Faith – Lesson 32

Table of Contents

• The framework of the series and the transition from philosophy to religious commitment
• A summary of the three proofs according to Kant
• The fourth move: a “theological” argument and the reverse logic
• The second part of the fourth move: a theological version of the physico-theological argument and skepticism
• The third part of the fourth move: the proof from morality as a logical schema
• Clarifications: the argument is not about moral behavior and not about the “Jewish God”
• Defining “valid morality” as opposed to “the morality of a sheep”
• Moral realism versus naturalism, evolution, and social consensus
• Indications for moral realism: the corn test and historical examples
• Another indication: “the rabbinic person” and “the sovereign person,” and the example of a hired murderer
• Relativism, moral disagreement, and the question of personal objectivity
• The conclusion of the proof from morality: “there are no laws without a lawgiver”
• Questions about judging people, guilt, and punishment

Summary

General Overview

The lecturer wants to complete, in the last two meetings before the summer, the philosophical argument for faith, and places the current discussion within a series of “proofs” for the existence of God. He summarizes three classic moves according to Kant, presents a fourth move that is “theological” in the logical sense of moving from the conclusion back to the premises by denying the consequent and proving by negation, and then turns to the third part of that fourth move: the proof from morality. He argues that the discussion is not sociological or psychological but philosophical, about the binding validity of morality, and he formulates a conditional claim according to which only if there is a God is there valid morality, so that anyone who assumes valid morality is committed to inferring God. He also adds indications for moral realism and describes the disputes, assumptions, and limits of the argument.

The Framework of the Series and the Transition from Philosophy to Religious Commitment

The lecturer notes that there are two meetings left until the end of the year or the summer break, and he wants to use them to complete the argument from morality, so that the philosophical foundation of the series on faith will be finished. He says that afterward there will be further steps “to get to the Holy One, blessed be He, as well,” and he brings the story about Hermann Cohen and the Jew who asks, “Where is the Holy One, blessed be He, in all of this?” in order to highlight the gap between philosophical theories and faith and religious commitment, a topic that will apparently remain for next year.

A Summary of the Three Proofs According to Kant

The lecturer summarizes that after defining the concept of faith and its relation to thought and reason, he proceeded through three moves to prove the existence of God according to Kant’s classification. He presents Anselm’s ontological move as a proof from conceptual analysis, the cosmological move as the claim that if there is something, then apparently something created it, and the physico-theological argument as the claim that complexity, design, and coordination in the universe point to an engineer who created it.

The Fourth Move: a “Theological” Argument and the Reverse Logic

The lecturer presents a fourth move that is no longer another argument for the existence of God within the Kantian classification, but a different kind of philosophical argument, divided into three parts. He defines a philosophical argument as an inference from premises to conclusions, and a theological argument as starting from conclusions and deriving premises, and he argues that there is no principled inferiority here, because every argument can be formalized as A implies B, and therefore the rule of denying the consequent also applies: if A implies B, then not-B implies not-A. He emphasizes that both directions depend on basic assumptions, because even in moving forward one has to assume A, and in moving backward one has to assume not-B.

The Second Part of the Fourth Move: a Theological Version of the Physico-Theological Argument and Skepticism

The lecturer says that in the second part, which ended last time, he formulated the physico-theological proof in reverse logic, and argued that without God there is no validity to forms of perception, to a priori assumptions, or to observations, and therefore if perceptions do have validity, one should infer that there is a God. He deals with the claim that he is “inventing God” in order to solve a problem of skepticism, and distinguishes between “wishful thinking” and pragmatism on the one hand, and a conclusion drawn from the perceived validity of perception on the other. He calls this a proof by negation: if there is no God, a problem arises; therefore the conclusion is that there is a God.

The Third Part of the Fourth Move: the Proof from Morality as a Logical Schema

The lecturer presents the proof from morality as a conditional claim: if there is no God, there is no valid morality, from which it follows logically that if there is valid morality, then there is a God. He presents this as a “pincer attack on atheism” that allows one to go forward or backward, and emphasizes that the disadvantage is the dependence on the assumption that there is valid morality. Someone who says there is no valid morality will not be proved the existence of God, just as in any argument, rejecting the premises prevents acceptance of the conclusion. He says that the question of how many people will accept the premises is a question for sociologists, not philosophers, and he places himself as dealing with the logical channels of inference.

Clarifications: the Argument Is Not About Moral Behavior and Not About the “Jewish God”

The lecturer clarifies that he is not dealing with factual claims about psychology or sociology, and not with the claim that only fear of punishment, hope for reward, or religious education create moral behavior. He argues that many people who do not believe in God behave morally, but philosophically they are either “hidden believers” or “inconsistent” if they also hold morality to be a binding system. He clarifies that he is not dealing with the question of whether God is good or wants morality, and he is willing to grant the consistency of someone who believes in an “evil God” or in a God who does not demand morality, because his claim is only that if there is valid morality, then in the background there is an entity with authority to establish binding norms. He also emphasizes that he is not dealing here with God in the specifically Jewish sense, but with an entity that has legislative authority.

Defining “Valid Morality” as Opposed to “the Morality of a Sheep”

The lecturer distinguishes between proper behavior that comes from nature, habit, convenience, or desire, and valid morality as a system of binding rules by whose force a person makes demands of himself and of others. He uses Amnon Yitzhak’s parable of the sheep to argue that someone who does not steal or murder “just because that’s how he is” is not “righteous” but simply behaves like a sheep, whereas morality is connected to decision and commitment to rules even when one does not feel like it. He notes that this does not require eradicating moral feeling, and connects it to the discussion of “the one who suppresses” and “the upright person” in Rabbi Kook, and to Maimonides in chapter six on “the superior person and the one who suppresses his inclination.”

Moral Realism Versus Naturalism, Evolution, and Social Consensus

The lecturer says that the foundation of the discussion is moral realism, meaning that there are objective laws outside the person that are not physical facts, yet they are binding. He argues that naturalistic explanations such as evolution or social consensus can explain, at most, a moral tendency or moral behavior, but they do not explain binding validity, and he refers to David Hume’s is-ought fallacy as the central claim against moving from fact to norm. He argues that evolution can explain why there is a tendency to help, but not why one “must” obey it, and that the same applies to social consensus, because one can always ask why one should obey the consensus, and also point out that in Nazi society there was social consensus in favor of murdering Jews. He concludes that the option “there is no God and there is valid morality” is eliminated, while the other possibilities remain open to anyone who chooses not to recognize valid morality.

Indications for Moral Realism: the Corn Test and Historical Examples

The lecturer adopts from David Enoch the “corn test” as a way to distinguish between subjective taste and objective fact, and shows that a claim about corn sounds ridiculous because taste changes with the subject, whereas a claim about quantum theory sounds serious because the facts are true even if in the past people did not know them. He applies this to morality and argues that statements like “How good that I did not live in periods when people supported slavery,” or “How good that I wasn’t born in Nazi Germany, because I might have become an SS officer,” sound like serious claims resembling factual claims, not like a joke in the style of corn. From this he presents an indication that people experience morality as objective and not as a matter of taste.

Another Indication: “the Rabbinic Person” and “the Sovereign Person,” and the Example of a Hired Murderer

The lecturer brings Ari Elon’s distinction between “the rabbinic person,” who is subject to an external factor, and “the sovereign person,” who legislates values for himself, and argues that glorifying autonomy by itself does not explain good and evil. He asks how that same approach would judge a “sovereign person” who legislates for himself that he should be a hired murderer, and concludes that if Mother Teresa is perceived as good and the hired murderer as evil, then good and evil are not determined by the very act of self-legislation, but are objective givens to which a person chooses to commit himself. He emphasizes that autonomy is important for the value of the act, but it does not create the content of good and evil.

Relativism, Moral Disagreement, and the Question of Personal Objectivity

The lecturer confronts the claim that disagreement between cultures negates objectivity, and argues that this is a logical mistake, because disagreement can indicate that one side is right and the other is wrong, not that there is no truth. He explains that his discussion is not anthropological, about the multiplicity of norms, but about the way the individual perceives his own morality: is it his own legislation, or a binding system that is not his own handiwork? He adds that moral realism can exist alongside the fact of social relativism, and presents the argument that the moment there is a dispute over what morality demands, the dispute itself assumes that there is something “out there” being argued about, whereas extreme postmodernism would cancel the very possibility of argument.

The Conclusion of the Proof from Morality: “There Are No Laws Without a Lawgiver”

The lecturer says that after accepting moral realism, the second step follows: if there is a system of binding laws that is not the product of the individual, society, or evolution, then a source of authority is required to grant it validity, because “there is no system of laws without a lawgiver.” He summarizes that this is the heart of the proof from morality for the existence of God, and declares that next time he will complete the argument.

Questions About Judging People, Guilt, and Punishment

The lecturer agrees, in the factual sense, with the statement attributed to Rabbi Chaim of Brisk that a heretic by mistake is still a heretic, but he distinguishes between a factual determination and a normative attitude and sanctions, and argues that sanctions should not be imposed on someone who is not guilty for his position. He argues that one must distinguish between judging the act and judging the person, and he brings an extreme claim according to which a Nazi who was convinced that he was benefiting the world is not “an evil person,” even though he committed very evil acts, while emphasizing considerations of protection, deterrence, and theories of punishment. He presents a different attitude toward religious extremism that recognizes that an act is not moral but claims religious obligation, and concludes by saying that truth may be dangerous, but dangerousness does not negate truth, while mentioning discussions about wiping out Amalek and rejecting consequentialist arguments.

Okay, let’s begin. Today I want to start the move, or the argument, from morality. We actually have two more meetings until the end of the year, or until summer break, and I want to complete this argument in those two meetings, so that in effect we’ll be finishing the philosophical part of this series on faith / belief. After that there will still be a few completions regarding how to get to the Holy One, blessed be He, too. Yes, like the well-known story about Hermann Cohen, right, that he’s walking down the street and meets some simple Jew, and he tries to lecture him about all his philosophical theories of faith / belief and of the Holy One, blessed be He—about God, sorry—and about faith / belief and the whole matter. And then the Jew asks him, “Tell me, but where is the Holy One, blessed be He, in all this?” Meaning, yes, great philosophers, but how does this connect to faith / belief? How does it connect to religious commitment? So that will apparently remain the topic for next year, after summer break. All right, so let’s begin with this issue. I’ll briefly summarize where we were, or really the whole course of the discussion. I suggested several—after we defined the concept of faith / belief, and its relation to thought, logic, philosophy, and the like—I went through three moves, following Kant’s classification, to prove God, the existence of God. The first move was the ontological move, Anselm’s proof from conceptual analysis. The second move was the cosmological proof, which is based on the idea that if there is something, then apparently something created it, there is something that created it. The third move was the physico-theological argument, which asks about the nature of the thing that exists here, namely the universe. The fact that it is complex, planned, coordinated, and therefore there must be some engineer who created it.

Then in the last few sessions I began a fourth move, which no longer belongs to the Kantian classification. It’s a category I’m adding, but it’s a category—it’s not just another kind of argument, rather it’s not just another argument for the existence of God, but another kind of philosophical argument in general. And therefore this move was divided into three parts. This fourth move was divided into three parts. The first part dealt with the question: what is a “theological argument,” in quotation marks, an uncovering argument, as distinct from a philosophical argument. A philosophical argument starts from premises and derives conclusions from them; the theological argument starts from conclusions and derives premises from them. Yes, like the famous joke I told about the theologian. So I explained this briefly. I said there’s a certain feeling that the second kind of argument is less good than the first, than the first type, right, the philosophical argument that assumes premises and derives a conclusion. What do you mean, you want to reach a conclusion and for that purpose you build premises? That’s just a rigged game. So my claim was that this is, in principle, incorrect, because every argument can basically be symbolized, formalized, in the form of logical implication. Meaning A implies B. A is the premises, B is the conclusion. But if I formulate it as logical implication, then there is the rule of modus tollens, which says that if it is true that A implies B, then it is equally true that not-B implies not-A. And therefore what I claimed is that the philosophical argument is an argument based on going forward, A implies B. The theological argument is based on going backward, that if not-B then not-A. And therefore both are valid. Except what? Of course, each of them has assumptions. The first type of argument assumes A. Right? It’s not enough to say that A implies B if you want to prove B. So what are you telling me—A implies B? Okay, and? You need to assume A, and then if A implies B, you’ve proved B. Right? You always need to assume some premise; the hypothetical implication alone isn’t enough. Okay? Same thing with modus tollens. When you say not-B implies not-A, you need to assume not-B in order to say you’ve proved not-A. And of course you can argue about that—do we accept not-B, do we not accept not-B? That’s always true. In every argument one can argue about the basic assumptions. What I only wanted to claim is that the theological philosophical argument is no less good than the philosophical argument; both are valid arguments that depend on foundational assumptions.

The example I gave—so in this fourth part I spoke about, I said that it’s divided into three parts, this fourth move is divided into three parts. The first part is what I just said, distinguishing between a philosophical argument and a theological argument. The second part, which I finished last time, was the theological version of the physico-theological proof, right? Meaning the formulation of this reverse logic, which goes backward, as a formulation of the physico-theological proof. And I said that without God, our forms of perception have no validity—sight, our a priori assumptions, observations, and so on. Therefore, if I see that there is validity, if I think there is validity to our perceptions, then apparently there is God. This is of course going in the reverse direction, and many can accuse me—and some indeed did—that I am basically inventing God in order to solve a philosophical question for myself, a philosophical problem. I have a problem of skepticism, I can’t trust my senses or my foundational assumptions, so I invent God in order to give this a basis. But that accusation is incorrect. Because if I were inventing God because I want there to be validity, then yes, that would be despicable pragmatism. But if I conclude that there is God because I think there is validity—not because I want to, but because I genuinely think there is validity, and I’m only asking myself how that can be, since without God there is no validity—then apparently there is God. That is a conclusion. It’s not wishful thinking; it’s not pragmatism that says I’ll invent God because otherwise I’ll find myself in a problem, call it a predicament, not a problem. I’m talking about the fact that I need to conclude God, because otherwise I’m in a philosophical problem. This is what is called a proof by negation. A proof by negation says that if there is no God, a problem is created; conclusion: there is God. Proof by negation is something that exists everywhere. Therefore the formulation I discussed in the last few sessions is basically a theological formulation, a formulation in reverse logic, of the physico-theological proof. That was the second part of the fourth move.

Now I come to the third part of the fourth move, just so you can see the overall picture of where we stand. The third part of the fourth move is the proof from morality. And this proof too is built on the same reverse logic as I formulated until now, and therefore it belongs to the fourth move. And to explain that, first I’ll speak schematically and then go into details, because the problem is in the details—this time God is in the details in the full double sense. But first, in order to understand why this belongs to the move, I want to formulate the general schematic formulation, to look at it from above. And what I basically want to claim is that if there is no God, there is no valid morality. That is the hypothetical claim. Notice: if there is no God, there is no valid morality—let’s call that A implies B. A is: there is no God. B is: there is no valid morality. I’ll mark the negative statements as A and B, doesn’t matter. What follows from that? That if not-B, then not-A, right? Meaning if there is no God, there is no valid morality, then what follows? That if there is valid morality—not-B—then there is God, not-A. You see that this is simply looking backward at the simple logical relation between God and morality, but this backward view has many advantages. It also has a disadvantage, but it has many advantages. And I said that this is basically a kind of pincer attack on atheism. Either you go forward or you go backward, but you have to go from some direction. That’s basically the claim.

Now this proof, the proof from morality—therefore I say it also belongs to the fourth move, to the theological proofs—because I am basically inventing God so that I can have valid morality. You see the similarity to what I said before. Earlier I was supposedly inventing God so that I could have justification for trusting my tools of perception—thought, perception, cognition. Here I am inventing God, in quotation marks, so that there will be validity for moral rules. And here too one can of course accuse me of pragmatism. As if “in the beginning man created God,” the way atheists like to open the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). Meaning, you are basically inventing God because you have a philosophical distress without Him. So, by the way, I admit the facts and deny the charge. Meaning, I think it is perfectly legitimate to invent God if without Him I have a philosophical distress, because that is what is called a proof by negation. In other words, to say that I have a philosophical problem without God is exactly to prove by negation the existence of God. This criticism means to say that what I have is a distress not in the philosophical sense, but an emotional distress from a philosophical question. I must have missed something—what is this statement, “if there is God, there is morality”? What kind of statement is that? I didn’t understand. Apparently I missed it—“if there is God, there is morality.” Is that the claim I’m building? A premise? Is it a premise or a claim or what? Only that only if there is God is there morality, not that if there is God then there is morality. Where does that come from, what is it—what type of statement is it? What? Is it an axiom? Is it a premise? Is it a thought? What? I didn’t understand.

It’s a claim that I’ll explain later. A claim. Right now I’m only showing the schema and why it belongs to this fourth move. I will of course explain why without God there is no morality. About that—maybe I skipped something there. Okay. And I have another question. According to postmodernism, then, there is no general morality. Correct. That is exactly the problem with the so-called theological route, right? The route that goes backward. Because basically you need to assume that there is valid morality; without that there is no proof that there is God. And if someone says there is no valid morality, then indeed I cannot prove to him that there is God. Just note that this is true of every argument. That is, every argument—if you don’t accept its premises, you won’t be able to accept its conclusion. Also the argument from the complexity of the world: you say that if the world is complex, that’s a sign that there is a God who created it. And also that a complex thing is not formed by chance—of course that too is another assumption. So whoever doesn’t accept the premises, whether he says the world is not complex, or he says a complex thing can arise by chance, then indeed the proof will not succeed in bringing him to faith / belief in God. That is true of every argument.

But there is a difference. If I think—I think ninety-nine percent of people would say we trust our senses. And in postmodernism, which is the philosophy of today, they say—many people say—there is no general morality. It’s not because you’re crazy and believe this. I’ll tell you two things. First, I do not accept the definition of postmodernism as the philosophy of today; it’s the nonsense of today. But that’s just a parenthetical remark. What I only want to claim is that the numbers are not important right now. I don’t agree with them, but they’re not important. Because I want to claim the schema. Whoever accepts the premises will have to accept the conclusion that there is God. Whoever tells me, “I don’t accept the premises”—indeed. And if that’s ninety-nine percent of the population, then for ninety-nine percent of the population this claim is not relevant. I’m talking about that one percent for whom it is relevant, and for me that is the discussion. Therefore the question of whether this is applicable and how many people would be persuaded by it is a question for sociologists, not for philosophers. In other words, I’m talking right now about the different channels for reaching the conclusion that there is God. By the way, in my opinion that’s not true; I think no fewer people would agree here. And one last comment regarding your question: even in the previous context many people can disagree because it’s not just the senses. After all, I emphasized that in the previous context too the argument rests on two assumptions, not one. First, that the world is complex—and there you can tell me that that’s the senses. But second, that a complex thing does not arise by chance. That’s no longer the senses; that’s an assumption of reason. And here people disagree. Atheists usually defend themselves against that proof by claiming that no, a complex thing can arise by chance. The whole discussion around evolution is basically exactly about that issue—can a complex thing arise by chance? Therefore there too it’s not just the senses. Ultimately you cannot grasp the Holy One, blessed be He, with the senses, not even indirectly. There must always be some additional premise that leads me from the senses or the data or the facts to Him. And that premise can always be disputed. Therefore I also do not accept the numerical argument that here far fewer people will accept the premises than there. But we’ll get to that in a moment, because for that I need to explain the premise and why it is correct, and then we’ll see how many people really can, or want to, argue with it.

But I deliberately started from the end. I should have defined morality, explained why it depends on God, and then formulated the proof for the existence of God. I started from the end. I formulated the proof before I justified its claims, its assumptions. Why? Because I want to show you, within the summary, why this too belongs to the fourth move: because the schema of this proof is basically the uncovering theological schema that goes backward. Not from premises to conclusion, but from the conclusion to the premises. From not-B, which is the conclusion, to not-A, which is the premise. So I put the cart before the horse, but I hope all your comments will receive an answer shortly.

Now I want to get into the substance. This claim, that without God there is no morality—right? So what I basically want to claim is that without God there is no morality. Consequently, whoever accepts that there is valid morality must assume that there is God. And that is basically the proof from morality in a nutshell, okay? Where is the sting, of course? The sting is, of course, precisely the assumption that without God there is no morality. It’s no great trick to formulate arguments and reach a conclusion; you have to formulate them on the basis of assumptions that are acceptable, on the basis of assumptions that are reasonable. Because otherwise, okay, true, if A then B—but I don’t accept A, so why should I care? You won’t succeed in proving B to me. I want to claim that this assumption—that without God there is no morality—is an assumption that can be justified; it is a strong assumption. And since that is so, this already becomes a more significant argument. Therefore the sting of the discussion is not in the move to God, but on the hypothetical level. Hypothetical arguments in logic are arguments that say: if A then B. I’m not claiming B; I’m claiming that if A then B. It is a conditional argument, a hypothetical argument. You can argue about A, you can argue about B, but you cannot argue with the claim that if A then B. That is called a hypothetical argument.

Now what I want to do here—and notice this—everything I’m trying to do right now is to try to show the hypothetical argument that if there is no God, there is no morality, or only with God is there morality—it’s the same thing, logically equivalent. Okay? That is what I want to claim. I am not saying that there is God, and I am also not saying that there is morality. All I am saying is just the “if…then.” And that is important, because it is very easy to miss this point, this sting, and it is very important to the discussion. Okay? So at the moment I’m dealing with the hypothetical question. Yes, David. David? Yes, in terms of the argument, won’t you eventually need, in order to ground the whole move, to claim that there is valid morality? Yes, I will need that later, but one moment. Right now I’m focusing on the hypothetical formulation, on the hypothetical claim that only if there is God is there valid morality. Now everyone can decide for himself whether there is valid morality or not, but if there is, it is only on the basis of God.

And basically I formulate it this way: what I want to claim is that there are three possibilities, not four. In principle the questions are independent, so there should be four possibilities. One can assume there is God and there is morality; there is God and there is no morality; there is no God and there is morality; there is no God and there is no morality. Okay? Four possibilities. I claim there are not four, there are only three. It cannot be that there is no God and there is morality. That option has to be erased. Okay? That’s all. Everything else—you can remain an atheist, you can remain someone who does not recognize morality, anything. I only want this hypothetical truth. It’s terribly important to separate the discussion, because otherwise the discussion starts getting mixed up; people argue about the hypothetical because they think there is no morality. Leave me alone—it may be that you think there is no morality; I only want to ask the “if…then,” okay? The hypothetical claim.

Now, now let’s try to get into the thick of it. Actually this issue, this issue, is based on something I’m about to say, on a certain debate I had with Professor David Enoch from Hebrew University. There was some TV panel between us that dealt exactly with this point: whether, in the absence of God, everything is permitted. And I argued yes, and he argued no. And I think the essence—in the book it’s more detailed—but the essence of the matter basically appears there. You can also watch the debate itself; it’s on YouTube, and on my site there’s a link if you want. There is also a summary of my claims in a somewhat more organized way, because there it was a panel so you couldn’t really give lectures there, in a column—on my website—which basically presents the move in a more focused way, column 456.

All right, so I’m trying to follow that column because we have little time—two meetings, I said, and I want to finish the proof from morality. So I want to start with a few necessary preliminaries. First: yes, I want to speak about the connection between God and morality. Again, I don’t care whether there is or is not God; I don’t care whether there is or is not morality. What matters to me is that only if there is God is there morality; if there is no God there is no morality. Everything is fine, but only if there is God is there morality. Now I want to remove from the table a few important points. Yes, I am basically asking whether in the absence of God everything is permitted. My answer is yes. I basically want to argue for that answer—you understand that this is the same thing. Because if in the absence of God everything is permitted, that means that if there is valid morality—not everything is permitted—then that means there must be God. So these are equivalent formulations. I can justify this formulation or that one, it doesn’t matter.

Now I want to preface by saying: I am not dealing with factual questions. When I say there is morality, I am not talking about factual questions. Not in human psychology, not in the world itself, in the physical world. Right? For example, I am not claiming that only belief in God will bring a person to moral behavior because of fear of punishment or hope for reward or the religious education he received. Those are sociological factual claims—not true in my opinion either—but even if they were true, that is not what I am arguing. I am not claiming that if there is no God then “people will swallow one another alive,” in the usual sense—meaning, yes, if there is no fear of the Holy One, blessed be He, then people will not behave morally. That is not the claim. Because that claim is a factual claim. You have to test it through research. Let’s see whether people who do not believe in God really do not behave morally. In my opinion, anyone who checks will see that factually it is untrue. But beyond that, even if it were true, that is not what I’m arguing. In other words, I am not speaking on factual, psychological, sociological, or whatever levels. I am also not claiming that only religious education leads a person to moral behavior; that is of course factually untrue in both directions. There are people who got religious education and didn’t turn out all that great, and there are people who did not get religious education and do behave morally. So that too is a fact. I am not talking about a factual claim; I am talking about a philosophical claim—that only belief in God can ground valid morality. Not moral behavior, but valid morality. That is, only belief in God can generate norms that one must behave according to. The fact that people do behave according to them even without belief in God—that is something I entirely agree with. I only claim that they are not consistent. In other words, my claim is not on the psychological plane but on the philosophical plane. Philosophically, in order to hold valid morality, you need to hold belief in God. Psychologically, no. There are very many people who do not believe in God and behave completely morally. What I claim is that these people are one of two things: either they are covert believers—they actually believe in God, only they themselves do not understand it or are not aware of it or do not admit it, however you want to put it, because without that there is no valid morality—or they are inconsistent. In other words, either they are covert believers or they are inconsistent. One of the two.

And I want to suggest a third possibility. Okay. First, we never defined anywhere the concept of morality, but let’s assume for a moment that we—wait, just by way of opening. Yes. So maybe I didn’t hear. In any case, I can understand morality as rules of behavior so that people don’t devour one another. Meaning, it’s… I’ll get to that, I’ll get to that. You simply stopped me in the opening. I’ll still get to an attempt to characterize morality more precisely before I speak about it. Okay. That means we don’t have to accept that there are only two possibilities. Okay, fine, so I explained above what has to be proved; I didn’t yet give the proof itself, I only wrote what has to be proved. When we get to the parable then let’s talk, because the parable has to prove what is written below—QED.

All right, so let’s see. So what I basically want to claim is that there definitely are people who behave morally even without belief in God. And I also don’t think their percentage is smaller, it seems to me—I haven’t done statistics, but from general impression. I do think these people are divided into two categories and there is no third. Either they are covert believers or they are inconsistent. Inconsistent not in the sense that one cannot behave morally. Behave morally all you want; do whatever you want. But to see morality as valid rules that must be followed—that is inconsistent. Meaning, without belief in God there is no such thing. Okay? This is an important point. In other words, you can say, “I behave this way because I feel like it, because it’s pleasant for me, because it’s nice for me, because I’m used to it.” No problem—that is consistent and everything is fine. What does “consistent” mean? You’re making no claim here, you’re just doing what you want. But I’m talking about those who see morality as a system of valid and binding rules, meaning they make demands of other people by virtue of these claims and of themselves by virtue of these claims. That is what I call holding valid morality.

Amnon Yitzhak’s sheep parable always serves me well on this issue. Amnon Yitzhak tells that once, early in the morning, the city rabbi slaughtered some sheep at four in the morning, covered it with a prayer shawl in the main street, and started crying: “A righteous man, a righteous man has died! Oy, what darkness has descended on the world,” and so on. People wake up—four in the morning—the rabbi is there, so surely it’s some saintly righteous person; everyone comes down and accompanies him to the cemetery. They see him putting the sheep into a grave. They want to stone the rabbi. So he says to them, “I don’t understand what you want from me. Every time I rebuke you, you say to me, ‘What do you want, Rabbi? We are righteous people—we don’t hurt anyone, don’t steal, don’t murder, we are righteous.’” He says, “In that sense, the sheep is also righteous. It also doesn’t steal, doesn’t murder, doesn’t hurt anyone—so it too is righteous. So what do you want from the fact that I called it righteous? According to your definitions, it fits perfectly.”

Now what lies at the basis of this? That someone who behaves properly but like a sheep, because it is ingrained in him or because that’s what he feels like doing, is not called righteous. He is a person who is very pleasant to live with, a nice person, a good person, I’d like him as a neighbor—but righteous he is not. He simply behaves the way his nature dictates to him. A righteous person is someone who behaves according to the rules because he understands they are binding, because he decides to behave that way—not because he feels like it or because that is how he is built or whatever. Okay? So when I speak about valid morality, I am not speaking about sheep morality, or someone who does it because he feels like it. I’m talking about someone who does it despite not feeling like it, because he thinks this is how one must behave, and he has claims against others who do not do it—in other words, he grasps it as a binding legal system by which one can judge, by which one can make claims against people. That is what I call valid morality, yes? Not a person who is nice because it is his nature to be nice. Then he’s a sheep. A sheep isn’t bad; it’s just very nice. Meaning by virtue of choice? Yes. Meaning he chooses. Did someone want to ask? Yes, I’m saying—he says—is it by virtue of choice, meaning he chooses? Yes, it is not his nature but his decision. Of course it doesn’t have to go against his nature; if a person has a good nature that does not mean he is not moral. If he acts only on the basis of nature, he is not moral. But if he acts because he decides that way—and only by chance, or not by chance, it also suits his nature—he is still a moral person. Yes? Obviously you don’t have to annihilate your moral feeling just to be righteous, meaning just in order to act. Yes, this is “the one who conquers” and “the upright” in Rav Kook, or in Maimonides in chapter six, with “the superior person” and “the one who conquers his inclination.”

Anyway, I’ve removed from the table all kinds of things I’m not talking about. That is, I am not talking about whether people can behave morally. They can. I’m asking whether they can perceive that there is valid morality—a philosophical perception. Here I say that without God, no. Therefore, for example, people who explain—well, one moment.

Another preliminary: as a result of this point, I want it to be clear that I am not dealing at all with the question whether God is good or whether He wants morality from me. It may be that He does not want morality from me. What I claim is that if there is valid morality, then in the background there is belief in God who wants morality from me. But there could be a person who says, “I believe in God; God is wicked and evil; He wants nothing moral from me.” That is entirely consistent. I am not claiming anything against him. I don’t agree with him, but I am not claiming anything against him. My argument is not directed at him. Okay? I am not claiming anything about God’s character. Therefore the biblical God, for example, is not relevant here. One can ask questions about certain kinds of conduct we see in the Bible—whether this is really an entity I would define as good or not good. Fine, one can argue about that; it doesn’t interest me. Because I am not talking about whether God is good at all; that is not relevant. I am not assuming it at all. What I claim is only the conditional hypothetical claim: if there is valid morality, that means that in the background there is a God who demands moral behavior from me. That’s all. If there is no valid morality, then either there is no God, or there is God but He does not want morality, or whatever else you like—do whatever you want, okay? So that is another important clarification.

And of course therefore I am also not speaking about God in the Jewish sense. Okay? That is, I am not speaking about the Jewish God. I am speaking about some entity that has authority—maybe because it created us, maybe for some other reason—but it has some authority to set binding norms, to establish, to legislate valid morality. That is the entity I am speaking about. And I remind you again that in every one of the proofs we discussed, every formulation assumes some definition of God whose existence is being proved. Each such proof assumes a different definition. In our case I assume the definition of God as the basis for valid morality. That is the entity whose existence I want to prove. Okay? Whether this is the God who created the world, whether this is the God who gave the Torah or, I don’t know, revealed Himself to Muslims or to some pagan—I don’t care, it does not interest me, I am not entering that question right now. Therefore we are in the philosophical part of the move. So that is another important comment.

Now what I want to claim is a two-step claim. The first step: I want to argue for moral realism. And by the way, in the discussion with David Enoch this was a shared step. I was happy to discover that he too—I had read him earlier, so I saw that he agreed with me on this point. Our disagreement was in the second step: whether moral realism requires God. But first of all, the basis of my entire discussion is moral realism, and therefore I first want to deal with it, touch on it. What does moral realism mean? When I speak about the question why be moral, or what is the character of moral laws—let’s put it that way. Okay? So there are those who say this is just something ingrained in us, or a social agreement society has adopted, or survival considerations—evolution implanted it in us, there are clear survival advantages to moral conduct, yes, that’s obvious. So there are all sorts of answers of that sort. Those answers do not interest me. They do not interest me because they do not answer the question I am asking. Those answers explain how the moral tendency inside me arose, but I am not asking that question. I am asking whether, and if so then how, there are valid moral rules. If someone tells me, “Look, I behave morally because that is how I am built; I feel that this is how it is good for me to behave, this is how it is right for me to behave, this is how I feel like behaving,” all kinds of such formulations—that is not a moral person, that is a sheep. Okay?

Now what does this actually mean? That as far as he is concerned there are no moral laws. It is not that he is subject to some law; rather he does what is in his head, the way he is built. Okay? According to that argument, if you want to tell me that what is inside me is also the basis for its being binding, then the desire to speak slander is also inside me. So is there a moral rule that I should speak slander because I have such a desire, such an inclination? Not everything ingrained in me do I see as something that obligates me. Therefore, even if someone says morality is ingrained in him—and I completely agree, I think morality is ingrained in us—the fact that it is ingrained in us is still not morality. Many things are ingrained in us; we are products of evolution. The question is whether I see this thing—whether it is ingrained in me or not is not important—as something binding. That is what I call morality, and that is what I am talking about. The discussion is philosophical, not psychological—again I repeat, this is a very, very important point.

Therefore, social agreement in my view is not the basis for ethical realism. In my view, social agreement is not a basis for morality at all. So the public agreed—so what? Let them agree and do whatever they want; what does that have to do with me? Why should I do it? Or if something is ingrained in me, so what? It’s ingrained in me—why should I go by it? The moment you tell me, “Yes, but you must also go by it—it’s ingrained in you and you must go by it,” where does that “must” come from? Not where it was ingrained in me from. It was ingrained in me by evolution. But I’m asking: where does the principle come from that tells me you must go by the things implanted in you by the evolutionary process? Here we already have a normative statement, not a factual one. You must do something. Or society determined it. Where does that obligation come from? Did society also determine that obligation? Or is that too ingrained in me? Well then, now your argument itself needs an argument. I will now ask you: that itself—why obey that? In the end, a moral law is not a fact. This is a very important point. Whoever grounds morality in principles of fact—this is called naturalistic explanations—is simply committing a philosophical fallacy, what is called David Hume’s is-ought fallacy. Therefore, for example, evolutionary explanations are irrelevant to morality. So many people don’t understand this. Evolutionary explanations cannot be an explanation of morality—not because scientifically they are not true. Scientifically they can be entirely true. It sounds very plausible to me too. But it does not ground morality. It grounds moral behavior. In other words: why do I have a tendency to help another person? Because evolution made sure to put into my genes a tendency to help another person, because that is how genes survive. Okay. Now I ask: okay, but I don’t want to obey my genes. I don’t want to help my friend. Do you have any claim against me? I don’t obey my genes—what, are my genes God? Why should I obey them? I don’t want to. I want not to help others. Do you have any claim against me? If you have a claim against me, then that means it is not enough to say that evolution implanted this in me. After all, you need to explain to me why you have a claim that I should obey what evolution implanted in me. And therefore naturalistic explanations will not help here. Evolutionary explanations will not help. Evolutionary explanations explain how the moral tendency or the moral behavior came about. I am not asking that. I am asking where the moral obligation came from. Where do these principles get their validity from? Not how they arose in me, but where does it come from that they are valid, that one must behave according to them. That is a completely different question, although so many people—including philosophers and of course scientists—confuse them in a truly disgraceful way. They are simply two entirely different questions.

All those who explain morality on the basis of evolution are simply fools. I don’t know how evolution produced such people. That is, they can say the following claim: “Look, there is no morality.” Fine—that is a consistent claim, not a foolish one. I don’t agree with it, but it’s not a foolish claim. They can say, “Look, there really is no morality in the sense you mean—in the sense of valid rules that obligate us. There is a moral tendency in us; it is useful for survival, and therefore we go with it.” That’s perfectly okay. With such a person I have no argument—he doesn’t need God and he doesn’t need anything. But I say: okay, but I for example—do you have… I’ll ask that same person: I right now don’t have that tendency, or I do have it and I don’t obey it. Do you have some problem with me? Do you see some flaw in me? Do you judge me negatively? Well of course. What? Yes. Hold on a second. If so, then it means that you’re not just doing what you happen to feel like doing, but you grasp it as valid. As right. As binding. So don’t tell me stories that you only do it because you feel like it. But if it is valid, then I return to the question: evolution does not explain why it is valid. It explains why it is there. But why is it valid? Why is it binding? Why do I need to listen to this inner voice that evolution planted within me—evolution, blessed be it—planted within me? Yes, so how do you explain that? Evolution does not explain that.

Yes, someone wanted to comment? Yes, I don’t know, there are all kinds of stories, I don’t remember exactly, but about two merchants who went with wine to another city and one of them couldn’t restrain himself, every time took one sip—come on, who’ll notice, who cares—and put water in its place, anyway, in short, one day from sip after sip after sip they were left without wine. So I’m saying, why are we ignoring the practical issue? Rules of behavior were established for humanity so that otherwise they would eat each other alive. Now the question is—wait a second. Let’s clarify. Wait. There used to be what once were called—today we call them Haredim. Once they were called “fanatics.” When I was a child, religious people were called “fanatics.” What is a fanatic? Someone strict about every minor and major thing. What is “holy”? What do we say about the word “holy”? Again, your point is—wait. So I’m saying, the point is that we establish an axiom, that even in a matter where right now we don’t see its result, we have set rules. And if we don’t keep them… That’s not true. I’m returning once again. What’s not true? On what level is it not true? I—you set an axiom; I couldn’t care less about it. Do you have any claim against me? Yes, because you make my life worse. No, so what? I’m allowed. No, what’s the problem? You can defend yourself against me because you fear there will be problematic consequences for you. I don’t deny that. I asked whether you see a flaw in me in the moral sense. On the basis of what you are saying, you cannot. You can defend yourself against me because you fear I will harm you or lower your quality of life. Fine. And therefore I educate humanity to behave according to these rules so we can have more orderly and pleasant lives. But that’s not morality. That’s not morality. Why is that not morality? I said it’s something else. Morality is something that says there is a valid law that you must behave according to. And such a law cannot come either from social agreement or from evolution that implanted it within me. Social agreement—let everyone decide from now until tomorrow, the whole society together if they want. Why should that interest me? Why should it interest me? So what if society agreed? In Nazi society they agreed to murder all the Jews. There too there was a social agreement. If social agreement is what gives validity to morality, then every social agreement is moral according to your view. And if you say no, then explain to me why this social agreement is moral and that one is not moral. That means there is something beyond its being a social agreement. Because in fact there are social agreements that you do not see as moral. So what is this “something beyond”? And who determined it? Society? There is no escaping this. You simply can’t escape it. Anyone who escapes it simply doesn’t understand. This isn’t even something one can really argue about. That’s why the power of this proof is, I think, much stronger—in some ways much stronger than all the previous ones. One cannot argue with this. The only thing you can say—the only thing you can say—is that in your opinion there is no valid morality. Fine. Yes. Then the proof is not directed at you. I’m not dealing with that question right now. I’m saying: if there is valid morality, and this is its character, as I said here, then there is no such thing without God. That’s it. Anyone who argues with this simply does not understand.

But now I want to move one step further and explain—to bring two indications that may persuade you more of moral realism. Moral realism means that there are some objective laws outside of me—not in me, not social agreement, but something realist, like some ontic thing in the world itself, not physical, but something that has some objective reality, that obligates, and that one must obey, one must behave according to it. That is what is called ethical realism.

Now David Enoch himself, in one of his articles—he’s an analytic philosopher—so in one of his articles he brought an indication for this, what he calls the corn test. He says, imagine a person—a child comes to you and says the following sentence: “How wonderful that I don’t like corn, because if I liked corn maybe I would eat it, and corn is yuck.” So he is so happy that he doesn’t like corn, because if he liked corn he would eat corn, and corn is yuck. Now, how do you relate to a claim of this sort? Clearly it’s nonsense. Why is it nonsense? Because if he liked corn, then it would not be yuck for him to eat it. He is judging his behavior by different principles, by the principles he now holds. And that is nonsense, it’s just a fallacy—yes, it’s a joke. The corn test is a joke.

Now I ask you another question. Someone makes a similar claim: “How wonderful that I’m not living in the twelfth century, because today I already know quantum theory. And if I had lived in the twelfth century, my acquaintance with the world would have been much poorer, much less good.” What do you say about a claim of this sort? That there’s no end to it either—if he lived a hundred years from now he would surely know things he doesn’t know today. No, but is the claim foolish? Is it a joke? No. Right, right? It’s a perfectly fine claim. He wants to have a lot of knowledge, familiarity with the world, and he is glad he lives in a period in which science developed, as opposed to a period in which science was less developed. Right? Another two hundred years from now maybe it will be even better to live, fine. But I mean the principal claim. It means—notice—the structure of the two claims is the same. What is the difference between the corn test and the quantum theory test? The difference is that the corn test is a matter of subjective taste. If you like corn, you like it; if you don’t, you don’t. There is no superiority here. It depends on your palate. If you like it, fine; if you don’t, also fine. So to say, “If I liked corn I would eat it and that would be yuck,” that’s confusion. You cannot mix your current personal taste into a hypothetical state in which I had a different personal taste. It’s simply misunderstanding; it’s a joke. Okay? Regarding quantum theory, why is that not a joke there? Because there we are not dealing with personal taste, but with scientific facts. So indeed those facts are true facts; even if I did not know them in the twelfth century, they were true in the twelfth century too. I just didn’t know them then. Therefore here it is not a matter of personal taste, where you can either believe in quantum theory or not believe in quantum theory; you can know or not know. But quantum theory is true—assuming it for the sake of discussion right now, yes? So therefore it is not at all like the corn test. What is the difference? That the corn test is a matter of subjective taste, each person and his taste. But quantum theory is an objective, scientific fact. That is the difference.

Now this gives us an excellent tool for checking whether claims are subjective. We’ll apply the corn test to these claims and see whether they strike us as a joke or as serious. If they strike us as a joke, they’re subjective; if they strike us as serious, they are facts—objective, realist. So let’s see. Suppose I say: “How good that I live today and not in the nineteenth century or the beginning of the twentieth century, because then I would have supported slavery or held slaves, or, I don’t know, not given women the right to vote. So how good that I live today, in an enlightened age in which there are no slaves and women have equal rights and things like that.” Leave aside the disputes over the claim, over the content of the claim. I’m asking whether this claim sounds like a joke to you. Because it’s like corn, right? Like corn? Yes. Depends whether you’re a man or a woman. Because then perhaps what bothered him then was… But it bothers me today because in fact, I say morally it is not right. The fact that I would not have known it there—that’s exactly the issue. So the fact that I would have behaved immorally, perhaps not my fault because I wouldn’t have known—but today I know that this behavior is wicked. So is it really so funny that I’m glad I live in an enlightened age? It seems absurd to me—clearly it is like quantum theory and not like corn. No? Seems simple to me. Maybe it seems like corn. Okay, so if so, from your perspective there is no moral realism. But let’s take the example: if we want prayer to be mixed, with men and women sitting together—okay. Someone can say: this is against enlightenment, against feminism, and so on, and it’s good that we live in—No, no, you’re bringing in moral claims that are controversial. Leave that aside. I’m talking about clear morality. Slavery is not something controversial. Of course it is. Slavery is not a controversial matter. No one I know supports slavery. Come on, let’s not get into, God forbid, the question whether I agree with everything that today seems moral. No, I do not agree with everything. I’m talking about taking something with regard to which it is clear to you that this is binding morality, that the public as a whole more or less agrees to. Talk about those examples, because those are the important examples.

There is slavery in the Torah. Ah, how good that I wasn’t born in Nazi Germany seventy, eighty years ago, because otherwise I might have been, I don’t know, an SS officer. Okay? Does that sound like a joke to anyone if I say such a thing? I don’t know—it sounds very serious to me. Just like quantum theory, not at all like a trend. Even though if I had lived there, I would have said to myself, okay, I’m a Nazi; I would have lived in that consciousness that the Jews should be exterminated, and that is what I really would have thought. Okay, so therefore I think it is clearly like quantum theory and not like a trend. Clearly the rabbi is right here, but it seems to me that the rabbi explained moral realism as if there are some facts in reality, which is still something else. Clearly the rabbi is right that we believe in the validity of morality, as it were, right now. I didn’t say moral realism, okay? That’s all—that’s what I’m claiming right now. What I claimed elsewhere, let’s leave for elsewhere. This is what I’m claiming right now. Okay? So this is one indication of moral realism.

A second indication of moral realism is the example I brought, yes, the example I use a lot in these series—I think I spoke about it—the article by someone named Ari Elon, the son of Judge Menachem Elon, who is some kind of ex-religious preacher, yes? So now he is some kind of secular rabbi, a secular storyteller, preacher. He’s a very bright fellow and writes with magnificent language, really writes and speaks extraordinarily. And he has some distinction that he repeats in several places between the rabbinic person and the sovereign person. The rabbinic person is someone who lets rabbis, Jewish law, some external factor, legislate his way, his values, and the norms that obligate him. The sovereign person is someone who legislates his own values for himself, meaning the secular person, right? This is supposed to show why the secular person is superior to the religious person. Because the secular person is autonomous; he legislates his own values for himself. And the religious person basically lets an external framework or other people dictate to him what is right and what is not right, what he should do and what he may not do.

Then I ask: what would he say about a sovereign person who autonomously legislates for himself a way of life of being a hired murderer? He legislates for himself, in a completely autonomous way, a way of life; he adheres to it; he is willing to pay prices for it—after all, if they catch you, you go to prison. A person who certainly legislates his own values for himself. Is he worthy of moral praise? He is a sovereign person. So yes, he is a sovereign person—that is, a person who legislates his own values for himself. But it seems that even Ari Elon would agree that he is not a moral model. And why not? What is the difference between him and someone who legislates morality for himself as the set of values that obligates him? The difference is that morality is good values, whereas being a hired murderer is bad values. And now I ask: where does the difference between good values and bad values come from? If the basis of a value’s being good is that I legislated it, then that man also legislated being a hired murderer for himself, so that too is good. If you assume that this is bad and Mother Teresa, who legislated morality for herself, is good, then you need to explain to me what distinguishes this system of laws from that system of laws, independent of the fact that I legislated them, because in both cases we are talking about people who legislated them for themselves. And this means that the definition of good and bad is not a result of my legislation. It is an objective datum that does not depend on me. What is good and what is bad is a datum. A good person is a person who obligates himself, or legislates for himself only in the sense of commitment, to adopt the good system and not the bad system. But not that he can define what is called good and what is called bad, because otherwise the hired murderer would be just as good as Mother Teresa. He defines this for himself and she defines that for herself. Okay? Therefore it is clear that there is a philosophical mistake here.

It is true that a person needs to adopt his conduct for himself in an autonomous and free way, because without that my behavior has no value. But it is not true that he can determine whether that path is good or bad. That is given; it does not depend on him. It is given that helping another person is good and murdering another person is bad—not because someone decided it, but because it is a given. Therefore Ari Elon too presents only a partial picture. He says correctly that moral behavior requires an autonomous decision; without that my behavior has no value. But that does not mean that autonomous decision is the only thing required. It does not mean that autonomous decision is what determines what is good and what is bad. There is no way back here, as the song says. In the end we do… But that is the next question. Right now I’m only stating the fact. The fact is that I think almost all people—and here there is the quantitative dispute I had earlier with Professor Turkel—the point I’m making is that most people see morality as something objective and imposed upon them. Not imposed upon them to behave according to it—they can decide whether to behave according to it or not. But to determine what is moral is not your decision. What is bad and what is good—that is given. I don’t agree. Okay. Meaning you basically can’t judge me for something I do. You are claiming that the hired murderer and Mother Teresa are the same thing. The extremist Muslim says that he… What he says does not interest me; what interests me is what you say. Mafia people claim they are moral. I’m not talking about what he claims; I’m talking about what you claim. In your eyes, are Mother Teresa and a hired murderer the same thing? For the Afghan—if I live, you live in Israel. Everyone there will say they are moral, the whole community will say so. But I’m asking you, not the Afghan. But it’s subjective. No. You come with claims… No, and it’s not… Again: if you make claims against the hired murderer, that means you expect him to behave the way you want. By what right? Why? Because you think the system you arrived at is the correct one.

Now, the fact that there are others who think differently—that is true, obviously. But once again, this is the naturalistic fallacy. I’ll explain. The fact that there is disagreement… It’s not objective. Everybody says something. I say he’s wrong and he says I’m wrong. No, that is a mistake. You have a conceptual error. I’ll explain again. I am not at all making what I say dependent on the question of moral relativism. I am not talking here about objectivity in the sense of intersubjectivity, that everyone agrees. I am talking about objectivity in my own sense. When I myself think that this thing is moral, I claim that it comes from outside me; this is how I understand morality, and it obligates me. Or is it simply because that’s how I’m built? That is what I ask myself. The Afghan thinks the opposite. Therefore I am an absolute moral relativist, fine, for the sake of discussion. The Afghan thinks differently, I think… all true. I ask myself: when I say that an ISIS man who beheads people is wicked, do I think he is really wicked, or am I simply saying, “Look, to my taste, to my palate, what he does is unpleasant”? That’s how I’m built, I know; he is built differently. I don’t really have a claim against him. Of course I will be careful of him because he can kill me, but in the moral sense I have no claim against him. So I say no: I do have a claim against him. He is wicked on the moral level. And it doesn’t change the fact that there are other people who would say otherwise. Muslims will say otherwise. That touches on the question of moral relativism. I am not dealing with it at all. What I am saying can be said even on the basis of moral relativism—relativism in the anthropological sense, meaning relativism in the sociological sense. Relativism in the sense that there are different societies that believe in different systems of values—that is certainly factually true. I’m not talking about that at all. I’m asking: I, as a member of the society I live in, have personally adopted some moral set for myself. From my perspective, did I legislate these laws, or from my perspective are these laws imposed on me—and I only decided to obey them? That is the important question. Why? Because then it means I grasp my laws not as laws that I legislated, but as laws that exist objectively independent of me. And it doesn’t matter if someone else thinks the laws are different.

And this is where I say: when I ask myself whether there really is an objective system of laws here, in my opinion ninety-nine percent of the population—if they are not confused by all sorts of concepts—will answer yes. And when they see someone behaving in a way they consider immoral, it is clear to them that he is objectively morally flawed. True, they can understand that he thinks otherwise, and that there is a disagreement between them—that’s perfectly fine. So in the sense of judging the person, I may find mitigating circumstances for him because he thinks differently, he lives in a different culture, and therefore maybe I won’t punish him because I don’t see him as someone doing wrong according to his own view. But according to my view he certainly does wrong. And according to my objective view he does wrong. Not because it doesn’t suit my taste, but because according to my view there is—in other words, I’ll put it this way: the Muslim and I have a disagreement about what morality says, but it’s not that there is no morality. Yes, the narrativist—then basically it means we have no disagreement at all whether morality is this or morality is that. There is no such thing as morality. Morality is simply a collection of tendencies ingrained in me or in society or whatever, and we act according to them. Different societies act differently. There is no moral truth that we are arguing about at all. In the postmodern world—the true postmodernist, the empty set more or less—there are no arguments. Because an argument basically—this was one of the indications that came up on that panel—the moment there is (there are wars there, not arguments; there are wars over values), right, wait, wait—the moment there is an argument over some moral issue, that means both sides understand there is something out there and they are arguing over what it is. Because if everything were just a result of what I feel or what is ingrained in me, then if killing is ingrained in me and not killing is ingrained in you, then we have no argument. You’ll kill and I won’t kill—that’s all. What argument is there?

When I speak of an argument over what morality says—and there is such an argument—if I say that there is an argument over what morality says, that means there is morality. And the fact that there is an argument only means that one is right and the other is wrong. It does not mean there is no truth. That common mistake which says that if there are disagreements, apparently there is no moral truth—that is logical nonsense. The fact that there are disagreements means that one is right and the other is wrong. It does not mean there is no logical truth; it does not mean there is, but it does not contradict the fact that there is. In other words, even if there is moral truth, there can be an argument in which one is right and the other is wrong. And if he is wrong on the moral level, then he is not okay—he is wicked. Again, whether by his fault or not by his fault, those are already arguments about punishment, but he is wicked. Therefore, when I look at the people around me, everyone I ask honestly—after I neutralize all the conceptual confusions—I do not think there is anyone on earth who thinks morality is not real, not realist. And this, as I said before, has nothing to do with relativism. By the way, I also don’t agree much with the relativist thesis—not at all. In my opinion relativism is really at the margins. On most things, humanity as a whole pretty much agrees about what is good and what is bad. There are disputes—about abortion, ISIS beheadings, and so on—but these are marginal disputes. By and large, the vast majority of the world’s population agrees on the overwhelming majority of things about what is good and what is bad. But as I said earlier, that is not relevant to our matter. I don’t care—even if they did not agree—relativism does not change anything here. This is a very important point. My argument is directed at one subjective person: you yourself—how do you understand your own morality? That’s all. It is not an anthropological or sociological survey of the world and of what positions exist.

This particular person—if you grasp that there is a system of laws that obligates you and that is not your own handiwork—then that means that this system of laws, and here I make the second step, I’ll do it briefly, means that this system of laws must have someone who legislated it, or gave it validity, or determined that this is good and that is bad. Because it is not me, and it cannot be society, and it cannot be evolution, and it cannot be anything else. So if you say there is no such system of laws, then you do not recognize valid morality, and that’s fine. But if you think there is such a system—and in my opinion ninety-nine percent of the population think so, though later they give themselves an account that they’re just fooling themselves and it’s evolution and all that—but ninety-nine percent of the population think it is binding and objective—then if that is really true, it means there is someone or something that gives it validity. There is no system of laws without a legislator. In other words, if there is no legislator, then what validity do the laws have? Why should I obey them? Therefore it is clear that behind this there is a legislator. That, in brief, is the proof from morality for the existence of God. Next time I will complete it further.

Question: does the Rabbi agree—people quote Rabbi Chaim of Brisk as saying that an inadvertent heretic, poor fellow, is still a heretic. I agree with that in the factual sense. Meaning, someone who does not believe in God—what difference does it make whether he is at fault or not? He still does not believe in God. But if you mean in the normative sense, meaning how one ought to behave toward him, I do not agree. Because he is a heretic, true, but he is not at fault for being a heretic. There is no wickedness in his heresy, and therefore the sanctions imposed on a heretic should not be imposed on him. I have a column on my site that discusses judging a person according to his own view, and there I speak precisely about this issue, the difference between saying that the person is doing something bad and saying that this person is bad. I make the most extreme claim possible. If there were a Nazi who murdered Jews because he was sure that by doing so he was improving the state of the world, then that man is not a bad man. He does very bad deeds that I do not agree with at all, terrible deeds, but the man is a good man. He does what in his eyes improves the condition of the world. One must distinguish between the judgment of the act and the judgment of the person.

Are you against the Nuremberg trials, where they judged all the Nazis? I am against them, with reservations. Meaning, it depends on the question—and only the judge can form an impression—it depends on the question of how he assesses the people before him. Were they really convinced that this was good? If yes, then they were coerced. It may be that one should put them in prison in order to protect oneself from them, meaning so that they won’t cause harm, but not as a sanction, as punishment for wickedness. Okay? But if he understands that they too understood that this was not okay, they were just swept along by the spirit of the time, they did not allow themselves to resist, then they are guilty. But Eichmann always claimed that he only went according to what they told him. Anyone can make claims. The question is how far you are convinced that it is credible. A murderer can always say, “I was insane,” but he has to bring witnesses to prove that he was insane, right? Here too it is the same. Eichmann—sorry, in a different category—Eichmann said, “I followed orders.” First, he did not say that in his eyes it was okay; he only says that he followed orders. That is already problematic in itself. But let’s say he had said, “I also thought it was okay.” I would expect some circumstantial evidence of one kind or another to prove that he indeed thought it was okay. Because my basic assumption says that a normal person does not think it is okay to murder millions of people. There may be a person who does, but the burden of proof is on him. If he had proved it, in my view he would have been acquitted. I might have put him in prison so that he would not harm others, maybe, though I don’t think at that age he would have still been dangerous; but as a sanction for criminality, for his being wicked—not that. Perhaps as deterrence, depending on our theory of punishment. But the principle is clear. I think one should judge a person according to his own view. But I judge the view on its own merits, not because of the person. A person can hold a wicked view, but for reasons for which he is not responsible. So the view is a wicked view in my eyes. And that is what matters for my argument here. For my argument here I am speaking about judging the views, not judging the people. People who believe in a different thesis—they are compelled, that’s what they think, how can I judge them? With that I completely agree. But that is not postmodernity. That is just psychology and simple ethics. Postmodernity is to say that one cannot even judge the acts, because there is no truth as to what is right and what is not right, what is moral and what is not moral. And here I disagree.

Rabbi, if they really think one doesn’t punish for other views, then why do they fight and kill the other side? That means they do believe in their truth. I didn’t understand. Why should that follow? Has no person ever done a wicked act without believing that it was the right act? A hired murderer doesn’t think that what he is doing is really the pinnacle of human morality. He understands it is not okay—he just prefers the money. Correct. No, but the one fighting him—doesn’t that show—yes, but that’s his truth. He fights him and can kill him. To defend himself! So that he won’t murder me! But if he truly believes in it, then I won’t fight him as a sanction for his being wicked. Because he is not. Of course I will want to put him behind bars so he does not kill people, okay? Because he is harmful. But he deserves no sanction for criminality, for being a bad person. They fought for their truth, only they said that another may have another truth—that does not negate my point. I have my truth, and I think it is correct and has validity, and I will fight for it, even die for it. Again, this is a futile argument. If they fought for their truth and really believed in it, then fine, I accept it. I just don’t think that’s true, certainly not in all cases. I think there was instinct there, not their truth, and there was some sort of evil there. But of course with each person one would have to, I don’t know, get a direct impression of him in order to determine whether he belongs to the camp that truly and sincerely believed in it, or to the wicked camp.

The extremist Muslim really believes in it. Correct! There, for example, I really do relate to them quite differently from the Nazis. I think that with the Muslims I cannot judge them at all. Of course I will fight them because they are dangerous. But I cannot judge them at all. And the reason is that I know this from my own world. In my own religious world, and around me even more, I know that even with things where people understand that a certain act is not good on the moral level, they say: true, but the Holy One, blessed be He, requires it for religious reasons, and therefore they do it. They even identify with the fact that it is not moral, and still they understand that this is what must be done. So such a person—how can I judge him at all? But in the Nazi thesis there is no source of religious validity. There it was their moral thesis. And it is a big question whether I am prepared to believe a person who seriously believes in such a moral thesis. The religious person, Muslim or Jew, tells me: “Look, morally I’m with you. I too think it’s not okay to behead people, not okay morally. But religiously I am obligated to do it, because this faith must be spread.” I can’t even judge him morally, not only humanly.

But the very fact that he chose, say—not Islam specifically—some religion, say, characterized by evil, by satanic cruelty, by seeking to cause suffering and murder and death in the world. I don’t know, I believe in it, I’m a loyal member of that religion, pay dues, and I believe in its values and I did it, though personally I feel great compassion for you. Okay, so the rabbi won’t blame him and will say, fine, you believed in some religion, and again we return to a religion detached from morality—the results are exactly these. That there can be a wicked religion and the rabbi will say that basically… Let’s go back to that earlier argument, but I’ll keep giving you the same answers. This apocalypse does not impress me at all. But even if it did impress me, it wouldn’t matter. That’s the truth. Now, the truth may be dangerous—fine, then it’s dangerous, so it’s a dangerous truth. But if it’s dangerous that doesn’t mean it’s not the truth. This is the whole question of wiping out Amalek. Correct, we too have things like that—today they aren’t applicable, thank God—but we too have things like that.

But if we go back to the concept of morality—what is it? Today recently, with all kinds of trials, public figures and so on, people say: okay, he didn’t reach the criminal threshold, but we’ll judge him publicly. Because I’m saying that in the matter of morality, as I understand it, it is actually that same system of rules of behavior for humanity, some of which people reached an unequivocal conclusion about and enacted as binding laws, while the less unequivocal part they left to morality, meaning still each person according to how he… Up to that point I agree completely. Now the question is what the claim is. So the claim is that someone wants to say that the source of these laws is not transcendent. It is our agreement. And here I disagree. How does that relate to your first distinction? When I say that rules were established and… What does “rules were established” mean? Humanity is pressing. To come and steal money is not wrong because society decided stealing is wrong; rather society decided stealing is wrong because stealing is wrong. Not that stealing is wrong because society decided. By contrast, when I used to watch nature films and saw how the tiger jumps on the poor gazelle and tears it apart and eats it and so on, as a child I would literally cry. Okay. They told me, “What are you, an idiot? That’s nature, that’s how the world exists, what do you want? That’s the food chain.” We are back to chasing our own tail. I agree completely. So what? Do you want to claim the tiger is not immoral? I agree. But not because what it does is moral, but because it’s a tiger. A tiger does what its nature tells it. But a human being who did that would indeed be immoral. And human beings set rules of behavior for themselves, how to behave in order to live well. And in Nazi society they had rules of behavior about how to kill Jews. So therefore it was moral there to kill Jews? And why am I obligated to obey the rules that society set? Let society decide whatever it wants. Exactly. Therefore I claim that social determination cannot be the basis for moral validity. If I decide that obeying society’s rules is a correct and important principle, I will do it. But then the moral principle is not obedience to society’s rules; rather the decision that it is important to obey society’s rules is itself the moral determination, and its basis is not social agreement but my own decision. Once again we have returned to objective morality.

The Euthyphro dilemma—I hope to get to it next time if I manage. Okay, next time—if there’s time, I’ll mention here Professor Shapira, Chaim, you probably know him—he’s a clown, what? Chaim Shapira? Yes, yes. He has a lecture called “The Art of Wonder: Between Biblical Creation and Accidental Creation.” And well, I don’t know if this is the time to discuss it now, but he has some nice ideas. He sums up the matter by saying that anyone who entertains the thought that it is really possible to create, to sustain such a world—as we mentioned before—without someone having created it, needs treatment. It cannot be that it would arise by itself, with the airplane and so on and so forth. But on the other end he says: anyone who stands and prays and expects someone to answer him back also needs treatment. Fine, okay, so I need treatment. Fine, goodbye. I didn’t bring that as a proof. That is basically his summary, because he says, listen—what are we saying? We say we have all kinds of problems with… the sort of airplane created by a typhoon, and that seems unreasonable to us—but then we give another explanation that is no less complicated. So we say, okay, so there is God and there is this—so what? How is that? That’s simple, that’s straightforward, fully understandable. I already dealt extensively with these objections in the previous talks. Just one comment: perhaps this brilliant line will earn Chaim Shapira a professorship, but for now he is Dr. Chaim Shapira. Fine, he presents himself as a professor, but okay, what difference does it make? Maybe we caught him. Fine.

Rabbi, the very fact that at the beginning of the talk the rabbi said that perhaps this proof that the rabbi brought today is the strongest of all the previous ones—maybe that too supports, after all, the centrality of morality in monotheistic religion in general. I don’t agree, but fine. Because the result—the rabbi understands—if one fully agrees with everything the rabbi said today, then the conclusion is that 99.99% of humanity believes in God even though it is not aware of it, and that is dramatic. Meaning, it’s not some minority of a few million here, maybe a few… First of all it’s not 99.9%. Most of the world believes in God and is aware of it too. Among those who do not believe in God, I agree that those who believe in valid morality indeed believe covertly in God, or they are inconsistent. What percentages this comes out to is irrelevant, since the consequentialist argument of any sort does not impress me in the slightest. So what? That’s the situation. The question is what is true, not what the consequences of what is true are. I do not subordinate the is to the ought. All right. Sabbath peace. See you next time.