Halakha and Ethics, Lesson 11

This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

This transcript was generated automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.

🔗 Link to the original lecture

🔗 Link to the transcript on Sofer.AI

[0:04] Rationalization of values and the connection to Leibowitz
[1:49] Rousseau’s social contract and comparison to morality
[2:53] Moral conscience as a basis without rational analysis
[3:54] The truth of ethical claims through comparison to reality
[6:58] The naturalistic fallacy in grounding norms
[10:19] Differences in the perception of the good through the mind’s eye and the fleshly eye
[12:00] The influence of education and culture on faith and morality
[15:40] Doubt and evaluating probability in moral arguments
[17:01] Naturalness versus learnedness in morality and physics
[23:47] The prohibition of murder as a non-rational principle
[25:36] The dilemma of human life and the connection to nullifying value
[29:01] Presentation of the first case – Karen and the morality of killing
[30:32] Third case – loss of intellectual capacity without consciousness
[34:16] Jewish law and the discussion of a dying person – the limitations of the Rema
[36:59] The paradox of checking a flashlight in the army on the Sabbath
[38:08] Kant’s categorical imperative and its implications
[41:44] A woman’s right over her body and the discussion of abortion
[48:13] Positivism and the concept of reasons without proof

Summary

General Overview

The text raises the question of how values can be binding if they cannot be grounded rationally, through a discussion of an article by Leibowitz on disconnecting respirators. The speaker argues that Leibowitz’s institutional-conventional solution is problematic because it itself requires moral justification, and he proposes an alternative according to which commitment to values comes from intellectual recognition or vision of the idea of the good, which makes it possible to speak of the truth of ethical claims. The discussion then examines Leibowitz’s slippery-slope argument and the tension in his thought between convention and morally charged discourse, alongside criticism of his flexible use of halakhic sources. Finally, the speaker sketches a picture in which values are like axioms: they cannot be rationalized, but they do allow logical derivation of conclusions, and he raises the problem of deciding in value conflicts and building a scale of values, which he proposes to solve if one accepts the model of recognition that also yields a degree of importance.

The Problem of Grounding Values and the Institutional Solution

Leibowitz presents the position that values cannot be rationalized, and therefore the question “why” undermines the value and dissolves its force. The speaker understands Leibowitz as choosing the institutional option of a social agreement as the binding source, but argues that this is problematic because the obligation to keep agreements is itself a moral principle that needs justification. The speaker adds that grounding the service of God in gratitude also seems problematic when religious commitment may demand the sacrifice of one’s life, and so a “lighter” value has difficulty justifying a “heavier” one.

The Alternative of Recognition: The Idea of the Good, Truth and Falsehood in Ethics

The speaker proposes that moral obligation is the result of recognition rather than thought, in the sense of seeing with the mind’s eye the idea of the good and comparing actions and statements to it. He argues that this allows us to treat a sentence like “it is forbidden to murder” as true or false, because there is a “background” that serves as a standard of comparison even if it is not physical reality. The speaker presents only two options: either one assumes observation/recognition that grants objective force to ethical claims and to moral criticism, or one accepts convention, in which case criticism loses its meaning.

Rejection of the Pragmatic Proof and the Naturalistic Fallacy

The questioner suggests that morality proves itself pragmatically in that a moral society functions better and allows freedom and well-being. The speaker rejects this on the grounds that it is a form of the naturalistic fallacy, because the move from facts about survival/pleasantness to a binding norm is not justified by the facts themselves. He argues that even if it is agreed that morality creates “better life,” the normative question still remains: who says one ought to prefer a better life or the welfare of others?

“That’s How You’re Built” versus Perception: The Ability to Grasp versus Creating the Content

The questioner argues that there must be some layer of “that’s how you’re built,” because otherwise even “seeing the good” would not obligate. The speaker distinguishes between looking with the eyes of the flesh, which yields a neutral fact, and looking with the eyes of the intellect, which yields a norm, in which the “ought to do” is already included, so that these are ethically “charged” facts that obligate action as part of their very content. He presents a distinction between a case where the structure of the perceiver creates the result and therefore it has no objective meaning, and a case where the structure merely enables one to grasp something true that exists in itself.

Education, Faith, and Blindness: Correlation Is Not a Necessary Sign

The speaker compares the question of morality to faith in God in the face of the claim that education “produces” faith, and suggests the possibility that education opens one’s eyes to something toward which one could otherwise have been “blind.” He says that the correlation between place of birth and faith does not prove that faith is only a product of education, but rather raises a question mark that must not be turned into an exclamation mark. He admits that he has no definitive proof between the possibilities, and argues that each person must decide whether he sees himself as biased by education or as someone whose education enabled him to perceive.

Leibowitz, Sources, and the “Illustration” Position

The speaker argues that Leibowitz uses Maimonides and Pascal illustratively rather than as proof, but thinks that Maimonides in the Guide for the Perplexed does not say what Leibowitz attributes to him, because he is speaking about accepted conventions in manners and proper conduct in the context of Adam and Eve, not about murder and theft. He argues that even if the source does not settle Leibowitz’s claim, it testifies to an imprecise use of sources. He adds the suspicion that Leibowitz uses sources arbitrarily, and that in some places he “didn’t understand himself” because positivism made it difficult for him to formulate a third possibility.

The Prohibition of Murder, Karen, and Traffic Laws: The Postulate and the Slippery Slope

Leibowitz distinguishes between a speed limit in a built-up area, which has a rational basis and can be qualified, and the prohibition of murder, which is a non-rational postulate that cannot be rationalized and therefore does not allow qualifications to be set. Leibowitz argues that permitting the disconnection of Karen’s respirator leads to the question of why not eliminate others as well if, in the eyes of the questioner, their lives “have no value,” and he formulates the prohibition as protecting everyone without distinction. He presents a series of cases that slide from coma with artificial respiration, to coma with spontaneous breathing, to loss of intelligence, to a child “an idiot from birth,” and on to Hitler-like justifications for eliminating the mentally ill, concluding that undermining the postulate nullifies its meaning.

Criticism of the Consistency of the Institutional Argument versus Logical Arguments

The speaker argues that Leibowitz’s arguments seem problematic if morality is an institutional convention, because in that case there is no need for logical arguments or slippery-slope reasoning, only for the question of what society or the institution actually established. He points out that Leibowitz opposes the ruling of the New Jersey Supreme Court that permitted disconnection, and asks why he should oppose it if an authorized institution is the source of obligation. He concludes that Leibowitz in practice assumes from the outset that it is obvious one may not murder “anyone,” and that rationalization is dangerous only because it may permit killing someone whom one may not kill—but that assumption does not fit with pure conventionalism.

Jewish law: A Dying Person, the Rema, “We Do Not Rule That Way,” and the Difference Between Public and Private Rulings

Leibowitz brings the laws of a dying person in the Shulchan Arukh and the qualification of the Rema permitting the removal of something that prevents the soul from departing, and concludes that if the matter were decided strictly in Jewish law there would be room to stop treatment that has no benefit. Leibowitz nevertheless says, “I am not comfortable with this conclusion,” and adopts a pattern of “we do not rule that way,” according to which a doctor who asks should be answered with a prohibition even if a private person could decide otherwise. The speaker presents an analogy from military rulings about checking whether a weapon has been unloaded on the Sabbath in Rabbi Eliyahu’s rulings, to illustrate the distinction between a private decision and a public rule in which a large number of cases creates cumulative risk, and he also notes a paradox resembling the categorical imperative in which the combined behavior of individuals creates the problem.

Abortion and the Political Radicalization of Moral Discourse

The speaker describes a discourse in which abortion is seen as “some crazy thing religious people are obsessed with,” and presents the view that the argument of “a woman’s right over her body” is foolish if one ignores the fact that there is “another living being” being killed. He shows how Leibowitz’s slippery-slope arguments continue from killing the unconscious to abortion, identifying a principled similarity to Hitler’s claims about those who are not “human beings.” He argues that Leibowitz distorts a Talmudic source concerning the law of a pursuer in relation to a fetus, and emphasizes that the Talmud raises and rejects the possibility, and that if it were really a pursuer it would be permitted even after the head emerged; therefore Maimonides’ phrase “it is like a pursuer” does not mean an actual pursuer.

Positivism, “Arbitrariness,” and Two Kinds of “Just Because”

The speaker suggests that when Leibowitz says “not rational,” he does not mean “I tossed a coin,” but rather “it cannot be justified through a logical argument,” just as axioms in geometry are not proven but accepted. He argues that positivism, which accepts only what is proven, pushes one to conclude that everything is arbitrary, and therefore Leibowitz has difficulty formulating a position in which a value is true in itself without being a convention. He distinguishes between an arbitrary “just because” and a “just because” of ungrounded but binding certainty, and argues that Leibowitz moves between the two uses without distinguishing them, out of helplessness in the face of someone who asks, “Why is murder forbidden?”

Values as Axioms and Ethics as Geometry

The speaker argues that values are “the ethical axioms,” and from them one can derive logically what is obligatory, forbidden, and permitted, while the axioms themselves are accepted as true in themselves. He marks two differences between factual assumptions and ethical assumptions: the way they are perceived, and the neutral nature of physical facts as opposed to the action-charged character of ethical facts. He says that this picture allows logical arguments in ethics after accepting the basic assumptions, similar to the structure of a mathematical proof.

Value Conflict, a Scale of Values, and a Proposal for Decision through Recognition

The speaker argues that if a value cannot be rationalized, then apparently there is no way to qualify it or rank values against one another, and therefore it is difficult to build a scale of values and decide conflicts such as saving life versus the Sabbath. He explains that the ability to rank seems to depend on judging “from outside” on the basis of a goal or rationale, but values are not justified by goals and so a problem of decision arises. He proposes that if values arise from recognition of the idea of the good, that recognition can yield not only what is right but also “how much” it is right and important, and thus make possible a scale of values that does not depend on institutional determination.

Full Transcript

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Last time we talked a bit about the possibilities of grounding values, or rationalizing them. The context was an article by Leibowitz about disconnecting life-support machines, about that young woman who lost consciousness, lost functioning,

[Speaker C] the question was whether it’s possible to disconnect her from the machines.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And in the course of that discussion, Leibowitz was really talking more broadly about the question of how one can rationalize values at all. He said you can’t. And then the question comes up: so why—what is their meaning nevertheless, why are they still binding? It seems that he chose the institutional option—that is, that this is basically some kind of social agreement within the community in which we operate, and that is what obligates us. I already noted that this is a problematic solution, because the question is: what obligates us to keep agreements? Meaning, that too is a moral principle that requires justification, and I don’t see why it is any better than the principle that murder is forbidden. It’s a bit strange to base the principle that it is forbidden—I’m adding this a bit now, but it doesn’t matter, it’s the same principle—to base the principle that murder is forbidden on the duty to honor agreements. It’s a bit absurd. In other words, the prohibition of murder is perceived, at least generally, as something far more severe, far more binding, than the obligation to honor agreements. The whole idea of Rousseau’s social contract is also built in a similar way, and it too is subject to the same problem. Maybe just parenthetically I’ll add that claims that ground the obligation to serve God—that is, to keep commandments—on gratitude, for example, can also be doubted for the same reason, because the obligation to serve God sometimes makes very high demands. Beyond the intensity, and the fact that it tells me what to do and what not to do at every step, sometimes it also demands that I sacrifice my life. And the question is whether I can ground such an obligation in gratitude. That is, to what extent is my obligation to be grateful to someone enough to justify my obligation to sacrifice my life? So that seems a bit problematic. In other words, a lighter value grounding a much more severe value is always problematic. So therefore Leibowitz’s grounding seemed problematic to me. The alternative I proposed was that our conscience or moral feeling, our commitment to values, is the result of recognition and not of thinking. In other words, we observe the idea of the good or of morality, we observe with the mind’s eye, and we reach the conclusion that this is good and that is bad, this must be done and that must not be done, and therefore this is basically a kind of fact. The moral claim is a fact, of course not in the physical sense, not in the sense of existence. I’m not comparing it to physical reality in order to know whether the claim “murder is forbidden” is correct, but I am making some kind of comparison. A comparison to what I see as the idea of the good, and that comparison—or the claim that there is such a comparison, that there is such a comparative process—allows me to relate to the sentence “murder is forbidden” as a sentence that can be discussed in terms of true or false. It is true. As opposed to the view that sees no recognition here, but only “that’s how I’m built,” or that this is some kind of social agreement, or various conventionalist views of that sort, which really do not allow me to say that the sentence “murder is forbidden” is a true sentence. True in what sense? What does “true” mean? “True” always means that you compare something to reality. I say “this table is brown,” and I say that this statement is true—why? Because I check the content of the statement against reality in the world itself, and I see that there is correspondence, that it is similar or the same thing, and therefore I say, fine, so the sentence is true. Now what does the sentence “murder is forbidden” describe? It doesn’t describe anything; it commands, it describes a norm. So if I don’t know how to compare it to anything, then in what sense can one speak of it as true or not true? Therefore I say that if we want to treat it as a true sentence, then we are supposed to assume the existence of some kind of comparison in the background. There is something that determines whether ethical claims are true or not, and that something is apparently the idea of the good, or I don’t know exactly what. I observe it, I compare the result to the sentence that I’m saying. If it matches, then the sentence is true, and if not, then not. So it’s one of two, as I said. I have no proofs in favor of this. What I can say is only that these are the two options. In other words, either the option of assuming that there is some kind of observation here, and then I’m willing to recognize ethical claims as true or false claims, and also to criticize others if in my view they’re acting improperly, and so on. Or to say that it’s convention, and then fine—there’s no meaning to criticism and so on, do whatever you want. Yes.

[Speaker D] But isn’t the reality that a society—not from a rational standpoint but from a pragmatic one, for example—if we want to sustain life, yes,

[Speaker A] life

[Speaker D] mine, then we need this sort of order, as if traffic needs to function according to traffic laws, right? So life too has to function according to certain laws. One second, one second, one second. Now then, the society that maintains the—now why isn’t this completely a convention? Because I understand that this society is a more proper society in the sense that a person lives better there, okay? For example, there are more freedoms there, yes, various personal freedoms. So can’t this sort of examination, a kind of examination of reality, serve as proof of the correctness of the idea?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think not. Because even apart from the content of the argument, look at its structure. Its structure suffers from the naturalistic fallacy. That is, you start from facts and infer norms from them.

[Speaker D] No, I’m saying there is a norm that proves itself within reality.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does it mean, proves itself? In other words, you confirm it, validate it through looking at reality, but you can’t. Looking at reality gives facts. Suppose I agree with all your assumptions, that in a moral world we’ll survive better, feel better, life will be more pleasant, all correct—but all these are facts. Who said I’m supposed to make people feel better or more pleasant or survive? That is the normative question, and that question has no answer from looking at facts. So it’s obvious, we all feel somehow that this is connected to a better life, to making people feel—but that transition from the fact that this would create a better life, assuming it would, to the obligation I’m talking about—how exactly do you make that move? Yes.

[Speaker E] The Rabbi spoke against the approach of people who say, “that’s how I’m built, I see it this way.” It seems to me there has to be some layer of “that’s how you’re built.” Otherwise even things that you see—I see the concept of the good, fine, it’s there, okay, you see it, so what? That’s what the Rabbi talked about earlier. So what if it’s there? Who said I have to—this is the good, why do I have to do it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Here I disagree, or at least maybe it’s a different translation of what you’re saying. I actually maybe meant to add this in order to complete the picture. My claim is that observation with the mind’s eye is different from observation with the eyes of the flesh in another sense too. Not only that this is done with eyes and that is done with other means—I don’t know what to call them—but also that the product is different. In other words, the result of observing with our physical eyes is a fact. A fact is something neutral; it is simply there. If it’s true, then it’s true, and if not, then not. Whether I like it or don’t like it is irrelevant. It is simply there, totally neutral. Observation with the mind’s eye yields a norm, not a fact in the physical sense. Now, a norm has properties that are different from facts. In other words, when I see that something is good, that already includes the fact that one must do it. That too is part of what I see. That is the meaning of the idea of the good. In other words, I’m claiming—it’s also not a decision, because if it were a decision then again, on what basis could I come with complaints against someone else? I’m claiming this is a different kind of fact. There are physical facts that are simply neutral: either it’s true or it isn’t, it’s simply there, that’s how the world is. Ethical facts are facts of a different character. Not only are they seen differently—they are facts of a different character. These are charged facts—we talked about this, I think, in one of the previous years—facts that have some charge that demands action from me. They are not just simply there. Physical facts don’t tell me anything; they are simply true and that’s it. They are not supposed to move me to action or prevent me from acting. Ethical facts are facts such that part of the fact itself is that this is what ought to be done. Because to understand that something is good is also to understand that this is what ought to be done. That is the meaning of the concept “good.” Now this means that this vision, ethical vision, conscience, differs from visual sight not only in the instrument through which it is carried out.

[Speaker E] My very being a creature that knows how to grasp something together with obligation—that is, that there is in me such a thing as seeing good and evil, fine, I agree that it’s something different, but I’m still the one perceiving the obligation. Does the obligation even mean anything to me? But that’s also true regarding ordinary sight—that you are a creature for whom such a thing exists at all.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s like you are the kind of creature that can see that wall over there. A blind person cannot see it. As a result of that, do you cast any doubt or say that it is a relative claim that there is a wall here?

[Speaker E] I’m not casting doubt and I didn’t say anything relative, I just said that it’s still a structure, still a certain structure.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Every perception depends on the perceiver. The only question is whether the structure of the perceiver creates the result of the perception or only enables it to be grasped. If it creates the result, then it’s not perception; it’s just something coming out of me, and it has no objective meaning. If it’s only an ability I have in order to grasp what is actually true, and someone else has blindness in this matter and cannot grasp it—fine, that’s obvious. In other words, you can’t perceive without having the capacity to perceive, but that’s trivial. Let’s say animals, as far as I understand, don’t have this capacity to understand what good and evil are. So obviously they won’t perceive it. But that’s not what I earlier called something being generated by the way I’m built. The fact that I’m built in a certain way enables me to perceive it. It doesn’t create it; it only opens my eyes. If someone’s eyes aren’t open, he wouldn’t see it. We talked about this once in the context of faith. With faith in God too, there is this feeling that education basically produces faith. And then a lot of times people deliberate, from the outside and from the inside—and I’ve spoken with quite a few such people—wait, but if I had been born somewhere else, then I wouldn’t believe, right? So what really is the meaning of faith? It’s obvious that it’s a product of the place where I was born. And I told them that maybe they’re right, but it’s not necessary. They need to think about it, and each person will decide for himself. It’s not necessary, because it could be that religious education simply opens your eyes to perceive something that without that education you would not have perceived, you would have been blind to it. But the education did not create the faith; it enabled you to perceive that there is a God, or that there is religious obligation, and so on. If that’s the case, it also explains the facts.

[Speaker E] Why does different religious education produce faith with a different character?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are also disputes in morality, so it’s not—obviously, I’m not—

[Speaker E] Yes, I can say in doubt why you decided—not to say “a reasonable doubt.” Because if it’s so likely that where you were born, in all probability, at very high levels of probability, you’ll go with the faith of the place where you were, then what are the chances that you’re really different? I mean, if you had been born Buddhist, you’d now be Buddhist.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s say, for the sake of discussion, that I really think I’m right and the others are mistaken. That itself is not a simple assumption, but suppose. Then what I’m basically saying is that the others are blind. So what does that help? The fact that there are many blind people doesn’t necessarily have to arouse doubt in me. Maybe I’ll conclude that it’s not true—not true that the others are blind, and that it really is generated in me. But by the same token, the skeptic will tell me that the fact that I see a wall here, while a blind person doesn’t see a wall here—why? Maybe there is no wall here, and only you are built in a way that imagines walls? Now, most of us would not treat such a claim seriously. In other words, okay, fine, that could be, I have no answer for you—but it hasn’t been proven. In other words, I know, I see, so I see.

[Speaker F] No, if everyone saw the wall differently, and the people who saw the wall in the same way only did so because they were taught—only because, not just because but only—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If,

[Speaker F] only if or almost only if they were taught to see it in that particular way, then that would cast doubt.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying, it certainly casts doubt. I’m not offering an answer here. I can’t answer that doubt. What I can say is only that this doubt does not necessarily lead you to the conclusion that you think it leads you to. Because it can also be explained in another way. Now how do I decide between those two possibilities? I have no idea. Everyone has to decide where he stands, what he thinks. Does he really think he is biased by his education, which created the faith, or that his education enabled him to encounter it? That I don’t know how to answer. Each person has to decide for himself what he thinks about it. So I’m not trying to answer the question here. I have no argument that says why the other person is wrong. I’m only saying that a lot of times this argument is taken as necessary. Here’s a fact: there’s a clear correlation. Whoever was educated this way believes, and whoever wasn’t doesn’t—the probability—

[Speaker E] here against you in some way.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not at all sure. Not at all sure. It may be that I don’t know how to assess who understands more correctly and who less correctly, and in the end I have to make a decision as to which possibility is correct. I don’t have a better answer than that. And it really is worthwhile. And it really is worth examining ourselves to see what our decision actually is. Fine, it’s a good claim for provoking thought. I’m only saying that this question mark must not be turned into an exclamation mark. In other words, it’s a question mark, and now you have to answer it. But don’t think that this question mark is really an exclamation mark. A lot of times people present it not as a question, but as—what do you mean, it’s obvious that someone born in a religious home is religious, and someone who wasn’t—generally, there are exceptions, but there’s a high correlation—yes, he is religious, and whoever wasn’t is not. So that proves that religion is basically built by education. Not true. It’s not proof. It may be a possibility. It means you have to think about it. But like every proof… what?

[Speaker E] Like every proof.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re basically saying that one can cast doubt,

[Speaker E] and one can cast doubt on anything that—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not like every proof.

[Speaker E] If there were an experiment where the probability level of the result was one in a billion, whatever, then obviously it would be true. I mean, if now in an experiment every time—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who said it’s one in a billion?

[Speaker E] I don’t know, check how many kinds of outlooks there are in reality. Well. And your outlook compared to all the outlooks that exist in reality.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, so what? So what does that mean? Everyone else is blind and I’m right. What’s the problem?

[Speaker E] Fine, but if you had been born into the outlook that you think is wrong, then you would think it was right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the one-in-a-billion probability? If I had been born blind, that says nothing about my sight.

[Speaker E] So what’s the probability that you weren’t the one born blind now? That’s what I’m saying.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know what the probability is. I examine the—I don’t know how to assess probabilities. I examine what I think about it, and I think it’s true. I don’t know how to assess probabilities. I need to decide whether it’s true or not.

[Speaker E] In terms of plain numbers, why does it matter?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Numbers—you certainly can’t assess that. Why not?

[Speaker E] Why not?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because in order to determine probability, you have to assign equal weight to each option. To determine a probability, you have to assume something in advance. Number of people, number of people. The number of people says nothing. Take a die that has six faces. If the die is not fair, then the chance that it will land on one of them—

[Speaker E] That’s inanimate, but all your assumptions are based on human beings being built in some relatively similar way.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who said? No. In the religious conception I don’t agree. There are blind people and there are those who are not blind. The assumption of a fair die is itself an assumption. Who said that’s true? The assumption that there are ten people—

[Speaker E] That’s how we examine the moral world. You judge a person because you assume that more or less he was capable of seeing the things you are capable of seeing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, because that’s what I think, that he really is capable and I see that he’s missing the mark.

[Speaker E] So you assume that we are equal or that we’re—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, not true. We’re equal in some things and not equal in others. Morality is something innate, where education has a role in shaping moral behavior, but less so. In other words, a person can arrive at moral behavior more easily even without moral education, although education is important there too. And in faith it’s less like that. Fine, so what? We have different aspects. In physics too, we’re all built the same way. Very few people know physics. So what does that mean—that physics is just an invention of physicists? No. It means that there are people who don’t grasp it, or didn’t learn it.

[Speaker E] So those who believe—is it genetic because they were born with the same sort of way of looking?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, bad luck befell them—or not bad luck but rather good luck—they happened to be born in the right place, and therefore they—

[Speaker G] As groups, as groups.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, obviously. We’re talking about places that are groups.

[Speaker G] But it sounds strange to me, because faith and morality are universal.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Look, there are disputes about morality too. It’s not that everything is universal.

[Speaker G] But there is a core that is… right, fine.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So these things—political outlook, religion, different kinds or different aspects of our thinking, of our reality—they don’t all look the same. There are cases where when we see something, no one needs to educate anyone about anything. When he sees, he knows it’s there. It’s not a product of education. I think, at least as far as I understand it, you’re simply born that way. It’s obvious to you that it’s there. Although even there one can cast the same doubt. Who said? I don’t know, maybe it’s not there at all. Fine, but I think it is. There are things that are less obvious. Morality is less obvious than seeing something. With those things there are some hesitations and so on, but still it is more obvious, say, than religious faith. But I think this scale does not necessarily determine how true the thing is, but rather how available it is to every person simply by being human. In other words, to what extent each such thing can be grasped without any dependence on education or development of tools. There are things that require development of tools. Learning physics requires developing tools, or mathematics, or whatever. If you haven’t learned, you won’t know.

[Speaker G] No, but basically it’s embedded in every person.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying, there are things that are embedded and things that are not. Yes. Physical understanding too, by the way—

[Speaker G] Let’s put it this way: kindness, right? Kindness is more developed among Jews, let’s say. Okay. But the point of kindness is universal—or am I mistaken?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, I think you’re basically right. As far as I understand—again, I’m not an anthropologist—but as far as I know, I think that’s correct. Right, so there are things that are innate and things that aren’t. By the way, physics is also innate in human beings. If it weren’t innate in human beings, they wouldn’t be able to understand it even after they studied it. And although it’s innate—mathematics too, although it’s innate within us—it still requires development in order for us to reach that understanding and knowledge. Meaning, it’s not something self-evident. So there are things that require development. So education doesn’t always produce its result directly; sometimes it only enables it. Fine, that’s an option. I have no answer for someone who says otherwise; I don’t know how to prove to him that he’s wrong. I’m only saying that he also hasn’t proved to me that I’m wrong. In other words, that’s an option, and each person has to formulate a position about it.

Okay, so that was about the two options for understanding the ethical basis. Now Leibowitz brought, as one of two citations, something to support his claim—or not support it exactly, but illustrate it. He wrote somewhere, I think, that his use of sources is illustrative only. What does that mean, illustrative? Yes, it means just an illustration. He’s not saying it’s true because Pascal said it or because Maimonides said it. It’s true because it’s true, but Pascal and Maimonides also said it. In that sense, on these two points, I very much agree with him, yes. But on the other hand, I’m worried that he uses sources not only illustratively but also somewhat arbitrarily. Maybe this is a chance to look at that a bit.

So I want to look a little at the continuation of his article, and I’m doing this only because this is an opportunity—just to see a few things, because I think they have some importance in these matters beyond just understanding Leibowitz himself; sometimes it also helps us understand ourselves a little. So I want to continue a bit with the article. I only reminded you in broad strokes what we had until now. He cited Maimonides and Pascal: Maimonides in The Guide for the Perplexed, saying that good and evil are accepted conventions, not intelligibles; and Pascal says something parallel. Last time we read Maimonides in The Guide for the Perplexed, and we saw that apparently that’s not what he means. Maimonides there is talking more about rules of human conduct—manners, maybe, and common decency—and not about good and evil in the sense of murder and theft, but in the sense of, for example, walking around naked, in the discussion of Adam and Eve and the sin of the first man. And therefore I think Maimonides does not mean what Leibowitz said he means. Again, since Maimonides is only an illustration, that doesn’t necessarily undermine Leibowitz’s claim itself; it just means that Maimonides doesn’t say that.

But now I want to show a few more things—for example, that even Leibowitz himself, I’m not sure that this is what he means. And in my opinion Leibowitz himself did not understand himself. In many cases I think I can see that. He didn’t understand himself—or I don’t know, maybe he didn’t know how to formulate it, even though he formulates things well, but it seems to me he didn’t know how to sharpen this point for himself, because the option wasn’t before his eyes; he was a positivist. And therefore it seems to me that positivism worked against him. Because I’ll try to show you, later in his article, that it’s hard to accept this from an institutional position, a position that says the principles of morality are simply the determinations of a social institution.

So he says as follows. He says basically: this principle is non-rational, only the result of social convention. And therefore, once we ask “why?”—why is it forbidden to kill, or why is it forbidden to steal, and so on—we’ve pulled the ground out from under that value. A value, by its essence, is something that cannot be grounded. The moment we look for a grounding, the value evaporates. Because—this is in parentheses, I’m adding this—because the assumption when we look for grounding is that without grounding, the value doesn’t obligate, and that’s why we’re looking for grounding. But if we really reach a point where, in our eyes, without grounding the value doesn’t obligate, then the value’s career is over, because no grounding will be found. So therefore Leibowitz basically says that the moment we look for rationalization, we rationalize this value, we’ve lost it. That’s what he says.

“A person’s prohibition against murder is a non-rational principle. Since it is not rational, it cannot be rationalized.” Meaning, you can’t set limitations or boundaries for it, such as: if someone is unconscious and non-functioning, then maybe you may kill him. That’s basically a kind of qualification on the prohibition of murder. In other words, you can’t set qualifications on a prohibition if you don’t understand the basis of the prohibition. If I understand the basis of the prohibition, I can say: okay, it goes this far; here it’s no longer relevant. But if it’s a prohibition with no basis, how will you qualify it? Like deriving the reason for a scriptural law, yes. How can we qualify an instruction of the Torah if we don’t understand why it was said? To qualify it, you need to understand the reason it was said. And by implication, the converse follows.

The prohibition against driving in a built-up area at over 50 kilometers per hour has a rational basis. Driving faster than that endangers the driver and endangers other people. We already discussed once that even this isn’t precise. This law is not a postulate; rather, it follows as a conclusion from a certain reality and objective data. Since its basis is rational, it can also be rationalized. Meaning, one can examine how far its validity extends and when it no longer applies. For example, maybe this law is aimed at daytime hours, when traffic on the roads is heavy and the danger of collision is great. But at night, when the danger of collision between cars is low, perhaps one can cancel this prohibition. Because we understand where it comes from, we also understand that it can be qualified—that a driver may allow himself not to be strict about it.

That’s with a law that has a rational basis. But if a law has no rational basis and is instead an absolute postulate, like the prohibition against murder, I cannot discuss the possibility of limiting it and saying: up to here it is valid, from here onward it is not valid. And if someone presents me with the question: why not pull the plug on Karen’s respirator and thereby put an end to this girl’s suffering and let that poor girl die, since her life has no value and she is a terrible burden on those around her? If this question is presented to me, then I can only ask: why shouldn’t I eliminate you too, if in my eyes your life also has no value, and not only that—you are a great nuisance to me?

So that’s a classic Leibowitzian argument. To the question why it is forbidden for me to eliminate you if your life has no value in my eyes, there is no answer, except that I am not permitted to eliminate her, and not permitted to eliminate you either, even if your life has no value, and even if your existence is a nuisance to me and to the world. Because the postulate that one may not take human life is not subject to rationalization. If that postulate protects you, and therefore I may not eliminate you, then it protects that girl as well. What’s the difference? We have no way to qualify it. Logically, I cannot say that the prohibition against killing a human being applies to me only regarding you, whereas helping bring about the death of that girl does not count as killing.

Already here we need to comment. Meaning, if the prohibition against murder is the result of a social determination—that is, a convention—then this argument seems a bit problematic.

[Speaker F] You could understand it as a practical argument. What do you mean?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A slippery slope. One second. So this argument is problematic because you’re basically presenting me with a logical argument for why this is true, when in fact the basis of this prohibition is not logical at all—this is just what we agreed on. That’s the convention. So really, at most, what can be understood here is some kind of slippery-slope argument. And this will come back later too. He raises a lot of slippery-slope arguments here in order to show that this whole business is very problematic.

But even a slippery-slope argument—so what? Are you now making a decree? You, Leibowitz, are making a decree on the basis of a slippery-slope argument? Make up your mind: what was the social convention? After all, in the end that’s what determines it. Did society agree that this Karen too must not be killed? Then just say so. Why are you philosophizing so much here? Then say that we agreed to that too. You can’t say that, so you start bringing logical arguments. But logical arguments about a value whose very basis is not logical—that’s a bit strange.

[Speaker E] But that’s what he’s saying, basically. We agreed that we don’t kill. Just as we agreed that we don’t kill you, we also agreed that we don’t kill her.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But society didn’t set qualifications to that. Fine—so let him say that. Then why come and say that logically it’s unreasonable to stop here and not stop there, because you can’t make it rational… Not because you can’t rationalize it, but because that’s how society determined it. If society had determined that Karen could be killed, then a law would have been passed saying Karen could be killed. By the way, that’s what the Supreme Court of New Jersey ended up determining, as he himself says at the end of the article. So what’s the problem?

[Speaker E] There’s no problem at all. Society determined it. He also says, “I do not accept the ruling of the Supreme Court of New Jersey.” He says that at the end. But that’s not what society determined.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean that’s not what society—here, now it is determining it.

[Speaker E] No, what the court determined is not what society determined.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why not? Here—now the court is the authorized institution to determine, and it determined it. What’s the problem? You don’t have any institution more authoritative than that. You can’t argue with it. Why not? “That’s not society.” What is that? It’s not society?

[Speaker E] Society is what we people think. Society is what we…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If that’s what you think, then nothing is ever determined.

[Speaker E] Then with Leibowitz too you can talk about the guy…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But I think people think… What you think people think, keep to yourself. Why should I care what you think? So I think differently from what people think. Why should I care what you say?

[Speaker E] He’s making a claim about what… they’re mistaken; that’s not what people think. Why?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m people, like you. I don’t think that way. But you don’t represent everything people think. Fine, that’s not what he’s saying. He’s not making an empirical claim here. “Go and see what people think.” He’s making logical arguments here. There’s something problematic here, I think, in the whole way this is handled. But right away we’ll continue—there are more blatant places.

Let’s present the problem concretely. Now an actual slippery slope begins. Suppose we all agree—and I say openly that, for reasons of inner feeling, I would agree—that it would have been proper and desirable to let Karen die with dignity, since her life is not life in any rational meaning of the term, and is only a heavy burden on her relatives and on society. Suppose we all agree to that, and we act according to this permission we have granted ourselves, and our conscience is quiet. But tomorrow a second case occurs: a girl poisons herself, and she too lies in a coma from which she cannot be awakened, but her breathing mechanism has not been impaired. She continues breathing on her own. Karen breathed by means of machines. What is the law in her case? Regarding Karen, whose breathing mechanism is sustained by an external artificial factor, and in whom there is not even that potential for life expressed in spontaneous breathing, we did not see murder in pulling the plug and stopping the respiration. But what shall we say about the second girl? There we would have to kill her actively, not merely remove the machine that is ventilating her.

After all—and her life too is not life, if we speak in ordinary human language—she lacks consciousness, feeling, awareness; she too cannot exist without external treatment; she must be fed artificially every day, her feces and urine must be removed, she must be supervised day and night, and this condition may continue for weeks, months, years. True, she is breathing—but why should we not eliminate her as well, if we allowed ourselves to eliminate Karen? Shall we say in this case too: indeed, what is the point of the continued existence of this living corpse, unconscious and stripped of personality, merely because she is breathing? What’s the difference?

And now suppose we also agree to her death. He continues down the slope. But now we have a third case. A girl poisoned herself but did not sink into a coma, and therefore did not lose spontaneous movement and is breathing on her own, but because of the brain poisoning she has completely lost human intelligence. How shall we proceed now? Before us is a creature that biologically behaves to a large extent like a human being, but has lost the meaning of human personality. This girl is certainly a living human creature, but the essence of human personality has been taken from her. I spoke about this at the beginning of the article—that this has stricter sides and more lenient sides, depending on whether we identify the person with his biology or not.

I ask myself, and I ask you: where is the boundary between our decisions in these three cases? If the prohibition against taking human life ceases to be an absolute postulate that one must not question in any case, and it becomes subject to rationalization—to the question of when, nonetheless, it is permissible to take human life—then immediately the question arises: when is it forbidden to take human life? In other words, this is a slippery-slope argument.

Now again, a slippery-slope argument is quite hard to understand in terms of empirical clarification. What did the institutions determine? What did the institutions determine? Ask the authorized institutions; hold a referendum. Would Leibowitz accept it if I held a referendum there? Not the authorized institutions—let me do a referendum of the majority of the public, okay? Whether they agree or don’t agree, and suppose most of them would agree to pull the plug on Karen’s respirator. I have no doubt Leibowitz would oppose that result. You’re right. Fine, it doesn’t matter—but he would oppose it. So if he would oppose it, what that means is that he’s not really trying to understand what society determined. In a moment I’ll explain why he nevertheless uses that terminology, but it seems to me he doesn’t mean to ask that.

And what about a child whose brain was not damaged externally but who is a complete idiot from birth? In him too, the constitutive element of human personality is effectively absent, even though biologically he is certainly a living human creature. He too is a terrible burden on the environment, because this creature cannot exist by his own power; he needs constant care all his life, and so on. And from there, of course, it is only one step to Hitler, who said that the mentally ill should be eliminated, because their lives have no value; their lives are not worthwhile even for themselves.

What is the conclusion from this whole line of thought? As we said, he shows the slippery slope. There are principles that have tremendous significance and great force as long as they are not challenged. But any challenge to them nullifies their meaning. One of these things is the postulate that it is forbidden to take human life. Again, there’s something problematic here. If you’re talking in terms of a slippery-slope argument, then say: you’re right, but since I don’t know where to draw the line, then I—what, I make a decree, I issue a rabbinic precaution. Meaning, despite all that, we don’t make this calculation. But to prove, on the basis of the slippery slope, that when you look for a rationalization of a value you have thereby nullified it—I don’t see why that’s true.

And if the value determines that it is forbidden to kill only a whole person, but mentally ill people are okay, then fine—that’s what the value determines. There I made a rationalization and everything is fine, and still that’s what society determined; that is the value, and that is what obligates. There’s no logical problem in that at all. You can’t prove anything against it. Unless—he assumes from the outset that of course it is forbidden to murder anyone. And if so, once you rationalize, then you are killing people whom one absolutely may not kill. But on what basis are you assuming that? If the result is only a product of convention, of institutional determination, then what’s the problem? Check and see what society determined, what the institutions determined.

[Speaker A] But he says it’s not convention; he says it’s non-rational. Exactly!

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But he starts—no, but he starts with it being convention. He said that at the beginning. I said this last time, and the time before that too: he talks about convention. He brings Maimonides on accepted conventions and Pascal and so on. He says explicitly that this thing is institutional—that is, an institutional determination, that’s all. It has no significance in itself. I’ll come back to that point in a moment.

And then he moves on to discuss this problem from a halakhic / of Jewish law perspective. So he talks about the laws of a dying person, where Jewish law says that “a dying person is considered alive in all respects”; yes, in the Shulchan Arukh: “Therefore, whoever hastens his death is a shedder of blood.” But afterward there is a qualification of the Rema. He says: it is forbidden to cause a person to die faster, even one who is dying for a long time; but if there is something causing a delay in the departure of the soul, it is permitted to remove it from there, and there is no act in this at all, only the removal of an impediment. If you don’t know: in Jewish law there is permission, in certain cases, to disconnect machines. And Jewish law makes that distinction. So he says that the Rema is basically making a distinction here between these two cases.

And therefore he says: it follows that if Karen’s case had come for decision not in an American court, but for decision according to Jewish law, we would have been permitted to do what the parents wanted and stop the treatment that has no benefit, and which in our feeling involves degrading the dying person, mental torment, a mockery of life, and so on. “And nevertheless, I am not comfortable with this conclusion.” And then he moves to the idea of “the law is so, but one does not instruct accordingly.” Meaning, basically, maybe that is the Jewish law, but a court cannot establish such a thing as a binding determination. And then he starts discussing whether if the doctor had done it on his own it would have been perfectly fine, but once he came to ask—the idiot—then you have to answer him that it is forbidden. Because again, this whole issue of the slippery slope keeps coming back.

But now—now I’m reading you the summary of the argument: “It follows that in this case, which pierces and descends to the abyss of human consciousness and conscience, both the parents were right and the judge was right. In my opinion, those who were not right were the doctors, who went to ask. If they were unable to decide on their own, then of necessity the judge had to rule for them as he ruled.” Meaning, to forbid them, because the institution has to establish that this is forbidden. You personally can make all kinds of decisions on your own. And that too is a very problematic claim. Why? If this is morality, then this is morality.

What would you say? Slippery slope. Meaning: I myself am not worried about a slippery slope. I’m not issuing rulings every day; I’m one individual person. Before me is one case, and in this case I rule. But if the court establishes it, that is already a statement to society as a whole. In society there can be borderline cases, and then the court has to be careful. It’s somewhat related: once a student of mine wrote an article in Tzohar arguing that one should use public transportation rather than private transportation because the latter is dangerous—car accidents and so on. But among other things he discussed there the difference between a public ruling and a private ruling. He brought a ruling of Rabbi Eliyahu: a military officer came to him and asked him—within the army, the rule is that only an officer is supposed to check the unloading of a weapon. After coming off guard duty, you remove the magazine, check with a flashlight that there’s no bullet in the chamber—only an officer does this. So what about the Sabbath? Is one allowed to turn on a flashlight to check it?

Now it’s obviously totally clear that the chance of anything dangerous happening here is zero. There is no chance at all. To violate the Sabbath over this by turning on a light would be complete absurdity. And what is the chance that there’s a bullet there? Check well with your finger, do this thing, no problem. No bullet is going to come out. There’s no chance. But what then? If you—you see, it’s exactly the same as Leibowitz. If you had done it yourself, one hundred percent correct. But since you came to ask, Rabbi Eliyahu told him: turn on the flashlight. Why? Because the moment he issues such a ruling, it’s already something exposed to many officers—I don’t know how many religious officers, doesn’t matter, but many officers. Now a small chance multiplied by many officers can indeed lead to real danger. Okay? There is a difference between a public statement and a private one.

And there too one could have said what Leibowitz says here: fool, why did you come to ask? Meaning, if you had done it yourself, it would have been fine. But now that you came to ask, you can’t expect a different answer. Obviously he’ll give you that answer, because really it isn’t okay. On the other hand, of course, there is Kant’s categorical imperative—we talked about that, yes—according to which it would come out that each officer separately should make the calculation and not go ask, and then he would check without a flashlight. But then if all the officers check without a flashlight, again you see that there is danger. There’s some kind of loop here. Well, these are known paradoxes. There is the voting paradox—I talked about that once in connection with the categorical imperative, yes, about going to vote in elections. My son—a debate with my son. I already talked about that. Okay.

[Speaker D] But then that’s also very problematic, because we know there are murderers. What do you mean? Someone takes it upon himself to kill such a patient here. That’s exactly what we’re opposing—what do you mean?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does Leibowitz say? Leibowitz says: right—as long as you do it quietly, do it; but if you come to ask, then that’s the answer you’ll get.

[Speaker D] Right, but the chance that he would give such an answer is zero.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know what exactly counts as a mistake here. It’s a big question what “mistake” even means when we’re talking about convention. But look, for example, at the wording: “in this case, which pierces and descends to the abyss of human consciousness and conscience.” What pierces, and what descends? It’s just a convention, all in all. We decided that murder is forbidden, so murder is forbidden. Why make such a drama out of it? It’s very hard to read this article through the conventional lens that ostensibly appears in it at the beginning.

[Speaker E] It descends to human psychology.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, he talks about psychology, but no, he doesn’t mean that.

[Speaker E] But this article ends in a slippery slope.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He doesn’t really think that, only—

[Speaker E] He can’t write it so that he—he can’t write what he really thinks.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] These are all pilpulim, that’s not true, that’s not what he means. I’m not buying it.

[Speaker E] Because if he says—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] People say this is obvious—but my son says the same thing, I know. That telling everyone to vote is obviously what one needs to say, but whoever says “go vote” certainly doesn’t himself go vote, because he’s rational.

[Speaker F] But Rabbi, you really don’t think that about them.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re only telling us that in order to preach to us. Of course, yes—Kant established the categorical imperative; obviously he himself murdered whomever he wanted, he just set rules for everyone else so the world would run properly. So basically his claim is that this is again something between a slippery slope and an empirical clarification of what society really determined.

After that he talks about abortion, for example—the same thing. Meaning, abortion, the prohibition on aborting a fetus, is the next stage on the slope. And there supposedly people—I talked about this once, yes, about a friend of my friend, I think I told this story—he was in an interview before medical school. He was a graduate of a hesder yeshiva at some stage, and in the interview before beginning medical studies they said to him: we see that you’re a religious young man—what will you do in the case of an induced abortion? In the interview, before studies. So he gave them a wonderful answer. Actually afterward I spoke to him and he said it was close—the story is nice, but it wasn’t exactly that, anyway. So according to the story he said to them: if you mean a problem of Jewish law, I’ll sell the knife to a gentile. But if the problem is moral, I have no idea what I’ll do. What will you do? You, the interviewers, yes?

Meaning, they have this assumption that this is some crazy religious obsession, as if this issue belongs only to religious people. Fine—if it’s just some crazy religious obsession, no problem. We have very well-developed halakhic / of Jewish law techniques, we can manage with that. But do you really think there’s no moral problem here? You have no problem with it? Only I have a problem with it? This thing is outrageous. I mean, have we really become so coarse about this matter that it has turned into some crazy religious obsession? I mean, “a woman’s right over her body,” yes—various foolish arguments of that kind. These are arguments that basically ignore the fact that there is another living creature here that you are killing. What do you mean? What does “a woman’s right over her body” mean? I have rights in my home, over my house. So there’s a child there who eats too much—what, I won’t keep him, so I shoot him in the head and that’s it? I have rights over my house, no? There’s something terribly problematic in that argument.

If you combine that with the fact that the fetus is not a person, and so on—fine, that’s really how Jewish law works too. But that argument in itself, of a woman’s right over her body, is simply incomprehensible nonsense. What is this? Clearly that’s what he assumes. Fine, if you assume that, that’s something else—but you’re not saying it.

[Speaker E] Fine, that’s an obvious implicit assumption.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so the question is where the line passes and what the issue is.

[Speaker E] The question is a good one. By the way, even those who say it—they won’t say, “okay, he’s already coming out, the head is already emerging, fine, let’s take him down.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that—they—

[Speaker E] They certainly won’t say that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. Hitler said that the mentally ill are also not human beings. By the way, I don’t know whether the mentally ill are more human than a fetus; on the contrary, at least the fetus has the potential to become a person—after he’s born he’ll be a full person. That mentally ill person will burden his surroundings to the end of his life. So what’s the problem with Hitler? He merely adopted the same view. There is something terribly problematic here. Political disputes sometimes push people into a situation where they’re not even aware of the problem in their own outlook. Because the religious prohibit it, it then becomes an article of faith that one must justify aborting children, because the religious say it’s forbidden. But people don’t understand that there is a real problem here; this is not a simple matter. You are talking about murder. I mean, this unbearable lightness regarding these issues.

Afterward he brings this point and says that in Jewish law, when we speak about a fetus that has not yet brought out its head, we need the law of a pursuer. And without that, it really would have been forbidden to kill him. Meaning, some formal justification is required, because simply saying “it’s forbidden to murder him” is intolerable, since you cannot determine the line of when it is a person and when it is not. Here he is simply mistaken. This is just against the Talmudic text. I don’t know—the Talmudic text itself raises the possibility that maybe it’s a pursuer, and then rejects it. And this is not the law of a pursuer. Because if it were the law of a pursuer, then even once it had brought out its head, it would have been permitted to kill it. Even an ordinary person who is pursuing may be killed; and a minor who is a pursuer, or an insane person who is a pursuer, may also be killed. This is not the law of a pursuer at all. Maimonides says… right, Maimonides says “it is like a pursuer.” So what does “like a pursuer” mean? That’s interesting; the Avnei Nezer talks about it there. But clearly he does not mean an actual pursuer—that’s obvious—because otherwise even once the head emerged you could kill it. That’s explicit in the Talmudic text. So here there is a distortion of the Talmudic text.

In general, this is what I said earlier: Leibowitz’s use of sources is not only illustrative—meaning, he’s not relying on them—but he also interprets them very flexibly. Meaning, he uses them as he wishes.

[Speaker E] Didn’t we say that it’s permitted to say something incorrect in order to prove something true?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Magen Avraham, yes. Not to say incorrect things in the name of a great person—not to say something incorrect. To say correct things in the name of a great person. Ah, in the name of the Talmudic text, okay.

[Speaker E] In any case, he also brings two opinions… what?

[Speaker F] I didn’t understand.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Magen Avraham in siman 156 raises a question, brings two opinions, brings two possibilities, and leaves it unresolved. Well okay, never mind—but there is such a Talmudic text. The man distorts sources completely freely.

[Speaker G] In general, or in this specific article?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In general. In general, yes. The man is not a great expert in halakhic / of Jewish law sources, and one has to be careful with his use of sources. Fine, all of this is only illustration, so it’s less critical, because it’s only illustration. But still—it annoys me every single time anew. Precisely because, as someone who identifies with many of the things he says, it annoys me even more. Because his listeners are bigger ignoramuses than he is, so he simply relies on that.

In any case… what? Did he think that too? What—that he was distorting? No, he didn’t know. No, I don’t think he distorted deliberately. He just didn’t know, or didn’t bother to check, or wasn’t a Torah scholar in the accepted sense. I don’t think it was… Anyway, in this connection I want to say what I do think Leibowitz means. Maybe just one more sentence at the end. There is the court ruling—that’s what I said: the things he delivered orally were after the ruling of the first instance and before the Supreme Court of New Jersey. But the writing he did was already after the ruling, at least if I understand correctly from what I read here. And then he writes: the Supreme Court of New Jersey reversed the decision and in effect permitted disconnecting this girl from the machines. He says as follows: “Concerning the blow of this ruling, with which I cannot agree, it is nevertheless very worthy of attention.” Why can’t he agree with it? That again is a question, yes? What’s the problem? If society determined it, then society determined it—why can’t you agree with it? What’s the problem? On the contrary: here you have an authorized institution telling you plainly what it determined. You don’t even need to carry out an interpretive inquiry to try and guess what the institutional determination in that place is. Here it is.

[Speaker C] Does it determine that through primary legislation? What? Through primary legislation of parliament?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not true. Not true. When there is what’s called statutory interpretation, when the court interprets the laws, that is like legislation. What’s the difference? The court is the body entrusted with interpreting the laws, and that too is by authority of the Knesset, or parliament, or congress—it doesn’t matter.

[Speaker H] The act closest to hearing public opinion, the opinion of—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The public, the referendum—

[Speaker H] Or elections…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. When you talk about an institutional determination, then an institutional determination is stated by parliament. That is what is accepted in our system today. After all, certainly so long as you haven’t held a referendum, that is the binding determination. And the interpretation of the court—that is the interpretation that determines according to the law. So if you’re looking for an institutional determination, this is exactly, it seems to me, a determination par excellence.

Rather, what? Clearly he does not mean that. I brought this in order to say what I do think he means. Many times he relates to basic assumptions, also in ethical contexts, as something arbitrary. Just so—that’s how it is, it’s not rational. What does “not rational” mean? Since he is a positivist—a positivist is a person who is willing to accept only things that have proof or precise definition and proof, okay, crudely speaking. So since he is a positivist, meaning, there is no proof here. And if there is no proof, then it is arbitrary. But on the other hand, as I’ve said many times, what is a proof? A proof is grounding something in basic assumptions. But by definition, basic assumptions have no proof, right? So it comes out that if you are a thoroughgoing positivist, then everything is arbitrary.

So obviously when you have something like geometry, you have a proof that the sum of the angles of a triangle is 180 degrees. What does “proof” mean? Proof means deriving it from the basic assumptions, from the axioms. But if you don’t accept the axioms because they have no proof, then what does it help you to prove the theorem on the basis of the axioms? Rather, if you really want to be a constructive positivist—that is, someone who does adopt claims and doesn’t remain in total skepticism—you have to accept the basic assumptions even though they have no proof. There are things that are self-evident. I have no proof for them, but that’s just how they are. One straight line passes between two points. Why? Because that’s how it is. I have no proof, but that’s how it is; it’s obvious. Someone who says otherwise doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And it is understood that it is true.

So what does that mean? Leibowitz would say: that’s arbitrary, that’s not rational, that’s convention. What do you mean “we agreed”? Nonsense. It’s obviously true; anyone who says otherwise is mistaken. But he doesn’t have, in his arsenal, in his toolbox, an expression with which to say that. Because in a positivist world, in a positivist conceptual toolbox, there is no such thing. Either it is rational and proven and fully defined, or it is nothing. But it seems to me that he himself doesn’t really mean that. He means what I’m saying, that’s what it seems to me. I even proved this once in an article in several places, through analysis of his words—while all his commentators talk about his arbitrariness, and that’s not correct. I don’t think he meant that.

What he calls arbitrary or non-rational means: it cannot be justified by a logical argument. Fine. Why? Because it is a basic assumption. You cannot justify it on the basis of a logical argument. Here, for example, he made a logical argument—an inference from the particular to the general, a logical argument—and derived from it an ethical statement. On what basis? On the basis of some basic assumption, values—that murder is forbidden. Right? So there is room in ethics too for logical arguments. Only the assumption of the logical argument has no proof. But that’s true in geometry too; it’s true in physics too; it’s true in everything. Therefore there is really no essential difference between ethics and dealing with facts. There too there are assumptions; here too there are assumptions. There too there is no possibility of justifying the assumptions; here too there is no possibility of justifying the assumptions. There too, after you accept the assumptions, you can raise arguments and derive conclusions from them, and here too you can raise arguments and derive conclusions from them. There is no real difference.

So rather—one second—when he says “arbitrary,” he means to say: it cannot be justified on the basis of a logical argument. That is what “arbitrary” means. He does not mean arbitrary in the sense of “I flipped a coin.” Arbitrary in the sense that it is certainly true—anyone who says otherwise is an idiot. It is obviously true, period. I am not willing to justify it. And that is what he means when he says that the moment you ask, or try to rationalize a value, it empties out. Because you don’t understand that a value obligates not because of some logical argument that grounds it. A value is true in itself, like an axiom in geometry. But his claim is that the value is true, not that the value is a convention.

Only what? He has no tools in his toolbox—he cannot bring it to speech, because he doesn’t know how even to formulate to himself what he thinks, because in his toolbox there is no such thing. Meaning, either it is a total consequence of a logical argument, or it is just a convention. He has no third option. So by way of negation, since there is no logical argument, then apparently it is a convention. I don’t think he means that. He himself understands that it is not true. “Pierces and descends to the depths,” as he said there—he means it in the moral sense as we mean it, not in the psychological sense. Because he understands that this thing is a value that it is unbearable to violate—the value of murder. But he doesn’t know how to explain it. He has no rationale, no rational argument. He cannot persuade someone who doubts it, and then he says he’ll just shoot him too. Meaning, these are expressions of the helplessness of a positivist.

And I think you can see this very often in Leibowitz: he does not decipher for himself where he himself stands. This is true, by the way, of many positivists, because many positivists never carried the reckoning through to the end—what follows from their view. After all, if you fully accept the assumption that only something based on a logical argument is acceptable, then you accept nothing, because there are always basic assumptions that you cannot ground on the basis of a logical argument.

[Speaker I] But he doesn’t have to accept everything. Meaning, he reduces the basic assumptions to the necessary minimum that has enough strength that… the prohibition against murder, or not? I don’t know. That are obvious to him. I don’t think this is positivism at the level of—meaning, that it’s ideal, that it’s all or nothing. He’s trying to reduce it to the minimum possible…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The question is whether the prohibition against murder is included in that minimum or not.

[Speaker I] It could be that it is.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly—that’s what I’m saying. No, no problem. I agree that the positivist—say—there is still something that distinguishes a positivist from someone who is not a positivist. For example, the need to put everything on a sharp definition; the need to distinguish between intuitions and psychological biases; the need not to adopt things casually; the need to try to prove something if it can be proved, and if it is not a basic assumption, to prove it. In all that I also share. The problem is that he takes that one extra step and says: okay, and that’s all there is. Meaning, there is nothing besides that. At that point I no longer agree.

[Speaker I] I accept that, but it could be that he has the same intuition—just as he has certain assumptions that are strong enough for him that he feels secure with them. So it could be that there are many such points where he is not sufficiently confident in them, as in his basic assumptions, so if he can’t transfer them into that set of basic assumptions, then he gives up. I don’t know how to explain it to you why, but it’s not not…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. No. So if you don’t—if you throw up your hands, then you don’t know. Period. What are you saying then? That it’s not so even though I can’t justify it? Not “even though I can’t justify it”—that’s exactly what I’m talking about. So yes, it does belong to the basic assumptions you accept without justification. Decide—that’s exactly the point. But I’ll say again: my feeling, many times, is that Leibowitz is talking here—I told you about my study partner, when we were learning and I started explaining something to him in this kind of way… He says, “Without your hands. Tie your hands behind your back and now explain it to me without your hands. Say what you—what you think. Why?” Because sometimes when you run out of words you start… waving your hands, because you don’t know how to explain. You’re trying to convey to the person you’re talking with something you’re convinced is true, but you can’t find a way to prove it to him, to justify it in a way that will persuade him, so you get excited and start moving your hands around, which is a substitute for words. My feeling is that this is… What? And in that sense still… No, that’s true, yes. But I’m not trying to say that if I can’t explain something, then it isn’t true. But many times a person chooses alternatives for himself because of a feeling of helplessness, and I think this sharp arbitrariness in Leibowitz is the product of that same feeling of helplessness. Meaning, he’s standing in front of people who ask him, “Wait a second, why is murder forbidden? What’s the problem? This woman’s life has no value—let’s disconnect her from the machines.” It’s obvious to him that that’s not right. But in his toolbox he doesn’t know… how can I talk to someone when I can’t produce a logical argument that proves to him that he’s wrong? There’s no such thing. So he has to formulate it somehow in terms that belong to his toolbox, so he starts with convention, and after that he moves to the slippery slope—which in my view is not compatible. Meaning, those are two arguments that don’t really speak to each other. And all kinds of things like that—it’s helplessness.

[Speaker H] Why isn’t the slippery slope argument logical? What?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why isn’t the slippery slope argument logical? It is logical, but it depends on its assumptions. It has assumptions, like every logical argument, and what’s the assumption? That if you end up killing someone whom it is forbidden to kill, then it’s better not to kill someone who does deserve to be killed. And how do you know that? That too has an assumption. Every logical argument has assumptions. A slippery slope is also an argument based on assumptions.

[Speaker J] Fine, if Leibowitz had started his article with the slippery slope, would you have had no problem with it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no. Then I understand that he’s raising a logical argument. It has assumptions. A slippery slope is an argument; it has assumptions. The fact that there are assumptions doesn’t disqualify the argument. Every argument has assumptions.

[Speaker J] So why did he start with convention?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because that’s exactly the point. That’s why from this contradiction I’m trying to bring proof for what I’m saying—that he doesn’t really mean conventions. You understand? Meaning, he himself doesn’t really mean conventions. I think it’s helpless hand-waving, in my opinion. Yes.

[Speaker F] It specifically seems to me that yes—I think the slippery slope argument actually fits very well together with conventions. Meaning, he’s sort of telling them: look, after all… if there were logic, if there were a rational reason why murder is forbidden, then we could discuss and determine when it’s murder and when it’s not. And because there wasn’t so much concern about a slippery slope… then if someone wanted to go one step further, we’d tell him no—the reasoning that applied in the previous case doesn’t apply to the next one.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But now if there’s concern about a slippery slope, you’ll end up killing someone who shouldn’t be killed. On what basis do you know he shouldn’t be killed?

[Speaker F] On the basis of the arbitrary decision,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But if you have an arbitrary decision, then what’s the problem? Follow the arbitrary decision. Unless there was no such decision.

[Speaker F] But he’s telling them, as if: think—we made some kind of decision, and that decision, for our arbitrary reasons, is important to us, that we not murder.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that’s not his discourse—that’s exactly the point. You’re turning everything into some detached mathematics. But it’s not detached mathematics. He flies to America to talk about this with Nozick and goes into it all the way down to the depths, with all his pathos. Meaning, he doesn’t talk about it that way; he talks about this issue as an acute problem, an essential problem. What’s dangerous? What’s the problem? At most they’ll kill someone—don’t make a big deal out of everything. What’s the problem? What difference does it make if you slap him? What difference does it make if, I don’t know, you insult him? Steal a shekel from him? No problem—after all, everything is conventions, no problem.

[Speaker F] Fine, they’re conventions, and this convention is very important to us.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? What? In what sense? Psychologically? So again you’ve gone back to psychology. That’s the question: are you reducing everything to psychology? So I’m saying that I don’t think it’s right to reduce everything to psychology.

[Speaker F] I’m saying that in terms of internal consistency, it seems to me to fit. I don’t know what he intended.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Internal consistency? You can propose an explanation that makes a psychological reduction of everything he says. Of course. There was also the earlier explanation—that everything he says here is for the idiots listening to him, but he himself doesn’t mean it at all; he only means that they shouldn’t kill. That too is an explanation. No problem—there are lots of explanations. The question is what the correct explanation is. I don’t think an explanation should be psychology, unless you really think morality is psychology. But if you don’t think that, then that also isn’t a reasonable explanation of how Leibowitz behaves. I think in many places you can see this. The arguments… I think I once talked about this, about two kinds of “because that’s how it is.” Right? Sometimes someone asks me why, and I say, “Because that’s how it is.” And sometimes “because that’s how it is” means simply arbitrarily—because I feel like it, I’m the one with the power, or whatever, I feel like it. And sometimes “because that’s how it is” means: look, I don’t know how to explain it to you, but it’s simply true, and if you don’t understand it, then take it from me. Meaning, some desperate attempt to tell a person: accept it even though I have no reasons. But “because that’s how it is,” like “between two points there passes one straight line.” Someone asks me why. Maybe three and a half? I say, why? How do you know not? He says, “Because that’s how it is.” Because as if—I don’t have explanations, I don’t know how to convince him, but that “because that’s how it is” doesn’t mean… that “because that’s how it is” means there’s something here that I don’t know how to ground in a logical argument. But that doesn’t mean it’s arbitrary. Those are two kinds of “because that’s how it is.” And Leibowitz uses “because that’s how it is” in both senses interchangeably. Meaning, sometimes he says it in the first sense, and sometimes in the second sense, and he himself doesn’t understand when he’s doing it this way and when that way. At least that’s how it seems to me. Because otherwise a lot of things with him really aren’t understandable. Fine, with all his crusades against immorality—like ruling over another people, all those things—together with the view that morality is of course an atheistic category; we talked about that when I started discussing the subject of morality. There’s something here—clearly morality matters to him. That’s not a question. Otherwise, fine, so there’s someone who signed an agreement and we won’t keep it—why are you making such a big deal out of everything? Do you know how many people in this society don’t keep agreements? Are you going to wage a crusade against each one of them? What’s the problem? Rather, there are certain agreements that it’s obvious to you must be kept—not because of an obligation to keep agreements, but because it is a moral obligation not to murder. Meaning, I think that’s obvious. But what is it? It’s a clear example of positivist helplessness, the helplessness of a person who bends himself too harshly to logic. And then he prevents himself from making arguments that are not on a logical basis. And then he sounds terribly arbitrary, because what do you mean—if it’s not logical, why should it be true? But that’s not rational. Non-rational does not mean untrue. Non-rational means not amenable to rationalization. That’s what I want to say, and it’s true. Rationalization means reducing something to something else, right? Not reducible to something else—and that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Fine, so that’s regarding Leibowitz. Over time I kind of drifted. What I wanted to do now was talk about Nefesh HaChayim—that’s on the other side of the page—but I won’t have time to do that now. Maybe another time, next time. So what I’ll start now maybe is the meaning of what comes out of this picture we’ve seen so far—the meaning of values. If indeed the conclusion is that values are the result of observation, or not? What?

[Speaker D] Why not? Cognition. Cognition, cognition.

[Speaker C] Cognition, not observation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah—observation, cognition—I mean not observation with the eyes. I mean it’s not something arbitrary, something where there are two possibilities. I have no proof—that’s what I think—but I have no proof against someone who thinks otherwise. Again, I have no proof, but it’s obvious he’s wrong. There are two possibilities: either to see it as convention, as some arbitrary thing that stems from how I’m built, or an institutional determination, or that whole family of arguments—or to see it as the result of observation. Where do we get with this? Here—what emerges from this matter, from the fact that values cannot be rationalized—that’s what leads to these two possibilities. You can’t rationalize them; you can’t reduce them to a logical, rational argument. So now, what this actually means is that ethics is structured in a way similar to geometry. At its base sit what we call values. Values are the ethical axioms. Okay? And from those axioms you can derive forbidden and permitted. Obligation, forbidden, and permitted—let’s say three things. Obligation, forbidden, and permitted. Right? But that derivation is done with entirely logical tools—no problem at all. The assumptions are assumptions accepted as true in themselves, exactly as in geometry. So where is the difference after all? As I said at the beginning, there are two differences. One difference is how the observation that yields the assumptions is made—whether it’s with the eyes, or with the mind’s eye, or whatever it may be. And the second thing is the nature of the assumptions. Factual assumptions are a neutral statement; they have no charge, they don’t say anything about whether I should do or not do something. Value assumptions, ethical assumptions, are assumptions charged with a practical load. Meaning: forbidden to do, obligatory to do, permitted to do—that’s not a neutral assumption. When you say “murder is forbidden,” that’s not a description. There is a descriptive sentence, “murder is forbidden,” meaning that in some society or other there is some rule in force where they say murder is forbidden—that’s a description. When I say the sentence “murder is forbidden,” I do not mean to give a description here. I mean that it is a normative command. That command has a different character than “between two points there passes one straight line,” or “every event has a cause,” or various other assumptions.

[Speaker E] Is the form of observation identical? Is the mind’s eye the same mind’s eye?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Both for facts and for assumptions? No, sometimes for facts it’s the eyes of the flesh.

[Speaker E] Basic assumptions—you can’t.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so I’m saying: in geometry, no; but in other areas where yes. I can look here and say, fine, this table is brown. Now I’ll derive a conclusion from that.

[Speaker E] But it’s based on prior assumptions

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] prior assumptions that you don’t—

[Speaker E] can see,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s say I trust my eyes.

[Speaker E] No, fine, what difference does that make? It matters that the basic assumptions there too…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, now you’re going down to skeptical levels—you’re right.

[Speaker E] Not skeptical—about non-logical assumptions.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who said you believe your eyes? Those are skeptical levels. Fine, true, I agree. But I’m saying, even if we take it on the non-skeptical level, what I see is simple—it’s simply true. Okay, so there is an observational basis. So I’m saying: here it’s the eyes, and there it’s the mind’s eye. Another thing is the nature of what comes out of this observation. Here it’s a neutral fact, and there it’s a normative fact—of forbidden, permitted, obligation, and the like. Now what happens is that a problem is created when we talk about value conflict. And how do we relate to conflicts? As I mentioned Sartre, with Sartre’s student, with the dilemma whether to go to de Gaulle—that is, to the Free French army—or stay with his mother and help his mother. So a dilemma of that sort, because of the Leibowitzian picture—or not specifically Leibowitzian, because of the picture I’ve described up to now—there’s a problem deciding. Why is there a problem deciding? Because once a value is something that by definition cannot be rationalized, then how do I now decide in a place where there are two conflicting values? Just as I can’t qualify a certain value, I also can’t determine whether it is more or less than another value. On what basis? If I can rationalize something, then the rationalization will tell me whether it is more or less, whether it carries more weight or less weight. But if this thing is simply just so—and it simply has to be done because it has to be done, period. Fine, so on the one hand murder is forbidden, the value of human life on one side, and the obligation of Sabbath observance on the other. So how can I now decide preserving life versus Sabbath? If one of those things—if one of them is not a value but something that can be rationalized—say it comes to achieve some goal. And let’s say that Sabbath observance too comes to achieve some goal. Then I can see which of them achieves the goal better and determine the ruling between them, which is more important than which. The ability to rank values depends on my being able to rationalize them. But if a value stands on its own, it is true because it is true, period—then you have no possibility of judging that value from the outside, of weighing it, of determining how important it is. So how will you determine what to do when there is a conflict?

[Speaker E] Why weigh it? Can’t I see its weight?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait—that’s where I’m heading. So ostensibly, once we say that a value is something that cannot be rationalized, a problem is created: how do we solve value conflicts? How do we build a scale of values? Because when we solve value conflicts, what we’re actually supposed to do is build a scale. Which value stands above which value. And then if I’m equipped with such a scale, the moment a conflict arises, we say: fine, value A conflicts with value B; value A is higher on the scale, so it overrides value B. No problem. So really the question is how to build a value scale. Because when I build a value scale, what am I really assuming? I’m assuming there’s a hierarchy—value A, B, C, D. Which really means I have some way to judge or assess values on the basis of something more fundamental. Then I say this is more important, this is less important, this even less important, because I can assess them on the basis of what they come to achieve. But if a value doesn’t come to achieve anything—that’s the meaning of rationalization, that the value has no goals, it doesn’t come to achieve something, apropos achieving a better life. A value doesn’t come to achieve a better life. The fact that it achieves a better life is an indication that it is a value; it is not the reason. It’s an indication. The definition of why these are moral values is that they make life look better. But it’s not that my value-obligation stems from my wanting a better life. At least in the Kantian conception. So that basically means that if I can’t rationalize values, then I also can’t rank them. And if I can’t rank them, I can’t build a value scale. If I can’t build a value scale, I can’t decide value conflicts. And here I’ll say it in one sentence: if we understand that this really is not a conventional result, or arbitrary, or I don’t know what—not sure where it comes from—but rather the result of some kind of observation, then it is definitely possible to continue this line and say that the observation yields not only the value—what is right and what is not right—but also how right it is. I already hinted that the result of this observation is not a neutral factual statement. It is a charged statement—a charged statement, sorry. It is a statement that says: must do, must not do, permitted to do. It’s not merely a descriptive sentence, a neutral sentence. Now, if it tells me that something must be done—must be done—it can also tell me to what degree it must be done, how important it is. Therefore this option—of seeing conscience as a kind of observation, or values as the result of observations—can also explain how we nevertheless build a scale of values. Otherwise the value scale too would have to be an institutional determination. Meaning, the same institution that determined the values would also tell me what ranks above what. Now usually institutions don’t do such detailed work. So that’s why it doesn’t happen—there are no such determinations.

[Speaker E] And therefore—and also that they are shared, that they’re of the same type. What? And also that they are shared, that they’re of the same type.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I also—right, we talked about that when I started speaking—what did we talk about, now I remember. We talked about Torah and morality. I said these are two values of different kinds, so what happens when there’s a conflict between them? I said that on the conceptual level it doesn’t really matter. Because even values of the same type are still two things that don’t speak to each other in the Leibowitzian picture. And if you say it’s the result of observation, then maybe even values of different kinds can already be ranked one against the other. Because they still have some kind of—

[Speaker E] They have to have a common basis, otherwise you can’t rank them.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes—but a basis not in the sense of my thought, but in the idea itself, in what I am observing. So I’m saying that the ability to rank and make decisions as well can be based only on that observational assumption, as opposed to the various kinds of conventions.

Halakha and Ethics, Lesson 11

Table of Contents

Summary

General Overview

The Problem of Grounding Values and the Institutional Solution

The Alternative of Recognition: The Idea of the Good, Truth and Falsehood in Ethics

Rejection of the Pragmatic Proof and the Naturalistic Fallacy

“That’s How You’re Built” versus Perception: The Ability to Grasp versus Creating the Content

Education, Faith, and Blindness: Correlation Is Not a Necessary Sign

Leibowitz, Sources, and the “Illustration” Position

The Prohibition of Murder, Karen, and Traffic Laws: The Postulate and the Slippery Slope

Criticism of the Consistency of the Institutional Argument versus Logical Arguments

Jewish law: A Dying Person, the Rema, “We Do Not Rule That Way,” and the Difference Between Public and Private Rulings

Abortion and the Political Radicalization of Moral Discourse

Positivism, “Arbitrariness,” and Two Kinds of “Just Because”

Values as Axioms and Ethics as Geometry

Value Conflict, a Scale of Values, and a Proposal for Decision through Recognition

Full Transcript

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Table of Contents

Summary

General Overview

The Problem of Grounding Values and the Institutional Solution

The Alternative of Recognition: The Idea of the Good, Truth and Falsehood in Ethics

Rejection of the Pragmatic Proof and the Naturalistic Fallacy

“That’s How You’re Built” versus Perception: The Ability to Grasp versus Creating the Content

Education, Faith, and Blindness: Correlation Is Not a Necessary Sign

Leibowitz, Sources, and the “Illustration” Position

The Prohibition of Murder, Karen, and Traffic Laws: The Postulate and the Slippery Slope

Criticism of the Consistency of the Institutional Argument versus Logical Arguments

Jewish law: A Dying Person, the Rema, “We Do Not Rule That Way,” and the Difference Between Public and Private Rulings

Abortion and the Political Radicalization of Moral Discourse

Positivism, “Arbitrariness,” and Two Kinds of “Just Because”

Values as Axioms and Ethics as Geometry

Value Conflict, a Scale of Values, and a Proposal for Decision through Recognition

Full Transcript

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