On God and Morality: The Discussion with David Enoch (Column 456)

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.

On Wed., 16.2, a discussion/debate was held between me and Prof. David Enoch on the question of whether, in the absence of God, everything is permitted or not (see the recording here). It was one debate in a series of controversies held at the ‘Alma‘ Beit Midrash in Tel Aviv. I have read quite a few of Enoch’s articles in the past and greatly enjoyed his impressive analytic ability, which helps to clarify points and arguments and present them sharply. I was very glad for the opportunity to meet him and debate with him directly.

Ahead of this debate I reread several of his articles in this area (he has written extensively on ethics and meta-ethics), and I understood that he espouses what is called ethical realism (the view that ethical principles are objective and not up to us). Two of them are of special importance for our purposes here. The first is “Why I am an Objectivist about Ethics (And Why You Are, Too)“, and the second is “An Outline of an Argument for Robust Metanormative Realism.” My initial feeling while reading was that our positions were rather close. In the discussion it turned out that they were even closer than I had thought, both in methodology and in the views themselves.

All in all, I enjoyed the discussion. I think it was conducted at a high level, and it was, I believe, uncharacteristic in its focus and civility. But the time frame and format did not allow us to present things in an orderly and systematic fashion (each of us presented our starting point in seven minutes). As one of the commenters noted, most of the debate ended up focusing on points about which we agreed (the thesis of moral realism), and I assume some of the audience were disappointed that there was no blood. But even if an intellectual wrestling match is more entertaining, it is clearly less useful. Moreover, precisely when the positions are close, the discussion becomes more substantive and beneficial, for two main reasons: (a) On the agreed-upon levels one can actually reach conclusions and form a position without ending in a draw between two sides. This is all the more significant because the position we both share—moral realism—is a minority view among philosophers and in general. (b) Having proximity in foundational stances allows for a sharper delineation of the points of disagreement.

Despite all this, I left the evening with the feeling that precisely in the areas of disagreement between us, there remained points that were neither fully addressed nor sharpened. I think that if you listen again to the discussion after reading this column, you will see that I touched on almost all the points, but in some we did not complete the discussion, and in others the connection to the overall picture did not come through clearly enough (due to the debate-rather-than-lecture format). In this column I wish to fill in what’s missing. I highly recommend listening to the recording, including the entire arc of the discussion (some points arose only in its later stages), and perhaps listening again after reading. Here I will try to present, in an orderly (even if concise) and systematic way, my position from beginning to end, and along the way respond more fully to Enoch’s remarks and focus our disagreement. Despite the claims that arose in the debate (in fact, almost no arguments were presented there, but mainly presuppositions that seem to render argument redundant), Enoch’s position is rather weak, and in my view he does not truly present a viable alternative. Bottom line, I will try here to persuade you that the connection between God and morality is almost necessary. I do not see how one could deny this.

This column is a bit long, but I did not want to split it, so that an interested reader can have a complete picture. Note that the Euthyphro dilemma—which is connected to the discussion in a non-direct way—will be discussed in the next column.

A few necessary preliminaries

At the outset I must clear off the table a few claims that usually arise in such discussions and clarify that I am not making them. I will begin by saying that I am not dealing with factual questions—not with sociological reality and not with human psychology. Take as an example the claim that only fear of God can lead us to behave morally (God as a whip, reward and punishment, etc.). Personally, I think this is false (in both directions), but even if it were true, it is not my claim here. That claim is an empirical (true or false) anthropological-sociological proposition, and I am not dealing here with facts. For the same reason I am also not making the empirical psychological claim that only religious education can lead a person to moral behavior. I think that too is false, but even were it true, that is not my claim here.

My fundamental claim is a hypothetical (conditional) one: there is no valid morality without belief in God. Or, if you prefer, I assert the logically equivalent claim: if a person holds that there is valid morality, he necessarily believes in God. Note that I am not asserting the factual claim that there are no atheists who behave morally. On the contrary, as a matter of fact there certainly are such people, perhaps no fewer than among believers. It is important to note that the claim that there is or is not a moral atheist is itself a factual claim, and as such cannot be relevant to the discussion. My claim is in the meta-ethical domain—the question of the validity of values (why they obligate me)—and therefore no fact can support or refute it. So what should I do with the fact that there are moral atheists? Very simple: such a person is a covert (or unaware) believer, or he is inconsistent.

Another important preface. I am not dealing with the question of God’s goodness. It may be that He is wicked, or even that He does not exist at all. Note that both are (metaphysical) factual claims. If He does not exist, or if He is wicked, or if He does not expect us to be moral, then there is no valid/obligatory morality. That’s all. I am not claiming that there is obligatory morality (even though I certainly hold that there is), nor that there is a God, nor even that He is good (not even the minimalist claim that if there is a God, then He is necessarily good). What I am asserting is only the following specific hypothetical claim: if there is morality, it is grounded in God. Alternatively: if there is no God, there is no valid morality. My claim is that either there is God and morality (valid), or there is God and no morality, or there is no God and no morality. That’s it. It cannot be that morality exists and there is no God. Hence, claims about the goodness or evil of the God of the Bible, even if true, could at most lead to the conclusion that there is no valid morality, or to the conclusion that the God of morality is someone else—additional (polytheism) or alternative to the God of the Bible.

More generally, I am not speaking here about the Jewish God, or a religious God at all, and certainly not about the God of Scripture. Therefore, questions about the goodness of the biblical, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or Comanche God are irrelevant to the discussion. I am speaking of God in a very “thin” sense. By “thin,” I mean excluding the Jewish God or any other specific religious concept. I assume nothing about Him beyond a few assumptions necessary for the validity of morality. I certainly do not assume that He wants me to don tefillin, nor to turn the other cheek, boil flying spaghetti monsters, or dance around a bonfire to make it rain. I also do not assume that He created the world, nor that He is one (that is, a monotheistic conception). I am inclined to think that “numbering” is not even well-defined for such entities.

As rightly came up in the discussion, to assert my claim I must assume that God has expectations from us (a sort of commanding God, perhaps even personal and intentional, and not just some inert entity, physical or spiritual). But that’s it—nothing beyond that.[1] For my purposes here, God is a transcendent being who confers validity on moral principles (values). That’s all. In effect, I assume a kind of beefed-up deism: there is a metaphysical being I reach by philosophical considerations, and I cannot say much about Him other than that He commands/expects us to behave morally.

This does not mean I am a polytheist, Christian, or pagan. The God I believe in is monotheistic; He revealed Himself at Sinai and even gave us 613 commandments. I believe in Him for various other reasons, but none of that bears on the link between God and morality. After I reach the conclusion that there is no valid morality without God, I of course identify this God with the religious God in whom I believe. But that is a scenic stage that no longer concerns our discussion here. Hence, remarks about the Jewish God—or even a religious God in general—are irrelevant to this debate.

The structure of my argument

My argument consists of two steps: (a) moral realism; (b) belief in God as the only possible basis for that moral realism. Regarding the first step there is agreement between Enoch and me; our disagreement is about the second. But to clarify my position, I must linger a bit on the first step (since without it one cannot take the second).

Moral realism

Many people somehow think morality is grounded in us—either an outgrowth of principles I find within myself or the product of agreement among people (perhaps all humanity). Ethical/moral realism presents a different, much stricter position: moral principles are objective principles, not up to us and not our handiwork. One might perhaps call them ethical facts, but of course they are not physical facts nor simple derivatives of such facts. The view that morality is derived from facts is the fallacy David Hume pointed to—the confusion between the “ought” and the “is.” Hume explained that one cannot derive norms—obligation, permission, and prohibition—from facts. This is sometimes called the naturalistic fallacy, though today it is customary to distinguish between the two fallacies.

For our purposes here, I will try to persuade you briefly of the logic of this view and will do so by two (very similar) arguments, one drawn from my book The First Being, and the other from an article by David Enoch (the first linked above). Enoch presents what he calls the spinach test.

The spinach test

Consider a child who says the following sentence: “How lucky that I don’t like spinach. For if I liked spinach, I might eat it, and spinach is yuck.” This sentence is amusing, and the reason is that it contains a category mistake. His disgust for spinach is not an objective matter. If he liked spinach, then spinach would not be “yuck,” and so there would be no problem with his eating it. Now compare this to the following claim: “How lucky I don’t live in the eighteenth century. If I had lived then, I would have thought that time is absolute, as in the Newtonian view, and I wouldn’t have known Einstein’s theory of relativity.” One may agree or disagree with this claim, but admit there is nothing amusing about it. It does not resemble the previous claim.

What’s the difference between the two? The subject of the second claim is an objective truth. The claim that time is not absolute does not depend on us and on our scientific understanding. It was always true, we just did not know it. Therefore, if I had lived in the eighteenth century, I really would have lived in error, and there is indeed room to regret that. Thus we have a test, a litmus paper, that helps us distinguish between a case where proposition X speaks about objective facts and a subjective claim that depends only on me and my tastes. The question is whether regret about not believing X (what in philosophy is called a counterfactual) is a joke reflecting a category mistake or a reasonable claim. That is the spinach test.

Now let us apply the spinach test to ethical claims. Think of a person who says to you: “Lucky I don’t live in the eighteenth century; had I lived then, I would have thought slavery is correct and proper, and I might even have owned slaves. But holding slaves is morally yuck.” Does such a claim sound amusing to you? I dare assume not. This is a clear indication that we are dealing with an objective claim (like absolute time) and not with a claim grounded in personal taste. If so, the norm that slavery is negative is an ethical fact—at least for someone who thinks the claim does not fail.

Of course, one can say this is an illusion, and that the reason such a sentence does not sound amusing is brainwashing, or that evolution ensured we take it seriously. I won’t engage with such skeptical claims, because my remarks are directed only to those who do not think that way—that is, to those who genuinely believe the claim is not amusing and does not resemble the spinach claim. Someone who thinks otherwise is truly not a moral realist and, in my view, is not ethical at all. He may behave in an admirably ethical manner, but just because he feels like it or because it pleases him.[2]

The rabbinic Jew and the sovereign Jew

The way I usually illustrate moral realism is as follows. Ari Elon distinguishes in several places between the rabbinic (religious) Jew and the sovereign (secular) Jew. The rabbinic Jew lets the rabbi, the Shulchan Aruch, God, or other authorities legislate his values and determine the norms that obligate him. By contrast, the sovereign Jew legislates his own values and does not allow anyone else to do that for him.

Now I would ask Elon how he would regard a sovereign person who legislates for himself a way of life as a contract killer. This path gives him maximum income with minimal effort, and he even gains from this noble way of life a beneficial thinning of the universe of some of its inhabitants, thereby contributing to the solution of the problem of dwindling resources and food. I dare assume Ari Elon would not see such a person as an ideal role model. Now I ask him and you: what is the difference between such a person and someone who legislates for herself a life of constant beneficence (Mother Teresa)? I suppose Elon would answer that the first legislates bad laws for himself and the second good laws. Someone who legislates bad laws for himself is a bad person, even if he is sovereign; someone who legislates good laws is sovereign and good. If so, we have a first conclusion: there is no necessary connection between sovereign and good, or between rabbinic and bad.

But now I would pose the next question: who or what determines whether a given law is good or bad? In both situations I described (the hitman and Mother Teresa) we are dealing with a sovereign person who legislates his or her own values. What does the one lack that the other has? In other words: what is missing in the first one’s system of laws that makes them bad, and present in Mother Teresa’s, which makes hers good? Sovereign legislation certainly is not what makes Mother Teresa’s path good, since the hitman also legislates his own values (what’s more, Mother Teresa is in fact a Christian “rabbinic” figure and not sovereign at all, since God set her path). From this comparison it follows that the distinction between good and bad is not up to us. Our legislation does not make a law good or bad. Whether a law is good or bad is a datum not in our hands; therefore, our legislation cannot change a bad law into a good one or vice versa. Moreover, I dare assume that even Ari Elon agrees with this claim.

Needless to say, a person’s choice and decision are critically important to the ethical discussion. I can and must legislate for myself my way of life, for without this the way I conduct myself has no value (no different from the behavior of a stone, a utility pole, or a sheep). My sovereign choice (legislation) is only in whether to choose good or evil, but I cannot decide what is good and what is evil. That is an objective datum not in my hands. In this sense I am entirely in favor of the sovereign model, but I do not identify it with secularity. Elon errs in his distinction, for in our world there are rabbinic religious and sovereign religious people, and there are rabbinic secular and sovereign secular people.

In any case, we have reached the conclusion that moral values are not our handiwork and are not up to us. They are ethical facts imposed upon us. This is moral realism from a slightly different angle—but if you think about it, you will see that Enoch’s argument and mine are very similar. To this one can add the indication from the existence of ethical disputes. On this too Enoch and I fully agree. As I have written more than once (and Enoch has also devoted an article to it), the existence of moral disagreements not only does not refute moral realism but confirms it. If there were no objective ethical truth, what would the disagreement be about? Such a dispute would be pointless. You have one feeling and I have another; what’s the point of arguing?! Incidentally, just as there is no point in arguing whether spinach is tasty or not, but there is a point in arguing whether time is absolute or relative. If you think about it, you will see this is a third facet of the very same argument, and it is no wonder that Enoch and I entirely agree about it as well.

Up to this point is the path Enoch and I share, for we both advocate moral realism, and for fairly similar reasons. An analysis of how we all relate to ethical issues reveals that we are all, in effect, moral realists (even if some of us are unaware of it—that’s exactly the parenthetical in the title of Enoch’s first article). All these are essentially analytical arguments (since they are based on an analysis of common attitudes to morality).[3] From here begins the second stage of my argument, and here our disagreement emerges. But note that there is a point in continuing only for someone who agrees with the realist starting point we both accept.

What determines the difference between good and evil?

The natural question now is: what is the factor that determines the difference between good and evil—what gives them binding force? If it is not the person himself by his legislation—since we are realists and not subjectivists—then who does? Answers might be proposed such as “society determines,” “humanity determines,” and the like. I will set these aside at once. They do not differ essentially from the subjectivism that grounds good and evil in my personal sovereign legislation. I assume there can be a wicked society (I will not say Nazis so as not to awaken Godwin from his lair); therefore, even if it determined some law, I do not feel bound by it nor will I necessarily regard it as good. Even all humanity cannot be such a factor, for it is theoretically possible that all humanity is wicked (in the days of Noah, “all flesh had corrupted its way on the earth”). In such a case, would evil be good? I assume we would all agree not. Beyond that, I do not see society as an agent whose legislation truly obligates. If a person does not act according to what society decreed (an anarchist), he is not wicked in my eyes (perhaps mistaken in some cases).

For the same reasons one cannot say I am moral because that is my feeling, or because that gives me satisfaction, or because that’s what I feel like (that’s how I’m built). Beyond the fact that all these explanations suffer from the is-ought problem, they also cannot truly generate a valid ethical fact. A person built differently from me, or with pleasures other than mine, will act differently, and I could have no claim against him (perhaps apart from the fact that I feel instinctive disgust towards him—but that is not full-blooded moral censure).

Explanations from evolution (naturalistic explanations) also arise here. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that altruism has survival value for a group and its genes, and therefore it is likely that evolution created in us moral commitment. In brief, this explanation suffers from the same fallacies and a few more. First, it is not clear how evolution creates identification with and obligation to morality. To survive, it suffices that we act mechanically in a “moral” way (that is, care for others). The accompanying feelings (empathy, ethical commitment, etc.) are not an evolutionary necessity. Second, evolution is a fact. In other words, it is a possible explanation for the emergence of moral behavior—and even, if I ignore my previous remark, for the emergence of moral feelings. But what I am asking is: whence the binding force of these norms—what makes them values—and not how they arose. Within me there are many things evolution created; that only means that as a matter of fact I will likely behave thus. But it certainly does not mean that I must act so, or that I will censure someone who does not. I have an urge to gossip or to hit my friend in certain situations. That too is the product of evolution. Does that suffice to say there is a moral obligation to gossip or to hit in such situations? The fact that I have an account of how something arose does not confer binding force on it. As I said above: one cannot derive morality, which is normative in nature, from facts (a description of how we behave, or the theory of evolution). One can of course assert this, but then you are not a moral realist, and this is not truly moral behavior. One could call it the morality of sheep. They too do not harm others because evolution created such conditioning in them (and therefore they do not feel like it). Does that mean a sheep acts morally? Highly unlikely.

Thus, as Sherlock Holmes says in The Sign of the Four: after we have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. For our purposes: we have ruled out all other possibilities for determining and conferring validity on the difference between good and evil—it is not me, nor human beings generally, nor anything connected to human beings. What remains is some transcendent factor, unrelated to me and not to human beings at all—one that has inherent authority to set principles of good and evil and to give them validity. Without such a factor, I do not see how the laws of morality can have binding force. I call this transcendent factor, for the purpose of this discussion, “God.”

Recall my preliminaries. This is not necessarily the God of the Bible, nor a Creator of the world, nor even a religious God in any broad sense, nor any of those. You do not even have to call Him God. For all I care, call Him Yankele. The conclusion that follows from the analysis here is that there must be a transcendent authoritative factor that gives binding validity to good and evil. That’s all. Anything you load onto Him beyond this “thin” definition (and I explained above that I too load quite a bit more onto Him—but unrelated to this discussion) is not germane to my argument here.

A note on pragmatism

One might argue that such a logical move is man’s creation of God so as to validate morality (“In the beginning man created God”)—that is, a pragmatist move (subordinating truth to usefulness). But that is a mistake. I am not creating God to validate the morality I want (for some ulterior reasons); rather, the opposite: from my understanding that moral rules are valid (and not from my desire for them, or their utility), I infer (I do not create or invent) that in the background there is a factor that gives them force. As noted, without that they cannot have force.

I repeat: a person can still decide there is no valid morality and interpret my argument as an illusion—that is, claim that I invent God for pragmatic reasons. That is of course a possible interpretation, but not a necessary conclusion. I claim the reverse: since there is valid morality, it is clear that in the background there is a God who gives it validity. At most, this is a dispute, but hardly a necessary reading of my argument. Note that a skeptical reading can be raised about any claim. My trust in the senses can also be construed as the result of wishful thinking; so too the conclusions of science (including the observational confirmation I find for them). That is the skeptic’s claim, and there is no good way to engage it. One need not engage it; it suffices not to agree. Moreover, the burden of proof is on the skeptic who asks me to doubt what seems right, not on me. The same goes for the validity of morality. Incidentally, this very claim can be directed against Enoch’s ethical facts (that he invented them to give objective force to moral values).

But leave that whole debate. It is beside our point. As I clarified above, my claim is only hypothetical: if there is valid morality, then necessarily God underlies it. A person may claim there is no valid morality and there is no God (this is essentially the skeptic’s claim accusing me of pragmatism). I am not engaging here with such a stance. My debate with Enoch departed from the premise that there is valid morality, hence my initial emphasis on our shared agreement regarding moral realism—the basis for the discussion.

Enoch’s claims

So far my argument. Against me, Enoch claimed that although there is valid morality, one need not resort to the assumption of a God who legislates it. Moral values have force even without Him. If you examine the counter-claims he raised, you can discern three points in what he said:

• The question does not arise, since commitment to ethical facts needs no justification.
• If justification is needed, God (certainly a “thin” God) does not do the job.
• The “thin” God I presented is very similar to the claim about the existence of ethical facts. There is no real dispute here, since I am presenting a position that in essence is atheistic.

Now I will address these points one by one.

A. My presupposition (the presupposition)

In his remarks, Enoch argued that at the base of my argument lies an unjustified presupposition, and therefore it collapses on its own. This effectively spares him the need to produce counter-arguments. He explained that I presuppose that the existence and force of ethical facts require justification (or a source of validity). From there I survey the different options to justify them (on a naturalist-evolutionary basis, or social agreements, or “sovereign” human insights) and rule them out, and then we are left with the “improbable” (in Sherlock Holmes’s terms): that God is the only possible source of validity for moral norms. But if my presupposition—that morality’s validity requires a source of validity—is false, my whole argument collapses.

Before addressing his reasons, I will preface—as I did there—that in all cases known to us, systems of laws always draw their validity from some authority. There is no law without a lawgiver. The laws of the state, for example, have their force from the legislation of the Knesset (and the public’s consent and the duty to obey that consent). The rules of a guild—the bar association or the cobblers—or the rules of the basketball association—these too are systems of law grounded in the legislation of an authority. I can obey or not, but there is no law without a lawgiver. I cannot think of any example where a law obligates merely by its existence, without commitment to some lawgiving authority. Intuition also says that a system of rules that just happens to exist somewhere would not be perceived by me as binding. Therefore, as a starting point, I do indeed assume the presupposition that the laws of morality too should have at their base a lawgiving factor whose authority I acknowledge (for some reason—the reason can vary: perhaps He is omnipotent and omniscient, or created us, or is the perfect good, and so on). Thus, beyond this presupposition as such, I also claim that the burden of proof—to show that moral laws are an exceptional case—rests on David Enoch.

In the discussion he tried to shoulder that burden (I presume out of awareness that his claim truly requires justification and the burden lies on him), and to that end he brought three examples. Each presents a principle(s) that has inherent force without the need to posit an external factor granting it force: morality itself, the number eight, and the law of non-contradiction. I will address them now one by one.

• As Enoch himself admitted in the discussion, the example of the laws of morality is an obvious begging of the question, and therefore adds nothing. That is precisely what we are disputing (whether moral laws require a source that grants them force).
• The number eight is just “there” without anyone creating it. It simply is, and there is no need to resort to a factor that created it or grants it force. I argued that this example is both incorrect and irrelevant, as I now detail:
• It is irrelevant because I am not speaking about the factual question of who created ethical facts but about the meta-normative question of who grants them force. The number eight has no “force.” It is simply there. No one is obligated to do anything because of the number eight; hence there is no room to ask who grants it force. The example is off-topic.
• But the example is also incorrect. Even if I were asking who created the ethical facts, the number eight is not a good analogy. Enoch said in the discussion that in his view ethical facts exist in some sense; I offered two possibilities: either they are entities (abstract, like ideas) or relations between entities (such as “is greater than,” “is sharper than,” “precedes,” and the like), and he said both types are possible. If so, precisely on his view—which asserts an ontic claim (about the existence of abstract objects)—there is room to wonder who created those objects. By contrast, at least in the Aristotelian conception, the number eight is not an existing object; therefore the question “who created it?” does not arise.

True, if you are a Platonist who holds that the number eight exists as an Idea (a kind of abstract object), then indeed one could raise the question of who created it. But if you adopt the Platonist assumption, then my claim against Enoch returns to the logical level. Again, this is begging the question—in other words: your example suffers from the very difficulty I raised regarding moral principles. So you cannot use it as a proof for the matter at hand. What I say about moral principles I will also say about any other existing Idea.

Think of the world, or any other event or object within it. We all understand that something or someone created it. It is implausible to say that it simply exists or arose without something or someone producing it. Therefore, the burden of proof is on whoever claims that something exists without a factor that created it. But all this is only rhetorical flourish, for, as noted, my argument did not deal with who created ethical facts. I add it now because it is a good question to which Enoch gave no answer. In my remarks I dealt only with who grants them validity. The number eight is irrelevant to that discussion.

• The third example he brought was the law of non-contradiction (the logical law that forbids holding a claim and its negation simultaneously). Here too I will raise both arguments (that it is irrelevant and incorrect), but the second can be presented with a slightly different hue (as I did in our discussion). First, the law of non-contradiction obligates us to nothing. There is no prohibition on thinking contradictions. It is simply impossible to do so (it is contentless). Therefore, clearly there is no need to discuss a source that grants the law of non-contradiction force. Moreover, the law of non-contradiction is not an existing object; again there is no need to ask who created it (and likewise for the Platonist begging of the question).

One might argue that, unlike the number eight, the law of non-contradiction does appear to assert something, and therefore perhaps the question arises what obligates me to accept it. In that sense, there seems to be some resemblance to our question. But in the debate I explained that the law of non-contradiction does not really assert anything. It is an analytic claim and is therefore empty. Its negation—that is, the position that denies it—has no feasibility and no content. There is nothing to discuss about what grants force to a sentence that asserts nothing. As I understand it, the law of non-contradiction has the same logical standing as the law of identity (that every thing is identical with itself and every proposition is equivalent to itself). By contrast, moral principles certainly assert claims far from analytic. The prohibition on murder or causing suffering or discrimination or holding slaves—these are plainly synthetic ethical claims (that is, not analytic statements). Here, indeed, there is room to ask what grants them validity. In short, there is no similarity between the law of non-contradiction and our question about the source of validity of moral principles.

If we compare the last two examples to the moral laws, the latter indeed assert something and also obligate me; therefore, regarding them, there is room to discuss both who created them (though I did not address that) and who grants them force. Enoch did not offer an answer to either question, and his claim that there is no need to raise such a (presuppositional) question is entirely unfounded. As noted, it contradicts our primary intuitions, and the burden he bears he has not met. The fact that Enoch did not manage to present any relevant example supporting his claim—that there can be a law with inherent validity without a source that grants it—speaks for itself. If there is no relevant example of a legal system with inherent validity, then the presupposition that a lawgiving factor is required to grant validity to moral rules remains the more reasonable option.

An example: the categorical imperative

To sharpen my claim, in the debate I brought an illustration from Kant’s categorical imperative. This time I am not dealing with the very need for a categorical imperative as a basis for morality (I touched on that above), but with the content of Kant’s imperative. As is well known, Kant’s categorical imperative says that we must act in such a way that we would wish our maxim to be a universal law. I won’t enter into this again, having addressed it here more than once. For our purposes, I will only recall the distinction—so easy to miss—that the categorical imperative is not consequentialist (see on consequentialism columns 252–253); that is, it is not defined on the basis of outcomes. The categorical imperative does not tell us to act in a way that will give us the best result, as one might think, but to act in a way that, if hypothetically everyone behaved thus, would make the world better.

In column 122 I gave examples of the implications of this distinction. There are cases in which the action I take has no direct practical effect (though I showed there that there are indirect effects, but I won’t enter that here), and still the Kantian imperative requires me to do it. For example, evading tax in the amount of about 1,000 shekels has no problematic consequence. A shortage of 1,000 shekels in the state treasury will not change even a hair’s breadth of the state’s actions. No one will suffer even the tip of a fingernail from such evasion. So why not do it? The only possible answer is the categorical imperative: because if everyone did so, the treasury would be empty—and that is certainly a result we do not desire. But note, this is not a factual estimate that indeed everyone will do so. My evasion will remain hidden and I will not reveal it to anyone. Others will act as they do regardless. Therefore, the alternatives I weigh are: (1) evading 1,000 shekels, leaving x – 1000 shekels in the treasury; or (2) paying the tax, leaving x shekels in the treasury. The value of x could be high or low depending on the decisions of the other citizens, but it does not change because of my decision.

Now imagine someone comes and asks David Enoch whether to evade 1,000 shekels in tax. How could he explain to him the moral prohibition on doing so? He will gain 1,000 shekels—a considerable sum for him—and no one else will be harmed. Hence, no consequentialist consideration can operate here, since such evasion has no consequences. So what can Enoch claim to him? Presumably something like: there is an ethical fact that one must not evade taxes. I assume you will agree with me that he will answer Enoch something like: “My grandmother’s joy in the town square.” Take your ethical facts and dance a tango with them to the accompaniment of Plato’s orchestra. I am asking you a moral question—why I should not evade tax—and not a metaphysical question about the world of Ideas (whether there is such an Idea or not). In other words, he will say to Enoch: I certainly care to be a good person and not harm anyone. Moreover, I am even willing to accept the factual existence of such an ethical fact. But still I fail to see whence the obligation not to evade tax without harming anyone arises. What binds me to that ethical fact? Please explain to me what its source of validity upon me is. One could phrase it thus: the existence of ethical facts is also an “is,” and therefore one cannot base any “ought” on it.

My claim is that only if I tell such a person that there is an authoritative factor who legislated this law can one claim against him that there is a prohibition. He can of course refuse and enjoy his tax evasion. What I claim in this debate is only the hypothetical (conditional) point: one cannot demand of a person not to evade tax without telling him that there is an authoritative factor who legislated that law. The fact that in the world of Ideas there is a law (without a lawgiver) that says not to evade tax is of interest to his grandmother. And again—not because he is an immoral person. He is careful not to harm anyone. But why should he observe irrational laws that have no rational basis and that no authoritative factor to whom I am obligated legislated?! That he will not accept—and rightly so, in my view.[4]

One might ask whether all of us, even if we adopt moral realism, must necessarily accept Kant’s categorical imperative. I will answer in three ways: (a) In my view, yes. It is indeed an ethical fact. (b) Even if we disagree with Kant, I have at least shown that in the Kantian conception one must posit God as the basis of morality. I think Enoch does not accept that either. (c) The example was brought only to sharpen my claim, but it exists for every moral principle. Even if I come with the demand “why do you strike your neighbor,” I have no good answer to persuade and obligate him without putting God at its base. An ethical fact standing mute in some corner of the world of Ideas does not create obligation.

B. Does a “thin” God do the job?

Enoch claimed against me that even if we assume that justification is needed and a source of validity is needed for moral values, my “thin” God does not do the job. Just as an ethical fact does not yield moral obligation, so too a “thin” God (as opposed to a religious God) cannot do so.

I do not understand this strange claim. Clearly He can—just as any authoritative factor can (like the Knesset for the state’s laws, or the bar association for the guild’s rules). The difference between my “thin” God and Enoch’s ethical facts is that God is an intentional agent. There is someone here who makes demands of me, and therefore, if I recognize His authority, I must obey them. This is unlike his ethical facts, which are truly a kind of objects that are simply there. That really cannot generate obligation. I stress that I am not engaging here in epistemology, i.e., the question of how and whether to recognize God’s authority. My claim is that He has authority, and if someone does not recognize it, he is mistaken. Therefore I am not demanding that anyone be convinced by my claim that there is a God and that He has authority. My main claim is hypothetical (conditional): without recognition of such authority there is no valid morality.

I claimed above that Enoch’s ethical facts are an “is,” and as such they cannot create and ground an “ought.” But God’s command is not an “is.” It is not a factual proposition but a decree from an authority. You can accept or reject His authority, but without it there is no valid morality.

C. Is there a disagreement?

Enoch’s third claim was essentially the flip side of the same coin as the second. He claimed that my “thin” God is nothing more than a rephrasing of the claim that there are ethical facts. I posit the existence of an abstract object, and so does he. So what does God (especially a “thin” God) have that ethical facts do not? Therefore he argued that even if justification is needed (and in his view it is not), God cannot do work that ethical facts cannot do. Enoch claimed his disagreement is with other religious positions, but my position is merely an alternative formulation of his atheistic one. Instead of speaking of the existence of ethical facts, I speak of God. As long as I keep Him so “thin,” I have merely given ethical facts another name, nothing more.

Incidentally, I will say in advance that if the “thin” God does not do the job, then in my view neither does a chubby God, nor an obese one. Therefore, a fortiori, his claim is not against a “thin” God but against God altogether. Suppose there is a religious God who created the world, gave Torah, and demands our obedience. Is that a sufficient justification for moral obligation? Why? At most one may see Him as a whip, for He will punish us for immoral behavior. But as noted, our discussion is not about the psychological question of what will motivate us to act, but about what obligates us to act. Here I see no advantage for the fat religious God over my thin philosophical God.

But there is certainly a disagreement. Unlike ethical facts, which cannot ground moral obligation, God—who is a superhuman intentional being—can do so, and only such a being can. This is hardly the same claim in other words. Even though the difference is small, it is decisively important for our purposes.

The crux of the disagreement

We can now summarize and sharpen the crux of our disagreement. Enoch claims that the mere existence of ethical facts suffices to ground the validity of morality, while I claim that with respect to ethical facts there is the is-ought problem; hence, they cannot supply normative force. Therefore, I claim that at the base of that force there must be a factor that is both intentional (a demanding God, whose commands are directed at us) and transcendent (that is, beyond the human sphere)—which I here call God. Mere indifferent, mute facts standing somewhere in the world of Ideas cannot serve as the basis of morality’s validity. Without an entity of the sort I describe, there can be no binding moral law.

Therefore, only three options stand before us—no more:

• There is no God and no valid morality.
• There is a God and no valid morality (a wicked God, or at least a God who does not demand moral requirements of us and does not legislate moral laws).
• There is a God and there is valid morality (moral realism, necessarily grounded in God).

The fourth option—(d) there is no God and there is valid morality—is inconsistent. Hence, atheists who hold it (and there are not a few, Enoch among them) are either unaware believers or their position is inconsistent.

A remark on Enoch’s analyticity

During the discussion I made a methodological remark. David Enoch is an analytic philosopher, and as such he engages mainly in analyzing our conceptions (and not necessarily language as such, except insofar as it expresses conceptions) and the assumptions underlying them. When he examines our moral conceptions, he arrives at a realist conclusion—that we view morality as realist-objective. In this he is perfectly right. But that realism must arouse a non-analytic (or meta-analytic) question: why do these facts obligate? What gives them force? This is not an analytic question but a metaphysical (or meta-meta-ethical) one. As an analytic philosopher, he is silent about it and even claims it is unnecessary. That, in essence, is his claim that moral laws need no justification. I told him I very much identify with the distaste (not to say disdain) for continental (non-analytic) philosophy, most of which is obfuscation that says nothing (see column 223, among others). In the course of the discussion it turned out that on this point too our positions are close. But sometimes—even if a question is not analytic—it demands an explanation (the fact that you are continental, even in those rare cases where you say something, does not mean you are necessarily wrong—though that is usually the case). One cannot stop midway and place an exclamation mark.

Since my first book, Two Carriages, I have distinguished between analyticity as a method of philosophizing and analyticity as a philosophical worldview. This is a good example of that distinction. I am entirely in favor of analyticity as a method of philosophizing: it prevents rambling and vagueness and focuses the discussion and the arguments. But I oppose an analytic stance that sees this as the be-all and end-all. Once I have reached the conclusion that there are ethical facts, I am not exempt from the question of what underlies their force. True, the answer to that is not obtained by analytic method (that is, not from the way we relate to ethics—though it does follow from conceptual analysis), but it is very much needed. Without it, everything floats in the air.

There is an evasive approach common among analytic philosophers: when you encounter a problem justifying some tough claim, you declare it an axiom, a postulate, or something self-evident, and you are thereby exempt from presenting justification. Thus many believers will explain to you that there is a God because they have an axiom that there is a God; thereby they feel exempt from offering justifications for their belief. One can do the same for belief in demons, aliens, and the entire metaphysical menagerie you can imagine.

Needless to say, every justification rests on fundamental principles that themselves have no justification, or else we would fall into infinite regress. But those basic principles must be evident principles (with inherent obviousness) that do not demand justification. To take a principle that is itself tough and declare it an axiom is evasion, not a solution. It does not answer the difficulty but tries to slip past it. I have often compared this to someone presented with a question ending in a question mark (?), who simply grabs the question mark by its two ends, stretches it, and turns it into an exclamation mark (!). He reads the question as a declaration and thinks that this answers it. But that is not an answer—it is an analytic trick.

The claim that there are laws whose force is inherent and does not require a lawgiver is a puzzling, difficult claim that contradicts our intuitions. Beyond the difficulty, as I showed, we have no other example of such a thing. Therefore, in my opinion, stretching this question mark and turning it into an exclamation mark is not an answer but an analytic evasion of the difficulty. This is why, in my opinion, David Enoch did not truly present a plausible alternative to God as the basis of morality’s validity.

In the next column I will address the Euthyphro dilemma, which the moderator (Jeremy Fogel) also raised, and I will also indicate its relation to our debate.

Note: After posting the column I sent it to David Enoch, and the continuation of the discussion with him appears in the comments below.

[1] In the discussion Enoch claimed that I assume God has causal power. I believe I did not assert this anywhere (and I am not even sure his remark is well-defined, but I won’t get into that here).

[2] In the discussion Enoch distinguished between de dicto moral behavior (out of commitment to the categorical moral imperative) and de re moral behavior (moral behavior because of the reasons that make the imperative moral). The common example is Huckleberry Finn, who refrains from returning the runaway slave to the widow (who owned him), but not out of respect for the Kantian imperative—rather because he felt friendship and compassion for him. That, after all, is what makes such behavior moral; so why is the motivation of respect for the imperative needed? On the contrary, sometimes Kantian (de dicto) conduct feels alienated, mechanical, and inhuman. A person does good to discharge an obligation, instead of out of a good feeling. It is also egocentric, because it puts oneself at the center rather than the other. A sharp expression of this is Enoch’s question: would you prefer to be in a boat at sea with Huck Finn or with Kant?

There I said that I do not accept the second mode as moral conduct. Here I will add only that if this counts as moral conduct, then a sheep is moral as well. She does not harm her fellows because she doesn’t feel like it. One could even say, for the sake of argument, that she shares in their pain and feels their suffering. But that is not moral behavior, because it is driven by the pain she herself feels and not by a decision to act rightly and benefit the other. Enoch asked whether in my view this is anti-moral behavior; I answer here: certainly not. There is nothing to censure in such conduct, for the person acts in a way that is pleasant to him and does not harm anyone (indeed, he even helps the other). So what is wrong with it? Nothing. My claim is only that he does not deserve moral credit. Credit is due only to someone who acts from a moral motive (respect for the categorical moral imperative).

To his question: yes, I would certainly prefer to be in the boat with Huck Finn rather than with Kant (also because he was likely the better sailor). Still, the conduct deserving moral credit is Kant’s, not Finn’s (again, I am not claiming that Finn is immoral—only that he does not deserve moral credit for his conduct). I can certainly understand someone who would prefer to be in a boat with a sheep rather than with a person who could do him good or ill. Does that mean the sheep is more moral (or moral at all)?!

[3] Enoch rightly noted in the discussion that this is not linguistic analysis, as philosophy of language is usually taken to be. We are not concerned with language but with what it expresses. The attitudes to spinach and to good and evil that came to expression in the analysis I presented here are not rooted in our language but in what it expresses. It’s what I say, not how I say it.

[4] A commenter (“Tirgitz”) asked on the site why I needed such extreme examples; after all, any commitment not to harm others, so long as one sees it as a moral commitment (and not just an instinct), also cannot be justified without a validating and obligating factor. I answered that he is entirely right—but this example sharpens my claim against Enoch: that the claim about the existence of such facts (the “is”) cannot supply an answer to the question of obligation (the “ought”). Ethical facts too suffer from Hume’s is-ought problem.