in recent generations have become more foolish; it does mean they have lost faith in reason and see the heart as a substitute meant to make decisions and form positions in place of reason. This is part of the postmodern world, based on despair of reason, and because there is no vacuum, it inserts emotion and the heart in its stead. When I speak here of a postmodern world, I don’t mean only those avant-garde groups identified with postmodernism. Our entire world is governed by this spirit, and many of us, who philosophically do not identify with this vacuum, are still influenced by it without noticing (cf. Shlomi Shabat and the audience of “The Voice”).

Halakhic People and a Rational Approach

As I told Raz Zauber in a podcast recorded a few days ago, a halakhic approach helps us stand against this murky current. A person accustomed to acting within the framework of halakha gets used to examining his instincts and emotions in light of principles and to making decisions in a measured and rational way. People disconnected from halakha can more easily slide down the slippery slope I described. Not for nothing is there a very strong correlation between rabbis and halakhic people—and religious Jews in general—and opposition to hostage deals. This is not necessarily moral callousness, as they are wont to accuse them of, but rather a rational, cool approach that makes moral decisions with reason and not with the heart.

There are two kinds of rabbis many of whom don’t fall into this category: Haredim and more liberal rabbis. If you see a rabbi who supports a hostage deal, he likely belongs to one of these two groups. This is a fascinating phenomenon, and in light of what I have written here it calls for explanation. They, too, were educated on the knees of halakha, and I would expect them as well to link morality to reason and not to the heart. So why is it different here?

Among liberal rabbis I think this phenomenon is prevalent because they are more exposed to the broader world and its values. Many of them internalize those values, which in itself is, in my view, a blessing, but sometimes it takes them too far. They somewhat lose the salutary influence of halakhic, rational, cool education and place too much emphasis on emotion (not only in the moral domain but in general). Among Haredim it is more complex. I think there it stems from two main reasons. The first is separation from the broader public, which leads them not to enlist. In such a situation it is harder to insist on continuing the fighting (since that will raise the question of Haredi conscription all the more). The second is more substantive: they do not think in large scales and long time horizons. For them the consideration is mainly the here and now. Considering a state’s long-term interests versus the fate of individuals is not part of their toolkit (see a detailed discussion in Column 720).

Back to Udi Kagan

I think the fallacy I have described appears not only among Kagan’s viewers. It may be that Udi Kagan himself also has such a conflation. Let’s return to the sentences I quoted above. Even if he understood and justified the military action in which he participated at the rational level, it may be that the difficult emotional experience of killing people (especially if non-combatants are harmed) is instinctively tied for him to immorality. My impression is that he is flesh of the flesh of the Israeli left (cf. “Eretz Nehederet”), and therefore it is entirely possible that he perceives that if he did such things, he is not moral—even if rationally he would justify it. He may be imposing what arises from emotion onto what reason says. We have seen that rational justification for things that run counter to emotion is perceived among leftists as alienated, cold, and morally indifferent, and my impression is that he definitely belongs to that milieu.

It is so complicated that I am not sure Udi Kagan even meant to say that these were immoral actions. It may be that, in his view, the very fact that he was capable of doing this means he is not a mensch. I’m not sure he even held himself to account as to whether he favors or opposes those actions, since that very discussion can seem superfluous (and perhaps even alienated and morally indifferent) when the emotion is so clear. Thus it is possible that even if he were to address that very question, he would answer in the affirmative (i.e., he understands the need and justification for those actions), and still might say sentences like those he said in his show. In such a case, can we regard those sentences as expressing Kagan’s moral position? I don’t know.

Needless to say, all this is of course only hypothetical analysis. I do not know Kagan or his views, and the issue is not Udi Kagan but a principled discussion. My claim is that, as a representative type of the Israeli left, this description is certainly possible, and that is what matters for our purposes.