Moral Evaluation of a Person Who Acted According to a Disputed Position (Column 244)
The working assumption: Amir genuinely believed all three elements of the justification
The essay opens by assuming, for the sake of the discussion, that Yigal Amir had sincere certainty on three levels: that Rabin was about to bring about a grave disaster, that the assassination would in fact prevent it, and that even on the value level the price of violating human life and democratic rules was justified in such a case. The rabbi stresses that he himself disagrees with Amir on almost all of these points: there was no clear existential threat here, it is unlikely that the murder would have changed reality, and the moral question is far from simple. Still, in order to discuss Amir’s personal moral assessment, the essay assumes that from Amir’s own point of view this really was the picture.
Why Pinchas is a better parallel than Gedaliah — and why even that does not decide anything
From there the essay returns to the biblical analogy discussed in the previous column and rejects the comparison between Rabin’s assassination and the murder of Gedaliah ben Ahikam. In his view, if one insists on looking for a biblical parallel, the story of Pinchas is much closer: a person convinced that a public leader is bringing disaster, acting with harsh violence, and believing he has at least tacit backing for doing so. Precisely the fact that one can extract opposite lessons from Tanakh shows, in his view, that we usually do not really learn from it; we use it to validate positions we already hold.
The first question: what should he have done if this really was his view
The essay distinguishes between two different questions. The first is what Amir should have done by his own lights. Here the conclusion is almost built in: if a person really is convinced that a terrible disaster is imminent, that his act will prevent it, and that in such a case one may or must break the rules, then from his perspective that is exactly what he should do. The rabbi notes that democracy and the public’s right to determine its own fate make such a position very hard to accept, but he also concedes that in our world there are extreme cases in which almost all of us would agree that breaking the rules could be justified.
The second question: why it is hard to judge Amir as personally evil
The second question, and the main focus of the essay, is how we should judge Amir on the deontological-personal plane, as distinct from punishment, social consequences, or judgment of the environment in which he acted. Here the rabbi argues that it is hard to see Amir as just another banal, malicious murderer. If this is indeed a principled, caring person, motivated by what he sees as the public good, who checked, consulted rabbis, and acted while ready to pay a heavy personal price, then even if he made a very grave mistake, it is not simple to define him as personally wicked. A person’s deontological moral assessment, the essay says, should be made as much as possible from within his own world and not only from within ours.
The abortion example shows that the dilemma is more symmetrical than it seems
To sharpen the point, the essay turns to abortion. The rabbi makes clear that he himself sees many abortions as acts of murder, and yet he still finds it difficult to judge women or doctors who perform them as wholly evil, because they act within a cultural atmosphere that presents the act as an obvious right and even as compassion. These may be very good, devoted, highly moral people who are simply captive to a radically different conceptual framework. By the same token, even those who attack abortion doctors in the United States may see themselves as saving lives under a rodef logic. The analogy is not complete in every respect, but it exposes the same question: how does one judge a person who acts consistently out of a moral framework that both he and his surroundings are deeply convinced of.
The possible criticism: not the mistake itself but excessive certainty in the face of disagreement
After all this, the essay still proposes a direction for moral criticism of Amir. The problem is not simply that he was mistaken, since human beings always act according to their best judgment and may err. The possible problem is that he was too certain of his position in the face of deep public disagreement, and before such an extreme act he should have reconsidered, recognized that his certainty might be excessive, and given second-order weight to the very existence of a serious opposing side. The same question, he stresses, can also be directed at those who support and perform abortions.
Why even judging 'by the other person’s own lights' still depends in the end on my own view
From here the essay moves to a more complex claim: even when I try to judge a person by his own lights, I cannot really detach from my own lights. To condemn a person deontologically, the essay says, several conditions are required: there must really be a live dispute between two sides; there must be a chance that the person would have reached the correct conclusion had he reconsidered; and he himself should have understood that further reflection was required. But the last two conditions are inevitably measured partly through my own assessment of the issue and of his mistake. Since I have no access to the other person’s inner life and do not know how fully he examined, reconsidered, and struggled, my judgment of him must inevitably mix with my own position.
From peer disagreement to the standpoint of the judge
At the end, the essay connects the discussion to the philosophical problem of peer disagreement: whether the mere fact that an epistemic peer thinks otherwise should weaken my own confidence. It mentions David Enoch’s claim that it is mistaken to view human beings as truth-meters analogous to thermometers, and that my own view therefore has a special status when I myself am one of the disputants. The rabbi thinks that as a general solution this is too clever by half: if one is seeking truth, there is reason to see both me and my opponent as fallible instruments for discovering it. But he concedes that in the case of judging another person there is still a real asymmetry: I am not only asking who is right, but whether the other person acted responsibly in forming a view and acting on it. Here I need not decide conclusively who is right; it is enough for me to determine that there stood before him a significant opposing side that he was not entitled to ignore.
With God’s help
Moral Evaluation of a Person Who Acted According to a Disputed Position
In the antepenultimate column (242) I discussed an article by Gavriyahu that drew an analogy between Rabin’s murder and the murder of Gedaliah ben Ahikam, and I cited it as an example of our inability to draw conclusions from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). Since then I have seen the film ‘Incitement’ (highly recommended), which describes the background and chain of events surrounding Yigal Amir and those around him leading up to the murder. Here I would like to touch on this subject from another angle. Since we are now in the midst of the ‘High Holy Days,’ I thought that even on the eve of Yom Kippur it was worth discussing, and so I am sending out the column now.
The Basic Dilemma
In that column I argued that the fundamental dilemma raised by this act concerns Yigal Amir’s decision. I assumed there, for the sake of discussion, that he had indeed become convinced that Rabin was about to bring disaster upon the public and the state, and therefore faced a genuine dilemma about what he ought to do (I mentioned the examples of Herschel Grynszpan and David Frankfurter). Needless to say, when a person decides to kill someone under the law of a pursuer, he must rely on a high degree of certainty on two planes: regarding the assessment of the factual situation (that is, regarding the grave consequences of the pursuer’s actions, and that the killing will indeed prevent them) and regarding his value judgment (that preventing those consequences outweighs the violation of democratic ground rules and the value of human life).
I assumed there, and for purposes of the present discussion I will continue to assume, that Amir had such certainty. I added that quite a few of those around him, some of them intelligent people whose views he valued and respected (rabbis and politicians), also agreed with this assessment, and this surely reinforced his conclusion that his judgment was not baseless, subjective, or biased. Although as I understand it (the film is not entirely unambiguous on this point), the agreement in his environment concerned mainly the assessment of the future consequences (that is, the disasters Rabin’s policy was about to bring on us all). I am not sure there was similar agreement, and certainly not very broad agreement, regarding the justification for Amir’s act, since that also involves accepting the factual assessment that the murder would indeed prevent those consequences, as well as adopting the value judgment that harming human life and the democratic rules of the game is justified in such a situation. The film also suggests that Amir adopted a very expansive interpretation of statements by rabbis that supposedly supported the act.[1]
I will only add that my own personal view is also that Yigal Amir was mistaken on most of these planes. The consequences of Rabin’s actions were not unequivocal, and certainly did not pose an existential threat to the state and society. In my opinion, the murder was not likely to change anything. The only aspect that is definitely worth discussing is whether, assuming he was right on the first two counts, this justified violating human life and the rules of democracy (cf. Frankfurter and Grynszpan). After all, the public has the right to determine its fate in the ways it chooses, and it is unreasonable to let Yigal Amir’s pistol place the fate of us all in the hands of a private individual, even if he is right. But it is not entirely simple if his assessment truly is that we are all clearly heading for catastrophe. There are extreme situations in which most of us would agree that drastic measures are justified.
But for purposes of the discussion I assumed there, and will continue to assume here as well, that Amir himself at least had a sincere sense of certainty on all three of these planes.
Another Note on the Biblical Analogy
As noted, Gavriyahu’s article drew an analogy (absurd, in my opinion) between Rabin’s murder and the murder of Gedaliah ben Ahikam. I used it as an example of my view that we do not really learn anything from the Tanakh. I argue that we usually use it rather than learn it; that is, we extract from it insights that we ourselves put into it and that we already want and believe in.
In this connection I should add that if I were to draw any conclusion from the Tanakh, I would derive it specifically from the story of Pinchas and not from the story of Gedaliah ben Ahikam. The former, in my opinion, is far more similar to the case at hand. The story of Pinchas describes a situation quite similar to the one that prevailed before Rabin’s murder. It was clear to Pinchas that Zimri (the prince of the tribe of Simeon) was committing a grave act and that he therefore deserved to be harmed. According to the Sages, he even asked Moses and received passive approval, exactly as Amir thought he had received passive approval for his own act. Of course, there too a significant part of the people sided with Zimri; that is, there was a public dispute around the matter. As we know, Pinchas killed Zimri, and for this the Holy One, blessed be He, promised him an everlasting covenant of priesthood. Is the conclusion for our case not obvious?!
If one had to, and if it were possible, to draw practical conclusions from the Tanakh (and as noted, in my opinion it is not), it seems to me that the answer regarding Yigal Amir is very clear, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the murder of Gedaliah ben Ahikam. Gavriyahu saw in Gedaliah’s episode a reflection of his own thoughts. I wonder whether, in Gavriyahu’s opinion, we should also have established a fast day for the killing of Zimri, even though for some reason the Holy One, blessed be He, and Moses our Teacher failed to notice this (they must start reading the ‘Kipa’ website).
By the way, the film ‘Incitement’ made it clear to me that the situation surrounding Rabin really was very similar. Interestingly, the comparison to the story of Pinchas is also discussed there (by Yigal Amir himself). Incidentally, Yigal Amir’s father in the film also draws the comparison to Gedaliah (well, from the screenwriter’s standpoint that is hardly original, because this absurd comparison came up more than once after the murder), but in the argument between them Yigal Amir himself flatly rejects it, and in my opinion quite rightly.
Two Questions
If we now return to Yigal Amir’s dilemma, two questions arise here:
- The question I have described until now: what should he have done in such a situation? According to his own view, was he justified in taking the action he took? That is the question regarding which I argued in column 242 that there is no persuasive way to extract an answer from the story of Gedaliah (and what of the story of Pinchas?). But as to the question itself, even without the Tanakh the answer seems self-evident. If Yigal Amir really was convinced that this was the situation on the three counts mentioned above, that is, that such a step was justified despite its heavy costs, then certainly, at least from his point of view, this is what he ought to have done. On its face, there seems to be no dilemma here. Even if a significant part of the public disagrees with him, it is hard to deny that in principle a situation may arise in which half the public is mistaken for various reasons, and a disaster is then looming over everyone that he is obligated to prevent. Think of someone who got up and assassinated Hitler (or again, of Grynszpan and Frankfurter), despite the fact that he was a lawful leader and a significant part of the German public supported him. Remember that our assumption here is that Yigal Amir really was convinced of all this.
- A similar but not identical question: how should we, as those who disagree with him, judge his act? Let me sharpen the point: I am not discussing whether he should be punished, since punishment is not always a direct consequence of a value judgment of the person. Punishment is sometimes imposed in order to deter him or other potential criminals, or to achieve one or another social result. Punishment also takes into account the consequences of the act and not only the motives and personality of the offender. Nor am I discussing here how to judge the society within which he acted (which, as noted, helped him arrive at his conclusions), or the consequences of his act (whether they really were as grave as people tend to describe them). The question that interests me here is deontological and not teleological: how should we judge him and his decision and act on the plane of personal moral value? Should I view him as a wicked man who deliberately committed an evil murder? Is he worse than, or perhaps similar to, any other murderer who does this for financial gain or for other self-interested or banal reasons? Or perhaps he is actually a more principled and positive person who made a mistake?
It is hard to separate the two questions. If Amir really was convinced, and if it follows that he had to take the step he took (Question 1), then ostensibly I too should judge him accordingly, again only on the deontological-moral plane (Question 2). A value judgment of a person ought to be made according to his own view, not according to mine. The film portrayed Amir as a very principled, positive, and caring person, whose main concern was the fate of the Jewish people and the values of the Torah. This is a person who consults rabbis and clarifies his position, and in the end does what seems right to him (and, in his assessment, right to them as well), and is also willing to pay the price for his act (I assume he understood that in all likelihood he would not survive it). I already noted in the previous column that, in my view, many of those who agreed with his opinions and his assessment of the situation did not do the deed themselves only because of fear and unwillingness to pay a price. Are they better people than he is? In short, it is hard for me to see such a person as wicked on the personal-deontological plane, even if his act had difficult consequences (in my opinion, not very difficult), and even if in my view his act was not justified (on all three planes). As noted, the judgment of him as a person is a topic that should be discussed separately from all of these.
Another Example
To sharpen the dilemma, I will bring another example. Not long ago I read Jodi Picoult’s novel, A Spark of Light, which deals with the dispute over induced abortions (see also column 73). Although she usually does a good job of describing dilemmas in all their facets, and although here too she tried to do so to some extent, it is hard not to see where her own opinion leans. The book describes quite nicely a real dilemma on the two planes described above. Today it is accepted in the world to support abortions, or in more laundered language, ‘a woman’s right to choose.’ Not only is it accepted to support them, but the opponents are portrayed (in the book too) as delusional fundamentalists, chauvinists who persecute women, whose whole concern is controlling women and their bodies (‘objectification.’ We have already forgotten that word, in the age of ‘exclusion’ and ‘religionization.’ Presumably within a short time those terms too will go the way of all the earth and be gathered to their people). For some reason it is very easy for supporters of ‘choice’ to ignore the dimension of murder involved.
I do not intend to reenter the discussion here (see the aforementioned column), but only the aspect that interests us here. By way of background, I should note that I am indeed among the vigorous opponents of abortion and of ‘a woman’s right over her body’ or her ‘right to choose.’ In my view these are acts of murder, and the laundered terms do not change that (I mean on the moral plane. In terms of Jewish law, the situation is more complicated. Surprisingly, specifically in Jewish law it is easier to be lenient than on the moral plane). So from this point on I will speak personally. Suppose that I, as someone who opposes abortion and sees it as murder, encounter a woman who supports abortion or a physician who performs an induced abortion (for purposes of discussion I am speaking about a case in which the act is done for economic reasons or out of some distress or other, but no significant medical danger or danger to life threatens her. This happens quite often, among other things because of the deliberate ignoring of the value dimension, that is, the murder, and shifting the discussion to women’s rights). If so, I essentially see her or the doctor as murderers.
But at the same time it is hard for me, and perhaps also wrong, to ignore the cultural atmosphere within which this support for these murders was created, light-minded and scandalous as it is. After all, we would all agree that in those circles there is an unequivocal and uncontested conception that this is a self-evident act, even a positive and desirable one. To them it is obvious that this is a woman’s right over her body and not murder. At times you hear slogans that seemingly acknowledge the difficulty and problematic nature of the act (in the book as well, though there it is presented as problematic mainly because of the distress of the woman having the abortion and not because of the murder involved), but in practice the dimension of murder is systematically erased from the discourse. These are declarations made for appearances only (at least in my assessment and experience). How should I relate to a woman who has an abortion within such an atmosphere?
Exactly as I described above regarding Yigal Amir, from that woman’s perspective this is a completely reasonable and logical act, an essential part of her rights over her own body (it is hard for me even to type that wicked and distorted sentence). In my view, as noted, these are distorted and wicked nonsense, and that woman is in fact a murderer. But is it right to ignore the atmosphere within which she acts, and the sweeping public support of everyone around her, some of them certainly moral and intelligent people whose position should not be dismissed (and whom she undoubtedly values very highly). That woman may be a saintly person who devotes her entire life to helping others. That doctor may spend his whole life volunteering to help women in distress (who are sometimes in real distress). Moreover, in this case their environment fully justifies them, unlike in Yigal Amir’s case, where as I explained above his environment apparently supported only part of his assessment of reality, but not all of his assumptions.
I say again: from my point of view, all these wise and righteous people are mistaken and are under the sway of a very intensive cultural brainwashing that does not allow them to listen to other positions (just as many see Yigal Amir and his milieu). Even so, is it right to judge such a woman morally as a murderer? Exactly as with Yigal Amir, from her point of view this act is entirely called for and perfectly reasonable. It does not even occur to her to consider my ‘foolish’ and fundamentalist positions, and those of others like me. Jodi Picoult presents this dilemma very sharply and effectively, as she describes all the characters on every side (especially the supporters of abortion) as extraordinarily good people, and certainly as innocent people who help everyone, including their opponents. These descriptions make it very difficult for us to see them as murderers. It seems absurd, and there is even an element of detachment from reality in it. One simply cannot see such a good and positive person as an evil murderer. And again, I am speaking of my personal deontological judgment of the person and his or her decision, not of the society within which this emerged or of the act and its consequences.
By the way, in the United States there have been murders, and of course many threats as well, against doctors who perform abortions. The same consideration can be applied to those murderers and threat-makers. From their perspective, after all, this is murder, and they are engaged in saving the fetuses. Essentially, this is the law of a pursuer. Is it really so obvious that they should refrain from acting?
This question is directed at both sides. It seems to me that supporters of abortion can ask themselves this about their attitude toward its opponents. And likewise supporters of Yigal Amir can ask it about their opponents (who are good people who believe in their way). In both of these examples there are two sides that are very convinced of their position, and both can arrive at extreme acts of taking life (although supporters of abortion of course do this on a much broader and more intensive scale, whereas among opponents of abortion it is only a small minority and a small number of murders. Even so, the image presented in public, and also by Jodi Picoult in a very unequivocal way, is of course that they are the violent, extreme, and fundamentalist ones)[2]. How is each of us supposed to judge our opponents? Is it really so clear that wickedness is involved?
Picoult’s book, despite its one-sidedness regarding the arguments and positions themselves, sharply clarifies the deontological dilemma regarding the people involved, and in my opinion presents it very powerfully. That is what led me back to the Yigal Amir issue.
Confidence in One’s Way
If so, assuming that Amir was convinced of his positions, it is hard to fault him even if I myself do not agree with them. But one may still wonder about Amir’s very certainty and decisiveness regarding his positions. And again, the problem is not error on the intellectual plane. Any person can err. And every person acts on the basis of his errors, for he has no other option. What he thinks is what he thinks. But still, the main point at which Amir can perhaps be criticized is that he did not nonetheless take seriously the opinions that disagreed with him. This was a very extreme act that could have far-reaching consequences (from Amir’s own point of view, which as noted I do not share, his act was supposed to change the history of the Middle East and thereby affect us all). Is such confidence justified in circumstances that are clearly disputed within society? Do you know better than everyone else? Even if in principle it is possible that half the public is mistaken, I expect someone who performs such an extreme act to weigh his position carefully before doing so. Even if he is convinced, I can still claim against him: why did he not think again, or at least acknowledge that his certainty was excessive? The claim is that he was too hasty in forming his position given the significance of the decision he made. Note that this is not a claim of mistaken judgment, for such a claim is not a moral one. People make mistakes from time to time. The claim is on the moral plane: before such an extreme act he should have thought again and taken the public dispute into account. According to this, my claim against him concerns his very position, not the decision he made given that this was his position.
By the way, the exact same question can be asked about women and doctors who perform abortions. They know that a significant part of the public objects (although usually that segment is crudely silenced and belittled). From their standpoint, is it not right to consider that position, especially when it leads them to a very extreme act (which in my view and that of my like-minded colleagues is murder)? Moreover, if they refrained from that act (the abortion), in many cases the results would not be dramatic at all. A woman would raise an unplanned child (I will ignore harder cases for the moment, though they too must be discussed). Nowadays there is hardly any case of abortion that is not approved by the committees, which means that a significant part of abortions are done without any meaningful reason. If we compare this to Rabin’s murder, Yigal Amir’s refraining from murder, by his lights, would have led to far more severe and far-reaching consequences (the destruction of the state and large-scale loss of life) than refraining from an abortion. In short, the analogy between Rabin’s murder and abortion can go quite far, and I am not at all sure who comes out ahead here.[3]
Is There Any Such Thing as Judging a Person by His Own Standards?
It is important to understand that even this formulation cannot be detached from my own position on the issue itself. Who is to say that Yigal Amir did not reconsider again and again and in the end conclude that the part of the public supporting Rabin was mistaken or brainwashed? What can Yigal Amir do beyond reconsidering again and again? He has only his own tools of thought. Inevitably, if I formulate such an argument against Yigal Amir, it is based on the fact that in my opinion he made a grave mistake. That is, arriving at the conclusion that there is no other side in this debate is a hasty error which, had he thought again, he would have recognized. Only because of this can I conclude that he did not exercise sufficient judgment. There is a connection here between my own position and my judgment of my opponents, even if I judge them according to their own view on the deontological plane.
This is a very complex claim. What I am basically saying is that Yigal Amir is a good and principled person who acted for the public good in light of the best understanding he had, and unlike others who thought as he did, he was willing to pay a heavy price for this action on behalf of the collective. My claim against him was that he was hasty in his judgment, and in such an extreme act he bears responsibility for that hastiness. But that is only because in my personal opinion he really was mistaken, and because I think his mistake would have been exposed to him had he exercised further judgment. Notice that my judgment of Yigal Amir by his own lights depends on my own lights.
In light of what I have said here, a conclusion that condemns a person in a deontological judgment of his position or act, by his own lights, requires several conditions:
- There are two sides to the issue.
- There is a chance that the other side would have reached the correct conclusion (X) if he had thought again.
- Even if A and B are satisfied, one must also assume that he himself should have been aware that further consideration was required. That is, although it is obvious to him that Y, and although the people around him (including the leaders, the wise, and the righteous) think as he does unequivocally, he should have understood that the other opinions carry weight and that he must take them into account again before forming a final position. (Note that this is a second-order conviction: I am indeed completely convinced right now, but is it not reasonable that I should think about it again?)[4]
Notice that the three conditions described here have two parallel but different aspects with respect to the two questions defined above:
When we are dealing with Question 1 (what Yigal Amir was supposed to do), the discussion is about what I myself should do and what decision I should make. Here I must consider whether there is another side, what the consequences of acting and not acting are, whether there are others who think differently, and whether, given all this, I am obligated to think again. At most I think again, but in practice, if that is my conclusion, then that is what I must do. It is rare to think of a case in which in my view an act is justified and yet I myself decide not to do it (unless it is out of fear).
But if we are dealing with Question 2, that is, with my considerations as someone who opposes Yigal Amir’s position (or that of some supporter of abortion), then these three conditions describe the other person’s considerations as I assess them. For example, Conditions B and C are measured according to my assessment of Yigal Amir’s thinking. This is a different requirement, and it clearly depends on my position in the issue (which is contrary to that of the person whom I am judging). Yigal Amir himself may reach a different conclusion, but if in my assessment he could have reconsidered and changed his position, I will judge him unfavorably. Here my own position enters into the judgment I make of another person (even though it is a deontological judgment).
One can continue this move further. Ostensibly there is still no difference between the questions, since if Yigal Amir indeed does not answer these conditions in the affirmative, that is, in his view there is nothing to examine, or he examined and did not change his position, then again I, as someone who disagrees with him, cannot judge him for that. That really is what he thinks. But there is a technical aspect here that becomes essential: I do not know what is in Yigal Amir’s heart, what he thought and did, and why. Did he think again? Did he understand that he ought to think again? Therefore I have nothing but my own assessment. And if, in my opinion, the other side is significant, I assess that he should have understood that he needed to think again. Therefore the fact that I am another person, who cannot descend into Amir’s thoughts, causes there to be a mixing of my own positions into my judgment of him, and creates a difference between Question 1 and Question 2 (a difference that would not exist if we were all transparent to one another).
Peer disagreement and Enoch’s Argument
These questions take us to discussions that have generated quite a bit of ink in the philosophical literature.[5] As far as I know, not very many interesting things have been said about them, but I will nevertheless mention the issue briefly here.
Some philosophers (example 1, example 2, example 3) address a question that has troubled almost every teenager I have ever met: should the very fact that others think differently arouse doubt in me myself? I am assuming here a conception of ethical objectivity or moral realism (that is, that there is moral truth that we are trying to hit upon), because in a relativist world this question takes on an entirely different meaning (and in my opinion loses its meaning altogether). I am also assuming that this is a significant disagreement, meaning that the other side is no less intelligent and skilled than I am and is no less equipped with the relevant data than I am (what is called in the philosophical literature peer disagreement).
I think that at least in the three articles to which I referred, most of what is said on this issue is fairly trivial. There is one argument raised by David Enoch that connects interestingly to the distinction I presented above. Enoch argues that this question is based on viewing human beings like thermometers. When we see two thermometers, one of which reads 35 degrees and the other 38 degrees, it is clear to us that one of them is mistaken. But if they are of the same quality, we have no way to decide which one is mistaken. The dilemma regarding peer disagreement essentially assumes that people are truthometers, that is, devices for discovering truth. Assuming I have two devices of similar quality for discovering truth, the question is why I should give preferential status to one of them (= me). Clearly, if I were considering a disagreement between two of my peers, both of similar quality, I would not privilege one over the other. So why, when I myself am one of the parties to the disagreement, do I get priority?
Enoch argues there that the solution to this dilemma lies in the fact that a person is not a truthometer, and therefore it is incorrect to relate to such a disagreement as to a contradiction between two thermometers. The argument on which he relies is that I, as one of the parties to the disagreement, have no possibility, and therefore perhaps it is also not right, to ignore my own uniqueness within the discussion. After all, in the end the question is what position I myself should adopt. That is, I myself have a special status in the discussion by virtue of the fact that I am participating in it. Therefore this is not similar to a case in which I must form a view about a disagreement between two of my peers (who possess the same relevant qualities).
Critique of the Argument
In my opinion, this is mere sophistry. True, I have a special status and it is hard to neutralize it, but that does not mean that it is not right to neutralize it. Looking objectively at my disagreement with Shimon, any other person (Reuven) ought to remain in doubt as to who is right. So why, if that ‘other’ person is myself, should the conclusion be different? Even if he is right that technically I cannot detach myself from my special status (and I am not sure about that), this does not mean that this is also the right thing to do. Ostensibly, from a perspective that seeks truth, a person is indeed a truthometer, and should be treated as such. In this respect, the person, both I and my disputant, is a thinking machine whose purpose is to arrive at the truth. Nothing more. One may speak about forming one’s own position without reference to objective truth, and one may also argue that I have no way to implement this, but I do not see how either of these yields an argument that grants preferred status to me myself if what I am seeking is in fact the truth.
Back to Our Case
It seems to me that in the discussion I conducted above there is a nice example of a situation in which Enoch’s distinction may perhaps be justified. We saw there that I cannot ignore my own position, even when I come to judge another person who disagrees with me. The question is not only who is right, on which issue we are indeed both truthometers and thus on equal footing. There is also a meta-question: did that person do all that was required of him when forming a position and making a decision? Here the asymmetry is broken, because only he decided and acted, whereas I did not. I am sitting in the judge’s armchair, asking myself whether he thought enough and weighed the existence of peer disagreement on this issue. Even if I say that in my view he did not weigh it sufficiently, I have not broken the symmetry between us, because I have not claimed, even implicitly, that I did weigh it sufficiently. I do not need to arrive at a clear conclusion about what is right. For my purposes it is enough to reach the conclusion that there is a significant other side that one may not ignore. One may perhaps continue this loop further (and argue that there too there should be symmetry), but I will stop the discussion here.
[1] For example, it is recounted there that Margalit Har-Shefi asked Rabbi Aviner whether she should turn Amir in, and he answered no, because a Jew would not kill a Jew. From this Amir inferred that Rabbi Aviner supported Rabin’s murder. A very strange inference.
[2] She makes some attempts to present their human face, and their rationales are also presented from time to time, and this is certainly unusual among supporters of abortion, who usually utterly demonize their opponents. But despite all that, Picoult’s own position is impossible to miss. It emerges from the book very clearly and forcefully. Despite these attempts at balance, the book is still very one-directional and heavily biased.
[3] There are of course aspects in favor of abortion. Rabin was chosen by the majority of the public, and that public wanted Rabin to make decisions for it. Yigal Amir decided that his pistol would make the decisions, and this is a problematic stance toward the public (not necessarily toward Rabin). This aspect does not exist in an abortion, which harms only a specific child. To lay out the analogy, one would have to expand into quite a few additional aspects, but here I am focusing only on the question of the decision and the proper evaluation of someone who does such a deed. In that sense, this analogy is not bad, in my opinion.
[4] This condition pertains, for example, to judging a secular person from a religious point of view. In an essay, Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman argues that every atheist will be judged in the heavenly court for not having observed the commandments, even if he was born and raised among Eskimos who had never heard of the Torah and its commandments. He explains that such a person should have asked who created the world, gone searching around the world and investigated the literature, and then he would certainly have arrived at Judaism and discovered what his duty in the world is.
My main claim against Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, beyond the fact that I am not at all sure (understatement warning) that everyone who encounters Judaism understands it to be the truth, is that his words contain another far from simple assumption (and in my opinion an incorrect one): that the Eskimo would certainly understand that he must investigate. But most Eskimos, and most people who would have been born there, in my opinion would never think that they had to go and investigate. Even if we assume, as he does, that if they had investigated they would have discovered the truth, there is a prior condition required in order to judge them negatively: they should have understood that there was something to look for. It seems to me that with respect to the overwhelming majority of people, Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman’s argument fails because of this condition. Perhaps the two disputes between us are dependent on each other. Because Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman was convinced that this truth was unequivocal and glaringly clear, he also assumes that everyone understands that one must investigate and reach it. His position on the issue itself influences the judgment he makes of those who disagree with him about it, even when that judgment is made on the deontological plane.
[5] Thanks to Noam Oren for the references.
Discussion
He is not speaking about the psychological dimension but the philosophical one. There is no symmetry between me and my opponent because the discussion concerns the question of what position I (!) should adopt. The question is whether that asymmetry is relevant. As I wrote, in my opinion it is not.
Regarding abortions, my feeling is that these are things that will not be heeded. That is, even if one were to take violent action against one of the doctors, taking violent action simply would not cause those murderers to understand the flaw in what they are doing. They would put the violent person in prison, wag a finger at the barbarity of the other side, and go on killing children. I have the same feeling regarding doctors who castrate and sterilize people out of the fantasy that they are changing their sex. There is no sex change here, but there most certainly is castration and sterilization. And still, it is clear to me that taking violent action here falls under the category of things that will not be heeded.
I don’t know about Yigal Amir, but assuming it did not move the other side at all, then this too falls under the category of things that will not be heeded, which there is a commandment not to speak.
My basic question to Yigal Amir is: who appointed you? He acted outside his “jurisdiction” (according to things you wrote in the trilogy on this matter). There are democratic mechanisms that choose a prime minister, make decisions, and carry them out. The only justification I can manage to understand for the law of a pursuer is where the connection between the anticipated act and stopping it is clear and bright as the sun: a person is chasing someone else down the street with a drawn gun. After all, even if a person is caught planning a murder in his home – including precise details on his computer, the step-by-step action plan, and the bombs he planned to place – if he can be stopped in another way, we stop him and do not kill him. We kill only if he is threatening to press the button in real time. A clear and immediate danger.
As for Jodi Picoult, I haven’t read the book. She does indeed write her characters’ motivations well, though perhaps a bit too didactically in her themes and in distributing her characters according to ideological schools (she deals with legal/medical issues; she was created for nothing but education, ethics, and morality classes). I wanted to ask whether your opposition to abortion is from the very first moment of the fetus’s creation? (For example, what about the morning-after pill?) Is there no distinction between different stages of fertilization and embryonic development? I’m asking about the moral aspect; I understood that in halakhah there is a certain flexibility.
And another thing – should we not discuss the fetus here under the law of a pursuer, only in a more abstract and broader way—with the reservations I suggested above, of course, also connected to the degree of probability, etc.? There are young girls who were raped at a young age, and if they preserve the pregnancy and give birth to the fetus they are carrying, they will undergo severe psychological trauma, whose implications for the life of that girl should be considered.
Y.D., if so, you have strengthened the analogy. I agree that in both cases the act will not prevent the problematic outcomes. But according to those who do such things, they think it will.
The claim “Who appointed you?” is the obvious claim here, and indeed it is precisely my claim in the column. But take into account that if, in his assessment, the danger is clear and immediate, then he is in a different situation from the one you are describing. From his point of view, there is a flock here going blindly to the slaughter with certainty, and therefore from his point of view he must save them. I mentioned the examples of Frankfurter and Grynszpan. Would you also raise the claim “Who appointed you?” there?
Regarding abortions, of course there is vagueness in defining the boundary. And still, when we are dealing with a small human being, even if he lacks various functions, it is clear to me that this is murder.
As for girls who were raped, I wrote in my remarks that I am discussing abortions that do not endanger the mother. If, as you say, there is danger to the one giving birth, that is another story. But if it is a matter of inability to raise him, there is the option of placing the newborn for adoption. Each case on its own merits. My discussion here is on the principled level.
Frankfurter and Grynszpan – two reservations: a. One of them speaks of revenge and not prevention. b. There too, one had to exercise judgment regarding the consequences of the act (the proof: Kristallnacht), and in the end, support – it may be that every murder of every active Nazi in that period was a very reasonable application of the law of a pursuer.
Enoch’s argument is self-centered.
Is the rabbi prepared to go outside and explain his moral considerations to a shahid with an explosive belt?
The rabbi forgets that in reality things are not conducted according to the mumblings of one philosophical theory or another.
In reality, might makes right. When a bullet is fired from a gun, it does not make the calculations the rabbi raises here; if it hits, it kills.
I still haven’t seen the film, but there is one thing I am convinced they did not present in the film: that Yigal Amir is mentally ill.
Yigal Amir is mentally ill and uses his intellect to justify the satisfaction he got from the act of murder. And the rabbi fell into the trap.
Peshita –
A. One can also explain the motives of a suicide bomber and what stands behind his act.
B. Do you know Yigal personally and know that he is mentally ill? If so, I salute you, but if not, your interpretation is mistaken—one that labels every person who takes his views all the way as “mentally ill.” There is also the reality of a person who thinks Rabin is bringing disaster when he signs and feels that if he does not act, there will be disaster.
At the stage where a baby still has no consciousness, meaning it does not have the ability to think and perhaps does not even have emotion, why is this still considered murder?? There is a piece of a body here that may be breathing, but it is not a person. And if you argue that this is because it is later supposed to become a person, one can argue that also about someone who takes certain contraceptives that destroy sperm, and even about anyone who emits semen when the sperm cannot become a person.
As I understand it, murder is to reach someone who is a “person” and murder him, and that stage begins when consciousness or emotion begins and the one killed has some sort of will to live or feeling of pain at the time of death.
In my opinion there is a big difference between the case of Yigal Amir and the matter of abortions. Yigal Amir’s case is one of judgment regarding factual matters. In principle (though of course not in practice), each of his assumptions could be proven with empirical tools (again, in principle only). For example, whether the state would have been destroyed had the murder not occurred—that is a question factual in essence. Therefore it is a good example for the question of this column: how should one evaluate him normatively.
By contrast, the matter of abortions is entirely different. There may perhaps be some factual questions in that topic as well (such as how much it affects the woman and so on), but the question is mainly a normative one. That is, essentially this is not a dispute about facts but about a moral position: whether the life of a fetus matters in our eyes. Even the question whether it is considered alive is not a factual-biological question—though science does have something to offer here in sharpening the moral question—because the meaning of defining it as alive is to say that its life has value. In short, the entire issue here is normative and not factual.
Therefore, in such a case there is no need to agonize over how to judge a person who acted according to a disputed approach, because the approach of murdering fetuses is not a factual worldview different from mine, but rather different values. In my eyes the fetus’s life has value, and in their eyes it does not (or at least it has much less value, such that it is overridden by considerations of the mother’s convenience and the like—something they would never say if it were the life of a person already born lying in the balance).
If in my view the life of a fetus has the value of that of a born person, then anyone who disparages that life is literally a murderer. The judgment is unequivocal; it simply follows from the normative position I hold.
Seemingly, there is another lenient argument regarding Yigal Amir: even if it was incumbent upon him to investigate the other side better, in a matter that is such a taboo and even criminal (planning a murder and assisting it), the investigation becomes much harder because he has no one with whom to consult without risking the collapse of his plan.
*someone with whom to consult
This reminds me of the story you often bring about R. Yonatan Eybeschütz, about whom it is told that a gentile asked him why we Jews do not abandon our faith and follow the gentiles, who are the majority, seeing as our Torah says, “Incline after the majority.” R. Yehonatan answered him that following the majority is a rule of conduct in a state of doubt, whereas we are not in a state of doubt at all regarding our faith. In a matter of which we are certain, there is no place whatsoever to follow the majority.
And seemingly this is difficult, because if human beings are measures of truth, and no person can be certain that his tools of thought are superior to those of his fellow (that is, there is doubt here), why should we not follow the majority even where we have no doubt (since even the understanding that we have no doubt is itself a product of our tools of thought)? Perhaps one can answer that indeed one should follow the majority, only not the majority of legs but the majority of wisdom. Except that now the same question returns recursively regarding how one weights each person’s wisdom, and since this has no end, a person must begin from an initial anchor point in which he himself weights each person’s wisdom, and from there on can make decisions according to the majority of wisdom.
The differences are clear. I don’t think either of them thought he would prevent a Holocaust (nor did he know that a Holocaust was coming), but Yigal Amir didn’t prevent one either. I am speaking about a general comparison and not an exact analogy. My intention was to point to a situation in which a private individual decides that the political situation justifies assassinating a legitimate governmental figure on his own initiative. Would we there necessarily criticize them with the claim “Who appointed you?” Even if yes, they certainly do not receive the treatment given to Yigal Amir.
Peshita, your broad psychiatric education (?) finds expression here more than once. I think it would be advisable to spare us it and focus on the arguments on their merits.
These arguments were, I believe, discussed in the column on abortion. Briefly, one can raise such arguments also with respect to people with disabilities, the mentally ill, or terminal patients (in a vegetative state). If you are so sure about the line that separates a person from one who is not a person, good for you. By the way, I don’t know where you get the information regarding when consciousness or emotion or the will to live begins. In my view it is doubtful whether all of these exist even in a newborn baby, certainly not in the sense familiar to us from ourselves. Slippery-slope considerations are essential here (I have already explained once that there are two kinds of slippery slope: when there is no clear boundary, then it is an essential argument—that there really is murder here. When there is a boundary and here we are beyond it—meaning this certainly is not murder, but there is a concern that it will be lost, and therefore one raises it to a higher place).
Yaakov, I do not accept that distinction on either level: 1. Factually—there are factual dimensions even in a baby. See the comment above yours on the question from when it has consciousness/emotions, etc. 2. Essentially—even if you were right, since you too agree that the factual question in dispute is not subject to empirical testing, all we can do is assess. I do not see why, when there is a dispute in assessments that has a normative implication, this is different from a normative dispute.
Indeed true. But the film depicts that he consulted in hints and indirect ways, and the interpretation he gave the answers was not always sufficiently cautious. By the way, one can consult rabbis without telling them that you are going to do this, and when you receive a negative answer, clarify why, and on that basis receive the various considerations and then weigh and decide by yourself.
I plan to answer that question in a future column (the one after next). I do not think majority considerations are relevant here. Even in a rabbinical court, one does not count a rabbi and his students. Not all Christians (nor Jews) make independent decisions in matters of faith and religion (and that is, of course, an understatement).
Eli,
I meant that the rabbi should go and try to persuade a suicide bomber with rational arguments. He has no chance at all. Why? Because the bomber’s motives are not rational but instinctual. So too with Yigal Amir. He tried every way to murder Rabin; he used his intellect for the sake of murder.
The reason for the murder is psychological. He had a craving to murder someone important, the most important one, not the initiator. He sacrificed himself for his mental illness. Part of it was persuading a public of naïve people that he murdered for them. Thus he turned an entire group into accomplices to the murder, in his own mind. The naïve people, of course, fell into the trap. The naïve people who still haven’t learned the lesson still believe in saviors who sacrifice themselves for the public.
To Michi,
It is not at all clear what move you are trying to make here. After all, it is obvious that every person does what he wants to do. And we have received the tradition: “For the inclination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” But for some reason you decided that Yigal Amir is the model of the rational moral person whose conduct should be investigated from the standpoint of whether or not it was morally consistent and perfect. And why all this? Because he speaks in logical language. I am sure every serial killer was not stupid. In order to evade the police for such a long time one has to be intelligent and logical. Perhaps the rabbi should begin doing moral analyses of every serial killer to determine whether he was consistent in his moral thought?
Yigal Amir can be compared to the mentally ill Hitler, who followed his faith to the end “for the sake of the German people.”
Your question here takes us directly to the series The Boys, which deals among other things with the distinction between the murder of Arabs and the murder of Jews (but let us leave the examples aside…).
🙂
I understand this was written already in light of the next column.
As I wrote there, I did not mean to prevent discussion of examples (and certainly not from a woman 🙂), but to encourage discussion of the principles as well.
But on second thought, I do not understand your comment at all. After all, bringing other examples is precisely a discussion of the principle and not of examples. That is exactly what I do too (discussing a principle through examples).
Right. And I will move my response there.
Rabbi, I didn’t understand the bottom line.
How should one relate to someone who does something wrong, but according to his own view it is permissible (and the social norm justifies it)?
You didn’t mention it, but the article is also highly relevant in another context—the attitude of a vegan toward a meat-eating friend. A very difficult situation every day in the cafeteria.
I wrote that if, in your assessment, he should have checked again, and if, in your assessment, an additional check would have changed his position, then there is room for personal criticism (beyond the consequential one).
With God’s help, 11 Tishrei 5780
To Rabbi M. D. A. – greetings,
It is fitting to note favorably Your Honor’s attempt to judge even Yigal Amir favorably – would that he had this same heart to judge favorably Rabbi Tau, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, and Rabbi Ratzon Arusi, and the like…
Regards, Sh. Tz.
P.S. In the elections expected in a few months, will Your Honor support the party “Nora De-Liba” that calls for Yigal Amir’s release, or perhaps the party “Kama” that calls for the release of Daniel Ambash 🙂
Rabbi Michi,
1. Agreed. I am making only a theoretical distinction, but I still think it is important to note it.
2. I really did not understand. A dispute in assessments that has a normative implication is essentially different from a normative dispute. Because someone who disagrees with me normatively I see as wicked, because what is of value in my eyes (the life of a fetus, for example) is disparaged in his eyes. But a dispute in assessments that has a normative implication is, after all, just an error in factual judgment; even a person whose values are identical to mine can make such a mistake, and there is no reason to see him as a bad person.
In my view, values and facts are two essentially different things. It is “permitted” to err in facts (in the end it is a “computational” error); it is “forbidden” to err in values.
Could it be that the disagreement between us begins with the meaning of the concept of values or morality?
That is exactly what I am saying. Error in values is not wickedness so long as the person truly believes in it. It is a mistake like any other. By contrast, an error in facts that stems from insufficient examination, particularly when there are fateful consequences, is grounds for moral blame exactly like failure to examine values sufficiently. There is no difference in my eyes.
I have the same charitable reading of them, since my remarks dealt with the principle of understanding the act of someone with whom I disagree. And I distinguished between consequential judgment and personal judgment (provided the conditions are met: that he checked properly and took the opposing opinions into account, etc.). As stated in the next column, the examples only serve to sharpen a general principle.
I will probably support those parties just as I support all the others. One who does not vote supports them all, each according to its value.
Wow, this is good… We have actually reached an argument about what wickedness is. I claim that wickedness is action or belief in values opposed to my values (and according to this, wickedness is something relative), and you claim that wickedness is only when there is a claim of insufficient examination of facts, i.e., what I call a calculation error. (Only the words “That is exactly what I am saying” are not so clear to me, because in fact you are arguing the opposite; apparently you meant that you are using the same distinction but in the opposite direction from me.)
There is no way I’m leaving it like this without clarifying this issue with you, but on the other hand I don’t want to trouble you too much. In what framework can we continue this discussion? And where can I read more about your view on the subject?
I did not say only. I said that if a person truly believes in what he is doing (in his eyes this is what is good), then he is not wicked on the personal plane (deontologically). But if he acts in a way that runs contrary to the values of the good as he sees them, then he is wicked regardless of any examinations.
The place to clarify this is here. If you wish, one can also open a question in the Q&A. Assuming he believes, then the only claim against him can be insufficient examination.
I think I have written this here in several places, and it would have to be searched for.
I read the column with some astonishment, because, with all due respect, ever since I got to know you and your writing style, I have always wondered at the confidence with which you are sure of your position, and how, even when people try to show you the weaknesses in the argument and that it is a matter of unresolved judgment, you hold to your view—even if it is against all the ancients or sages who expressed an opinion on the topic, and even if it is on subjects where we have no absolute proofs but more conjectures, intuitions, and leanings of the heart, and even if the damage likely to arise from the things said is very great—you state your opinion, proudly and with enjoyment.
Does this claim that you raise here—that in such a case a person must examine himself very, very well, and suspect all his assumptions and biases again and again—not apply in every case?
Sorry for the question, but after all, you directly encourage discussion of everything.
I did not merit understanding either the astonishment or the question.
This sentence really bothers me:
“I said that if a person truly believes in what he is doing (in his eyes it is what is good), then he is not wicked on the personal plane (deontologically).”
In my view, the wicked person is not one who acts contrary to the values of the good in his own eyes, but one who acts contrary to the values of the good in my eyes. A Nazi who acts contrary to what he regards as the sacred principle of exterminating the Jews is not wicked in my eyes—for in my eyes that principle is detestable, not sacred.
It is very hard for me to understand how it does not follow directly from your conception of values that one who does not believe in them is wicked. If in my eyes fetal life has value, then contempt for it is itself evil and wickedness (as is known, the result itself is not significant but the intention; if a baby dies on its own there is no evil here at all—the problem begins with the murderer acting intentionally, that is, contempt for the sanctity of the fetus’s life is the critical point here in discussing whether there is evil here).
What is your moral philosophy? I cannot understand how you conceive the concepts: values, morality, or good and evil. In my eyes, to say that it is immoral to kill a fetus is to say that in my eyes a fetus’s life has value—they matter to me. To assign importance to a fetus’s life is good; to disparage it is evil and wickedness (in my eyes).
Perhaps there is no disagreement between us at all? Perhaps you would say that relative to my values such a position is indeed bad, but relative to his values there is no evil here. If so, what is the meaning of the column’s question: how to judge a person who takes a disputed position? After all, the answer is that it is relative; the judgment depends on with respect to which position one is discussing it.
If a person truly and sincerely thinks that aborting a fetus is good (because it reduces burdens/distressesdistresses), I regard his act as murder; I am not a relativist. But in a deontological judgment you have to relate to the person’s motives. Does he want to do evil? Here he does not want to do evil; rather, he is mistaken and thinks his act is good. Such a person is mistaken, not wicked.
You can say that his act is wicked, but in my view (and to me this is obvious) a judgment of a person contains another component: does he intend to do evil?
A person sees Hitler drowning in a river and does not know who it is. He saves him. Do you think he is wicked? In my eyes, an error in values is like an error in facts so long as it is a mistake and not an evil act done deliberately. Is one forbidden to err? What is he supposed to do? He is under complete compulsion.
Therefore I wrote that the only criticism that can be directed at him is why he did not re-examine his values or the facts again and better. If he examined properly and this is his conclusion, I have no complaint against him. He is compelled. This is an example of what the Radbaz calls “compulsion in opinions” (he speaks about beliefs, but there is no reason to distinguish between that and compulsion in understanding values).
So apparently the difference between you and me is that I am indeed a relativist. In your view the values are absolute, and apparently you think they can in principle be proven; therefore one who does not understand, for example, that fetal life has value is simply mistaken, but he will never be wicked unless he acts contrary to his own values.
As for me, the discussion of whether fetal life has value, or whether human life in general has value, contains no right and wrong. This is not a fact that can be proven, but a kind of goal or desire. The question here is what matters in our eyes, and different things matter to different people (to a Jew, the life of every person matters; to a Nazi, what matters is that the Jew be dead). No one is “mistaken,” but each is wicked in the eyes of the other (if the goals are essentially opposed and not merely technically so).
This is my view. I would be glad to hear whether I understood your position correctly, and if you are indeed convinced that absolute values can be proven, please point me to such a proof.
Thank you,
*The “akov” got dropped from my name…
You are right about everything except one point. A value cannot be proven. A value is an axiom by means of which one proves the morality or immorality of actions. But one can persuade and argue on behalf of values.
The question of normative objectivity is not necessarily connected to the ability to prove. By the way, that is true of facts too. I can be convinced that right now ten ravens are flying in the sky above me. I cannot prove this to anyone, because they disperse in a moment. I can be convinced that two parallels do not meet, even though there is no way to prove that. The (mistaken) identification between truth and certainty (= proofs) is the granddaddy of postmodern relativism. I explained this in Two Carts and in Truth and Unstable.
And regarding the film Incitement – it is worth looking at Zvi Fishman’s review, “Sham, sham” (on the “Arutz 7” site), which argues that the film presents a distorted reality. Benjamin Netanyahu sharply criticized Rabin, but emphasized in his remarks that the demonstration was that Rabin was mistaken and not a traitor. The posters of Rabin in SS uniform were organized by the Shin Bet provocateur Avishai Raviv. The claims that rabbis had supposedly issued halakhic rulings that Rabin had the status of a “pursuer” were investigated at the time by the police, and no basis for them was found. Yigal Amir explicitly stated that he did not care about the opinions of rabbis and therefore did not ask for their opinion. He held by what is called on that website: “halakhic autonomy” 🙂
Regards, Sh. Tz.
In line 3
… but emphasized in his remarks at the demonstration…
With God’s help, 12 Tishrei 5779
On a person’s obligation to check whether what seems proper to him also seems so in the eyes of others (and vice versa), Maharal discussed the mishnah in Derekh Chayim: “Which is the straight path that a person should choose for himself? Any that brings honor to the one who does it and honor to him from others.”
All the more so when it is a matter of an act in which he is “liable toward others,” and there are people greater than he in wisdom and character, that a person must check again and again lest his judgment be rash and hasty.
And all the more so when it is a decision hanging on a halakhic concept, which requires the ruling of “one who has attained the level of issuing rulings,” and not everyone who wishes to assume the title may issue halakhic rulings and judge alone, all the more so in the severe laws of capital cases, which require a “Sanhedrin”…
Regards, Sh. Tz.
I really do not share the criticism that expresses the common right-wing paranoia (every film is left-wing, and every film by leftists is biased).
In my opinion the film is definitely credible, and it accurately depicts the atmosphere and the reality of those days. The SS clothes were accepted by the surrounding crowd, so it is not very important that the initiator was Avishai Ravivi. (By the way, personally I do not see this as something truly terrible. At most, a tasteless provocation, and certainly not incitement.)
There definitely were rabbis who classified him as a traitor and a pursuer, and everyone knows this. The question of the relation between that and actually issuing against him the law of a pursuer on the practical plane (that one is obligated to kill him) did not survive the investigations (including the natural reluctance to investigate rabbis). This is described not badly in the film (within the limitations of the medium). In short, in my view this criticism is much less credible than the film.
And by the way, none of this is to say that I see the rabbis or the politicians as guilty of the situation. Absolutely not. They said legitimate things, even if in a very inflammatory manner. A person like that need not fear that someone will commit murder as a result of his words. Therefore I disagree both with the attacking left and with the defensive right. One can agree on the facts of what happened there and still not see the atmosphere and the right-wing leadership as guilty. The fact that something happened in the end does not mean the circumstances were foreseeable in advance. That does not prove causation at a level that would make them liable for contributory blame.
And regarding the duty to check, in the law of a pursuer there is of course no such duty. After all, that is precisely the point here. True, here it is not the classic law of a pursuer, because there is time to check (this is not a murder that will occur immediately). But the claim that there is no need for such a check vis-à-vis the rabbis because of everyone’s fears all around and the inability to speak openly is, in my opinion, not implausible at all (though I wrote that there were fairly reasonable ways to carry out such a check). By the way, that is exactly the reason there is a difference between determining that Rabin is a pursuer (which is a factual determination—he did indeed cause the deaths of many) and issuing against him a “law of a pursuer,” meaning that one must kill him. In short, these too are right-wing excuses that unwittingly accept the assumptions of the left (that if a rabbi says Rabin is a traitor or a pursuer, that is incitement). Completely unnecessary.
What does “believes in it” have to do with it? Does that exempt him from responsibility? I don’t really understand, on further thought, why negligence in checking the situation and the consequences is not simply criminal negligence. Like someone who did not check his car’s brakes and ran someone over. Surely that is one of the focal points of the criticism of Amir: he jumped, got heated, did not check, was sure he saw reality and that there was none besides him. This is really childish and unsophisticated thinking—not to anticipate the boomerang’s movement, to think that killing one man would cause everyone to scratch their heads and say, you know what, actually you were right, Rabin was wrong, let’s give up Oslo. It is naïve and immature and negligent in a way that is no less than criminal. Not retrospectively. From the outset. As policy planning. What he thought is really not interesting, without this basic check. Hitler too, as someone here wrote, thought he was repairing the world by exterminating the Jewish race. The road to hell, etc.
Chayota, at least when you write about the duty to check, I would expect you to check. You are repeating my words and presenting this as a claim against me. Astonishing!
Of course you wrote it. The argument is about the weight to attribute to it. You minimized the weight of the argument, which in my view is critical and obviates the need to bend over backward in favor of the aforesaid murderer.
I do not think I minimized it. But indeed, in my view he is certainly no worse than an ordinary murderer who does not check and just murders for his own interest. On the contrary, he is much better (at least deontologically). Also regarding the checking, not a few people regarded as Torah scholars and intelligent thought quite similarly to him, so it is really not as implausible as you assume here.
He is judged by his end result, not deontologically.
Hello Rabbi. One thing is missing for me from the picture: why is the way a person arrived at his position not measured? That is, I want to argue that there are opinions that lie outside the boundaries. A person has common sense and must use it, and anyone who does not use it properly sins. Not in connection with Yigal Amir, but regarding the claim itself.
I did not understand the question. I spoke about the requirement to examine your positions carefully and your responsibility if you did not do so.
The rabbi spoke about it a little, but I mean to challenge somewhat the possibility of judging favorably. What I mean is that if, for example, I take a position in a debate, I have examined it well, including the considerations of the other side, and in my view the other side cannot in any logical way arrive at its position, then certainly he sins. For example, after reading the rabbi’s book Truth and Unstable, my view of anyone who holds the postmodern approach is that he is mistaken. Even though reaching the insight of the book requires labor, a man is born to labor, and anyone who is lazy sins.
Of course, there are cases in which I am not so convinced of my own position, and I do think the opposing position is relevant. Was the rabbi speaking only about those?
That is already your consideration. At the bottom line, if you reached the conclusion that the person did not examine as he should have and that it is reasonable that a person in his situation would understand that he ought to examine—then from your perspective it is justified to condemn him. I disagree with you regarding the general thesis (that if the truth is clear to you, then clearly those two conditions are met), and also regarding Truth and Unstable specifically.
Can you sharpen this more regarding the theist / atheist debate, in light of this column?
Can one exempt the atheist from punishment for transgressions, or can he be punished (in an earthly court or a heavenly one) because he should have reactivated his own judgment?
Exactly as I wrote. If it is reasonable that a person in his situation would have checked again, and if by checking he would have changed his position—then yes. What is special about this case?
“Even if he is right that I cannot technically detach myself from my special status (and I’m not sure about that)” –
I couldn’t understand: why can’t a person detach himself? Is this a psychological claim? That a person is not objective, that he has vested interests (negias, in the Lithuanian ethical jargon)?