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The validity of morality

שו”תCategory: philosophyThe validity of morality
asked 1 year ago

The rabbi argued in several places that morality has no validity without God.
I would love to understand why, by God, it has validity?
Where did God command morality? Perhaps all the commandments are just to do the commandments in a dry way, and you shall not murder. It is a commandment like putting on tefillin, and not because of its moral validity. However, something that is not explicitly stated, but simply understood, is not moral. What is the validity of its prohibition?

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מיכי Staff answered 3 months ago

First of all, in the Torah it is written, “Do what is right and good.” And in the prophets they expounded on moral behavior, and also in several places in the Torah itself (your brothers will go to war and you will sit here and more). But I am not at all talking about a command from the Torah. I understand from myself that this is His demand of me. My conscience is the “Torah” in which this appears.

שימי replied 1 year ago

What makes you understand that this is his command to you?
Especially according to what you claim that for the validity of morality, some thin God who is just a deterministic being who has the power to command me is sufficient

מיכי Staff replied 1 year ago

I don't understand this discussion. I explained that it is written in the Torah, repeated in the Prophets, and repeated in the Scriptures. I explained that my conscience understands that there is a moral obligation, and since without God there is no such obligation, then apparently it is God who instilled in me the obligation and enacted the duties.

שימי replied 1 year ago

You wrote that we are not talking about a commandment from the Torah, so I would like to clarify whether you mean that ultimately the validity of morality is based on the fact that I have an intuition for morality in my heart?
So yes, then why did God enshrine this as a commandment?
For example, I have an intuition to love sweets. Is that also a reason to see this as some kind of divine will for me to eat sweets?

מיכי Staff replied 1 year ago

You have no intuition that you must love sweet. You simply love sweet. It is as much a fact as I am tall.
By the way, I wrote that there are also verses in the Torah, Tevel, which are also not imperatives. It is not for nothing that the enumerators of the commandments do not enumerate “do what is right and good”.

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