Two reasons are sufficient, both legal and moral.
A. Does it make sense for one thing to have two sufficient reasons?
In fact, the question is:
Can I claim that when I fulfill a moral commandment (for example, love your neighbor as yourself) I am acting morally? Even if it were not moral, I would still fulfill it because of God’s command. On the other hand, can I claim that by doing so I fulfill a commandment, since even if there were no commandment, I would fulfill it because it is moral?!
And in general, regarding what the Rambam called the Shemaic commandments, on the one hand he writes in Kings that we must keep the commandments only because God commanded on Mount Sinai, etc., and on the other hand in eight chapters he writes that of the Shemaic commandments we must keep them in general, which are the final decision of the mind.
In short, what does it mean for something to exist because of two separate motivations?
on. I didn’t understand how, with the thesis of separation of powers between law and morality, you solve the following problem raised by the thinkers:
How can it be that God, as a good and perfect God, would command immoral commands? And even if it were to achieve religious goals (as you claim), He is God! He could command something (to achieve those religious goals) in a way that would be in line with morality, right?
Discover more from הרב מיכאל אברהם
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Discover more from הרב מיכאל אברהם
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I didn't understand. Where is the answer? Yes, both are sufficient. That's clear.
Now can I say that I keep God's command when even if God's command didn't exist, I would still keep it? This is a conceptual question
That's right, and I answered this conceptual question. If you were to do it even without there being a moral issue here, then you are obligated to the word of God, and so is the case with morality.
I encounter the following difficulty:
In several places (see Ton 297) you explain that there is no active providence because the concept of double causality cannot exist. There is no double causality, since a cause is at least a sufficient condition, and if cause A is sufficient then cause B is not needed.
In short, there cannot be two different, parallel and independent explanations for the same phenomenon.
And so, K.L., how does this fit with what you say following the Rambam that one must fulfill a mitzvah from a religious motive, i.e. a commandment of God (otherwise I am not religious but "one of the wisest of the nations") and also from a moral motive (otherwise I am not a moral person)?
There is a difference between an explanation/reason and a motive. There is no problem in principle with claiming that action X has two motives. This is an explicit Gemara: for the sake of Pesach for the sake of Shelomim. And from life, I donate money because it will give me the name of a righteous person and also because I want to donate to that cause. These are everyday actions. This means that each of these motives alone was enough for me to do the action. On the other hand, an explanation or reason claims that in fact this was the reason. But there are no two independent reasons for the same thing.
So, when I say that an action should be done because of morality and because of the command, this means that morality alone without a command would have been enough for me to do the action, and the command alone without morality would have been enough.
There is a tangential discussion on the issue of rape and consent (the latter being more specific to the issue of modesty and prostitutes in the written text). If I am threatened to do something that I intended to do anyway, am I raping or not?
Leave a Reply
Please login or Register to submit your answer
