What Is a Commandment? – Lesson 3

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ll judge that in a moment. No—if there’s a way to test something and if there’s a way to answer it, that’s not the same thing. Meaning, you’re asking whether there’s an empirical way to clarify it; I think not. But is there a way to answer it? I think yes. Why? Because very often we mix up the question of whether there is a correct answer with the question of whether I have a way to get to it. And then there are people who mix up the question of whether I have a way to get to it with the question of whether there is a scientific or observational way to get to it. That’s yet another confusion. These are two confusions, and I don’t agree with either of them. These are three different questions.

There’s a passage in Berakhot, page 5. Is he with us? Let’s bring him in. So the Talmud in Berakhot says: Rabbi Zeira said, and some say Rabbi Hanina bar Pappa said, “Come and see that the measure of the Holy One, blessed be He, is not like the measure of flesh and blood. The measure of flesh and blood is that when a person sells an item to his fellow, the seller is sad and the buyer is happy. But the Holy One, blessed be He, is not so: He gave the Torah to Israel and rejoiced, as it is said: ‘For I have given you a good acquisition; do not forsake My Torah.’” How do we know that He rejoiced over this? That’s the previous question we asked. “For I have given you a good acquisition; do not forsake My Torah.” Who says He was happy? Maybe He was shedding tears while saying it. The melody of the sentence probably tells you that, right? There are things you don’t see with your eyes—you feel them in the music.

Okay, so Rabbi Kook, in Ein Ayah—yes, there’s also on Berakhot and on Shabbat—says as follows: “It may also be said that one should note that this trait, that the seller is sad, applies only to a seller. But one who gives a gift gives generously, and not because of pressure.” Right? A seller often sells because he’s under pressure—he needs the money—so he sells, and he’s sad to part with the item. Because after all, you can ask: why is the seller sad and the buyer happy? The seller gets money and the buyer gets merchandise. They both want the deal, otherwise they wouldn’t make it, right? So why is the seller sad? Exactly—that’s another question. But beyond that, very often the seller sells because of pressure. In principle we’re not talking about a merchant; a merchant isn’t like that. But someone who sells something of his own, usually it’s because he’s pressed, okay?

So he says: this trait, that the seller is sad, applies only to a seller; but one who gives a gift gives with a generous eye. A person who gives a gift gives because he wants to give. There’s no pressure there, right? If so, how can we compare this to a seller and say that it is unlike the measure of flesh and blood? After all, the Holy One, blessed be He, gave us the Torah as a gift, not as a sale, and in the case of a gift even flesh and blood is happy, not only the Holy One, blessed be He. So why do you say that the measure of the Holy One, blessed be He, is unlike the measure of flesh and blood?

“However, there is a great insight here in the outlook concerning the completeness of His goodness, may He be blessed, and the obligation of gratitude for it. As the pious author explained in Duties of the Heart, every benefactor among human beings has in it an intention for his own benefit.” Here we’ve reached the focal point. Duties of the Heart assumes that if I benefit someone, there’s also some benefit to myself in it, otherwise I wouldn’t do it. And here he wants to argue that with the Holy One, blessed be He, it’s not like that. That’s the difference between the Holy One, blessed be He, and human beings. “Except for the goodness of God, may He be blessed—God’s beneficence—which is only for the sake of the created beings.” Meaning, He does not do it out of His own interest, only for the sake of the creatures.

“And indeed, that is the nature of the matter: the seller is sad because he does not want to give the item to someone else. And if sometimes he is happy because of the money he received, in relation to the money he is called the buyer, and the buyer the seller.” Meaning, in relation to the money, I’m not the seller, I’m the recipient. When we say that the seller is sad, it means he is sad that the object left him and went to the other person. The fact that he received the money—for the money, he is the receiver, not the seller. On that aspect he really is happy. That’s another explanation of what you said earlier: he would prefer to remain with both the money and the merchandise. Like I said this morning, when I quoted Rabbi Kook saying that it is better to fail through baseless love than through baseless hatred—and I said it would be better not to fail in either.

“And indeed, regarding the giving of the money, the buyer is sad, because every person naturally pulls benefit toward himself. Rather, he chooses what appears to him the lesser loss—giving the money—in order to attain the greater good, which is the object. And according to this, with one who gives a gift as well, the sages said: ‘If the recipient had not given him satisfaction, he would not have given him a gift.’ So there is in this something that may be called like a sale.” Why do you give someone a gift? It adds something to you, it helps you in some way, otherwise you wouldn’t give the gift. And this is that satisfaction, yes? Just as a woman can be betrothed by a gift to an important person. Meaning, if she gives a gift to an important person, she becomes betrothed through that. Why? Because the very fact that she gives him a gift actually gives her something.

Now here the claim is more far-reaching. She asks: with an important person, fine—it really does give me something; my status is elevated by giving a gift to an important person. But here the claim is that in every gift to any person there is some kind of satisfaction for me, otherwise I wouldn’t give.

There’s a book published by Resling that says even a stopped clock shows the correct time twice a day. There are useful things in Resling too. So there’s a book there called The Gift by Marcel Mauss, a French philosopher from the nineteenth century, I think. And basically his main thesis—and he goes through it sociologically, anthropologically, showing it in all kinds of different and strange societies—is that a gift is a kind of sale. You always give it in exchange for something else. There are no gifts that are an altruistic act. A gift always involves some return that you receive.

That’s why at weddings, when you ask yourself how much of a gift to bring him, very often people ask: wait, how much did he give me at my wedding? And they go by that. What lies behind that is basically that a gift is not really a gift. A gift creates a kind of expectation. It’s not funny; first of all, that’s an empirical claim. But many of them also see it as a value claim—there’s nothing wrong with it. Meaning, that’s the idea: a gift is always given because there’s something you get from it, otherwise you wouldn’t give it. Why would you give for no reason? You have some reason. That’s the claim.

And therefore he says: there is in it something that may be called like a sale. So in effect, a gift too is a kind of sale. That’s why a gift appears in Choshen Mishpat, by the way. Why is a gift in Choshen Mishpat? It should have been in Yoreh De’ah. Why is it in Choshen Mishpat? It’s not a transaction. But it is—gift-giving is a transaction. Right. Even though in the laws of sale it is separate from the laws of acquisition and gift, it appears in the same book.

“And it turns out that he too is essentially sad on account of the giving, except that he is happy that in any case he paid for the satisfaction he received. But the Holy One, blessed be He, gave the Torah to Israel and called it an acquisition—‘I have given you a good acquisition; do not forsake My Torah’—language of purchase. Meaning: just as in a purchase, the seller was under no prior obligation to give, but in a purchase there is consideration, and the consideration motivates the giving. But with regard to Him, may He be blessed, there is no cause of receiving, heaven forbid, for everything is from Him. If so, in His giving He is truly like a seller, in the sense of seller, and not in the sense of buyer at all.” Meaning, you are only a seller, and since there is no consideration, there is no aspect of you as a buyer. You are only a seller. And in this respect, the Holy One, blessed be He, differs from flesh and blood. With flesh and blood, every gift is really a sale, while with the Holy One, blessed be He, there can be a gift that is not a sale. Meaning, He only gives and receives no return at all. He is not a buyer in any sense; you are only a seller, and since there is no consideration, there is no aspect of you as a buyer. You are only a seller.

And in this respect the Holy One, blessed be He, differs from flesh and blood. With flesh and blood, every gift is really a sale, while with the Holy One, blessed be He, there can be a gift that is not a sale: you only give and receive no return for it. Not so with other sellers, who also have the category of buyer within them; and each one’s joy is only on account of his aspect as buyer. But the whole joy of the Holy One, blessed be He, is only to bestow and to benefit the created beings. And these matters deserve reflection, with God’s help.

Okay, so that’s basically what Rabbi Kook writes. There’s an assumption here—he says that at least with human beings there is no such thing as an altruistic action. It’s a little surprising to hear that from Rabbi Kook, right? There is no such thing as an altruistic action. He says that whenever you do something for someone else’s benefit, you gain something from it; otherwise you wouldn’t do it. Okay? A bit surprising, and to me I’d even say disappointing.

[Speaker B] Not generally, no? No, not generally.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it were only generally, then there wouldn’t be a difference between the Holy One, blessed be He, and flesh and blood; there would just be a difference between two different acts of flesh and blood. No—he says always, not generally. No, if you say that the Holy One, blessed be He, does it always, then you have no proof, because “I have given you a good acquisition” is about the giving of the Torah. Who says it’s always? Specific acts—even human beings have specific acts. He’s saying this is essential: no, it cannot be otherwise. And that’s also what the Duties of the Heart that he quotes says: no, a person would not do a kindness if it didn’t give him something.

Fine, that’s a claim. By the way, this is a very deep intuition for many people. I don’t know—let each person check himself—but a great many people think there is no such thing as an altruistic action. No such thing. When you benefit someone, in pure altruism, whenever you benefit someone there is always something you get from it. That’s why, for example, all these critiques of those who donate—yes, in the headlines—businesspeople and the like who donate for publicity, or donate to receive recognition and appreciation and so on. So very often people say, look, everyone is like that. Basically no one gives in a completely pure way. Leave them alone; the main thing is that it’s being channeled in a positive direction. Why are you getting into their kishkes? Good luck to you. The only difference is that you don’t have the means to do what they do, that’s all.

There’s a lot of truth in that. Meaning, not the whole truth, but there is truth in it. The point is that there’s this assumption that you don’t do an act without some benefit. Now I just want you to understand the meaning of that statement. The meaning of that statement is basically that there is no such thing as a commandment done for its own sake. When a person performs a commandment, why does he do it? Because it is the truth. “Do the truth because it is truth”—remember Maimonides? There’s no such thing as doing the truth because it is truth. Clearly, if I do it, I probably got something from it, otherwise I wouldn’t have done it. Maybe the satisfaction of doing the truth—but even the satisfaction of doing the truth is a kind of return. To do the truth because it is truth is not for the sake of the satisfaction in doing the truth, but because it is truth. To do the truth just like that.

Wait—so you’re saying there’s more for-its-own-sake and less for-its-own-sake. Fine. But totally for-its-own-sake service—there is no such thing. That’s the claim. You can say it’s very much for its own sake, fine, okay, but it’s not a commandment done entirely for its own sake. There is no such thing as a commandment done entirely for its own sake. That’s what comes out of this whole approach.

I don’t agree at all. It even upsets me. I mean, obviously there are people who in principle can—I never know exactly when this is true even for myself, I can’t always know whether it’s really clean or not clean, and certainly not in the case of others. But I’m not willing to accept this sweeping, a priori disqualification that says there is no such thing as an altruistic act. Whenever you do something, you gain; there is some fulfillment of your own interest. I don’t agree. I don’t agree.

I think that on the principled level a person is required to do an altruistic act, to do the truth because it is truth. We don’t always live up to that. Maybe we almost never live up to that. There are different levels, as I said—ninety percent for the sake of truth, seventy percent for the sake of truth. But I do think that in principle this is not something locked off from human beings. There is such a thing as an altruistic act. That’s the claim.

I’ll bring you an interesting anecdote, one that is really relevant to these very days. This whole business is a bit relevant to these days. There are the verses in the book of Jonah, at the end of the book there, about the kikayon plant. Did we talk about this? We didn’t talk about this. Here I don’t remember mentioning it at some point. I think the entire book of Jonah—at least I think so—basically revolves around this point.

The Holy One, blessed be He, sends Jonah to Nineveh to bring them to repentance, and Jonah rebels on the theological level. He says: what do you mean? If they sinned, let them get what’s coming to them. That’s their argument. Meaning, it’s not that Jonah just doesn’t feel like going there, or that he’s a prophet and that’s it—no. He has a principled dispute with the whole thing. He says, why should I? Why call out to them? If that’s what they did, let them take the punishment they deserve.

And then the Holy One, blessed be He, takes him through the whole saga he goes through there in the book. At the end he gets to the kikayon, and “he asked for his soul to die,” yes? “And the Lord God appointed a kikayon plant, and it rose above Jonah to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. And Jonah rejoiced over the kikayon with great joy. And God appointed a worm at dawn the next day, and it struck the kikayon so that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun rose, that God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat upon Jonah’s head, and he fainted, and he asked for his soul to die, and said: Better is my death than my life. And God said to Jonah: Is it good for you to be angry over the kikayon? And he said: It is good for me to be angry, unto death. And the Lord said: You had pity on the kikayon, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came in a night and perished in a night. And shall I not have pity on Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than one hundred and twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”

Yes—a fortiori. You had pity on the kikayon, for which you did not labor and did not make it grow; it was there one day and gone the next. Here there is an entire city with people and animals, an entire reality that I created and did labor over and made grow, so to speak—and you want me not to have pity on it? On the face of it, that’s a ridiculous a fortiori argument, right? What does the Sabbatical year have to do with beating? Meaning, Jonah did not pity the kikayon; he pitied himself. He needed the kikayon to give him shade. Right? So what kind of a fortiori argument is this—“You had pity on the kikayon, and shall I not have pity on Nineveh, that great city”?

How did Rabbi Kook begin? The Holy One, blessed be He, needs nothing from us. So if He gives us something, it is apparently an altruistic gift. He gets no return from us, right? So then Jonah didn’t pity the kikayon; he pitied himself. Like the comedians say: the fisherman loves fish? Then why does he catch them? He loves himself, not the fish. Right? So this a fortiori argument is a ridiculous a fortiori argument.

There are two possible answers. Either it’s a mistake in God’s interpretation, or it’s a mistake in Jonah’s interpretation, right? Those are the two possibilities, there aren’t any more. The mistake in Jonah’s interpretation—both are interesting, by the way, because both of these mistakes touch on a very deep point, even though they are opposites and lead to opposite conclusions. The mistake in Jonah’s interpretation is a mistake of political interpretation; political commentators always get this wrong. Once you point to Jonah’s interest, that means he isn’t pure. Right? The kikayon gave him shade. So don’t tell me that he loves the kikayon, that he has pity on the kikayon. He wants the shade for himself; he pities himself. Who told you that? Why did you say—

[Speaker B] that he had pity on the kikayon? “It is good for me to be angry, unto death.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Sure, but the Holy One, blessed be He, says, “You had pity on the kikayon.” So who told you that Jonah really had pity on himself and not on the kikayon? The fact that Jonah has an interest doesn’t mean he acts because of that interest. There’s a difference between establishing that there is an interest and establishing that… you know, even in bribery cases, it’s not enough to establish that you received something in return. You have to prove that you did it for that return and that it was agreed upon. Right? And political commentators always, when they interpret an action of a party or a person or whatever it may be, immediately they point to his interest and why he did it, which may be true. But that doesn’t mean the person did it because of the interest, or only because of the interest. It could be that he did it because he really thinks it’s right, and besides that it also happens to be in his interest. A loaded example, I don’t know, yes, people always say that Bibi delays, as if neutralizes, hostage deals in order to please his coalition partners. A baseless claim. It’s baseless factually too, but beyond the factual absurdity of it, what’s wrong with pleasing his coalition partners? There is a government whose outlook is that outlook, right? And a government with that outlook has to formulate a position with the agreement of all the components of the government. Now, if their view is that it’s not right to make such a deal—we won’t get into who’s right right now—but if their view is that it’s not right to make such a deal, then they decide not to make a deal. What, every action of the coalition is to please the coalition’s components? But that’s not pleasing their interest; it’s pleasing their outlook. They really think this is the right way to act. So what’s the problem with that? That’s how decisions should be made. If he weren’t accepting that himself and just ignored them, they’d immediately accuse him: wait, what are you, a sole ruler? You don’t take the coalition into account? Always this stupidity. No, of course—and I’m saying, leave aside what they want, that again doesn’t matter. And I’m saying, the argument is incorrect. You want to—draw conclusions afterward about what he wanted. But the argument is incorrect. And again, the fact that you have an interest may be true, but that doesn’t mean you act because of the interest. Those are two completely different things. Now, the fact that Jonah had an interest because he wanted the kikayon to provide… doesn’t mean he didn’t have pity on the kikayon; maybe he also had pity on the kikayon? Besides needing the kikayon, he also pitied it. Who says not? It’s some kind of criminal mentality of ours, an ungenerous mentality, that says if he has an interest then apparently he’s doing it because of the interest. No. The fact that there is an interest is one claim, and the fact that he is doing it because of the interest is another claim. If he has an interest, that opens the possibility that he may do it because of the interest, but to prove that he is doing it because of the interest, you need proof. So it’s only a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one. Meaning, that there be an interest here—even though I’m not sure it’s necessary, because if I imagine that he has an interest even when he doesn’t, he could still be doing it for the interest. But here too it’s the same. We have some tendency to think that if Jonah needed the kikayon, that means his motives weren’t pure. Not true. He may need the kikayon, but his motives can still be pure, and he can still genuinely have pity on the kikayon. Who said those are connected? That was the situation. Fine, but the Holy One, blessed be He, says to him, “You had pity on the kikayon,” which means he did have pity on the kikayon; he didn’t just want the shade, not only the shade. Okay, that’s one lesson. And then what does that mean? That Jonah really had pity on the kikayon, and all the more so—and it’s a good all the more so: you had pity on the kikayon, and I shouldn’t have pity on Nineveh? It could be exactly the opposite explanation. We think the Holy One, blessed be He, is pure. Right? The Holy One, blessed be He, doesn’t need Nineveh; He has pity on them—that’s altruism, that’s what Rabbi Kook says. I disagree with both sides of Rabbi Kook’s way of thinking—both how he interprets the Holy One, blessed be He, and how he interprets human beings. Regarding human beings, he said they are always self-interested—not true. Human beings can act in a way that is pure. And regarding the Holy One, blessed be He, he says that the Holy One, blessed be He, always acts in a pure way. Not true. The Holy One, blessed be He, acts out of interests too, and maybe always out of interest. The Holy One, blessed be He, actually—and I learned this, by the way, from Rabbi Kook himself—the Holy One, blessed be He, created Nineveh because He needed Nineveh. Why did He create them? He needs them. Just like you needed the kikayon, I need Nineveh. After all, I created this world—what, I created it for nothing? I created it because I need it. This is what’s called “Give strength to God,” or the secret of worship for a higher need, that our service is actually for the need of the Holy One, blessed be He. He needs us. It’s called a secret because supposedly you’re not allowed to say it. The Holy One, blessed be He, ostensibly isn’t supposed to need anyone, but that’s not true: the Holy One, blessed be He, needs us, and therefore He created us. There are things that only we can do, which He cannot do. Maybe, although I think even that doesn’t quite capture the point. Then don’t create a world, and there won’t need to be the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world. That’s not an explanation of why the world was created. I understand, I’m just saying it’s too small. It’s not a good illustration. An illustration, and it’s not a good illustration because no, it doesn’t have to be that way, and still what I’m saying can remain. Meaning, yes, Rabbi Kook writes in volume two of Orot HaKodesh, where he discusses the problem of perfection and perfecting. Yes, where he says that one of the human perfections is to perfect oneself. Meaning, there are actions we do whose goal is not the state we reach following the action, but the doing of the action itself is an end in itself. Yes? When they say that a penitent is greater than a completely righteous person, why? At most a penitent can become completely righteous—erase all the sins, become perfect. Now he is completely righteous. How can it be that a penitent is greater than a completely righteous person? Apparently there is value in the process of repentance, and it’s not only a means to reach the state of being completely righteous. The derivative has value; it’s not just a way to advance toward a higher state in the function. Okay? Meaning, the process itself has value. So when Rabbi Kook writes there that we were created because the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot have that perfection, because He is perfect—how can He perfect Himself? Okay, so he says: for that purpose He created us, who are lacking, and we can perfect ourselves, and thus somehow through us that perfection is actualized—a perfection that in Him could not be actualized. Fine? Meaning, not in order to do good to us, but in order to do good to Him. That’s the point. Now of course you can ask, fine, what did He gain? So we perfect ourselves—why is that His perfection? On that I once wrote a philosophical article in analysis. My claim was—think about velocity. The velocity of a body. Right? We’re used to thinking that the velocity of a body is a change of place. If I say a body has velocity, that means its position changes over time; the derivative of position over time is velocity. But that’s not true. The fact that it changes place is an indication that it has velocity. That is not the very fact that it has velocity. The fact that it has velocity will actually be expressed in a change of place. What difference does it make? A body can have velocity even at a time-point. Change of place can’t happen at a time-point; at a time-point the body is in one place. But velocity can belong to a body at every time-point. When you differentiate the position function, you get a function of time that is the velocity function. At every time-point there is velocity. Meaning, velocity belongs to a body at a time-point. Change of place can’t happen at a point; it has to happen over an interval of time. Because only—that is, if you want to see the consequences of the fact that the body has velocity, you’ll need to wait a little, and then you’ll see that it changes place. Where is the practical difference? There is a known paradox of Zeno, where he challenged the concepts of motion—sorry, repentance too, actually. Repentance is motion on the spiritual axis. So what? No, Achilles and the tortoise is something else, but the arrow in flight. The paradox of the arrow in flight says this: we see an arrow flying. At every moment, after all, it is standing in a different place. At this point it stands here, at the next point it stands here, then here—so when does it move? At every point, when does it pass from this place to that place? That’s the rough formulation of the paradox. So everyone starts going into infinity and all that, but he misses the point—you don’t need the infinity, and it doesn’t solve anything either, not that you need it. Zeno’s mistake was mixing up two concepts that look very similar. There’s a difference between saying that a body is located in some place and saying that it is standing in some place. Even a moving body, at every moment, is located in some place, and it is not standing in that place. What’s the difference? A body standing in some place is a body that is there with zero velocity. A body located in some place may have a velocity different from zero. And still, it has a location at every time-point, right? When you ask me when it is moving, at the very moment it is located in that place, it is also moving. It doesn’t need to move at some other moment. What always confuses us? What I said before. What confuses us is that people mix up the concept of velocity with the concept of change of place. Change of place can exist only over an interval, but velocity belongs to a body even at a point. Fine? Therefore my claim is that when I say a body has velocity, velocity is a potential for change of place. That is not just another way of saying that the body changes its position over time. Those are not synonyms. When a body has velocity and it runs into a wall, it had velocity but it cannot be actualized in the form of change of place. Plastic collision, elastic collision, all those things—it gets actualized through heat, through all kinds of other forms. So there you have a small consolation: a body has velocity and it is not actualized in change of place. Physicists will get hives when I say such a thing, because obviously its velocity will be zero when it is pressed against the wall, but those are just my little tricks. Philosophically it is certainly not true. So the claim is that the Holy One, blessed be He, actually needs us. Why? Because we are lacking and therefore can perfect ourselves. In what sense is that His perfection? It’s our perfection. How does that repair Him? The answer is that the potential for self-perfecting—the velocity—exists in Him too. Only in Him it won’t be expressed in change of place. The analogy, right? Meaning He repents too, only He cannot reach a more perfect state because He is already in the most perfect state. So the potential for self-perfecting exists in Him too. But actual self-perfecting cannot appear in Him. It’s like being next to a wall. A body with velocity next to a wall—it cannot come to practical expression. There is no possibility of expressing it practically by means of change of place. But that doesn’t mean it has no velocity. So the potential for change of place, or for improvement—a spiritual level, right?—exists in the Holy One, blessed be He, and it is actualized through us. That’s the point. Therefore the repair that we do is actually a kind of contribution to the Holy One, blessed be He. Something He Himself cannot do, and we do it; that is why we were created. We do it for Him. And that’s what He says to Jonah here: didn’t you have pity on the kikayon? You need it, right? Like the smallest political commentator imaginable. You need it and therefore you have pity on it. I too need Nineveh, and therefore I created it. Okay? So this is indeed a good all the more so. So you can say it’s a good all the more so because both sides are self-interested, and you can say it’s a good all the more so because both sides are altruistic. But both sides of Rabbi Kook’s equation, in my opinion, are incorrect. Neither that the Holy One, blessed be He, always acts altruistically, nor that human beings always act selfishly. On both sides I disagree. What does this actually mean? It basically means that this intuition I described earlier—that there can’t be an altruistic action—is incorrect. Yes, a person can do things, can do the truth because it is truth, even if he gains nothing. And that is the whole meaning of everything we saw in the previous lessons, where Maimonides says that there must be acceptance of God. And not to serve out of love or fear. You’ll ask me, then why serve? No love, no fear, nothing—what is acceptance of God? So I love Him, I fear Him, I understand. But what is acceptance of God that is not love and fear? After all, love and fear are also some kind of external motives, right? That’s what I said. So what is left? The answer is: what’s left is to do the truth because it is truth, what Maimonides says in chapter 10 of the laws of repentance. And that is possible; that is what is demanded of us. We may not always succeed in getting there, maybe we never succeed in getting there, but it is not absurd, and it’s something a person can attain. To do something only because it is the truth. Yes, but it’s not certain that you can. You can get as close as you can, but… No, you can always say they get satisfaction from it. That too is a reason. No, generally they get satisfaction from it. They get satisfaction from it and therefore they do it. That is completely parallel to serving out of love or fear. Serving out of love or fear is a positive reason. To love and fear the Holy One, blessed be He, are counted commandments. But if you do the service because of the love and fear, then those are foreign motives. And foreign motives are not necessarily something lowly, but foreign motives mean that you are not doing it in a completely pure way, not completely altruistically. There are some side effects for you, whether good or bad, it doesn’t matter. And what is demanded of a person is to do the truth because it is truth—that is acceptance of God. Acceptance of God means: I do what He said. Why? Because He said it. That’s it. Or Alurik, yes, I mentioned him. You usually say it? I usually don’t say it. Okay. Fine. I usually don’t say that. Whoever usually says it, says it. Fine. Again, I’m not making claims about the Holy One, blessed be He. I’m showing a model that gives you, offers you, a reasonable explanation or a reasonable framework within which I can understand why one might create a world. Why might the Holy One, blessed be He, create a world? Maybe it’s not true. But you can’t say there’s no such thing, that the Holy One, blessed be He, needs nothing and clearly He did it in a purely altruistic way. No, that’s not clear. Here—you have a model that shows you another possibility. Maybe true, maybe not, I don’t know. I have no way of knowing. Right, and therefore I have no way of knowing. I said, I’m not claiming that’s why He created. I’m saying: I’m offering you a model within which I show you that you don’t have to assume He acted in a purely altruistic way, because after all He needs nothing from us. Because I’m showing you, for example, one thing that He might indeed need from us. Is that the correct answer or not? I have no idea, I don’t know. I don’t think anyone can know. But I think as a model it’s an interesting model, because it shows you how it can be that an omnipotent being still, necessarily, if it wants something, will not succeed in attaining it. It needs someone else, who is not omnipotent, to help it with that. It’s almost an oxymoron, right? An omnipotent being, and precisely because of its omnipotence, it is not omnipotent. Okay? Because that it cannot do. It cannot be non-omnipotent. Okay, it’s like, you know, the famous story of Puss in Boots. Do you know Puss in Boots? Yes, the miller died and left his property to his three sons. The two older ones got, I don’t know, fields, the house, whatever you want. The youngest got a cat. He was in shock—what am I going to do with this cat? I have no use for it. The cat says, don’t worry, buy me boots and everything will be fine. Fine, he buys him boots. One day he goes to bathe in the river; he leaves his clothes folded on the shore and goes to bathe. The king passes there with his beautiful daughter of course, the beautiful and rich one. He passes by, and the cat hides the fellow’s clothes and says to the king: Your Majesty, my lord the count is bathing here in the river, and he lost his clothes. Perhaps you have some spare clothes to give him? Certainly. So he gives him clothes, and he really looks like a count and all that. He says to him: and where does your master the count live? He says: there, in that palace, you know, that’s where he lives. He says to him: be quiet, don’t bother me now. The miller’s son—the cat says to him, don’t worry, I’ll arrange everything. He runs ahead of course to the terrible sorcerer’s palace. The terrible sorcerer sees the cat approaching and turns himself into a lion. The cat gets terribly frightened and says, wait a second, before you devour me, can you also turn yourself into a mouse? Or only into terrifying things like that? He says: of course, what’s the problem? Poof—he turned into a mouse, the cat ate him, then invited the king, and from then on they lived happily ever after. The interesting question here is whether the terrible wizard can turn himself into a mouse. Or in the analogy: can the Holy One, blessed be He, turn Himself into a human being? If yes, I’ll shoot Him in the head. I’ll kill Him. What will you say, that He won’t die? If you say… He’s omnipotent, right? Omnipotent—how can He not turn Himself into a human being? No. Someone who is omnipotent cannot turn himself into someone who is not omnipotent. What can you do? That’s life. What? Call it not omnipotent, call it omnipotent—but that is the upper limit of omnipotence. There is nothing beyond it. There cannot be someone with ability beyond that. Whether you call that ability omnipotence or only maximum potency, call it whatever you like. Like this conception that infinity is a number—you get there at the end, if you go all the way you’ll reach infinity. No, it’s not something that really exists; it’s beyond anything you can encounter. Okay? So the claim, ultimately, is that the Holy One, blessed be He, also needs us. And if He needs us—and let’s be political commentators for a moment—then if He needs us, apparently He does it for that need. Okay? I’m only putting on the cloak of the political commentator because of your question. In any case, for our purposes, what I basically want to claim is that this intuition as if everyone does things only because of self-interest is the intuition of political commentators, with all due respect to Rabbi Kook. It’s not true. Meaning, it’s only that part of self-perfecting that He won’t be able to do. That’s what there was before there were human beings. Before there were human beings, before there were human beings—what was He? We weren’t always here. He was someone who could not perfect Himself, and that’s why He created us so that He could succeed in perfecting Himself, I’m saying according to this suggestion. Okay? So in short, what I want to claim is that the actions of a person—certainly of the Holy One, blessed be He, but also of a person—can be altruistic actions. There is such a thing as doing the truth because it is truth. It is not something absurd. It is not an oxymoron when I say doing the truth because it is truth. And that is really what stands behind everything I’ve been talking about until now. And what I’ve been talking about until now basically means: when is a commandment a commandment? When you do it only by virtue of acceptance of God, responsiveness to the command. Right? That is the meaning of a commandment. No other reason. If you do it because it makes the world better, or because you love the Holy One, blessed be He, or fear Him, or because it makes you more complete—all those are commandments not for their own sake. A commandment for its own sake is a commandment you do because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it. Period. Just like that. Now that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make the world better, or you better, or produce fear—everything is true, on level two, three, four, five, up to the attic, fine? But level one, first of all, the most basic thing is that you have to do it because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it. Okay? So that is the meaning. Basically the claim is that also in the moral context, what Kant talks about—doing the thing because it is moral, not because behaving morally gives me satisfaction, not because morality will improve our general situation. No, that may also be true, but that is not why I am supposed to do it. I am supposed to do it because I am obligated by the moral imperative. Exactly the same is true regarding the commands of the Torah, the commands of Jewish law. I do it—it is a commandment only if I do it because of the obligation to the command, period. That is a sufficient condition for me to do it. Beyond that there can be many other things, but even in their absence I will continue to do it. Like we brought from the Eglei Tal, right? Studying Torah and taking pleasure in it. There too, that same political-commentator interpretation: ah, if you enjoy it, then apparently you do it for the enjoyment. And that’s what the Eglei Tal says—nonsense. It’s permitted for you to enjoy it, but make sure you are not doing it for the enjoyment. Two different things. Okay? Same with commandments in general. Now I want to perhaps go one step further. I say, fine, if what is demanded of us basically—so if I sum up what a commandment is, not in the sense of the object, in the sense of the person. In the sense of the object, it is the thing that has a command and has content, right? What we discussed in the previous lessons. In terms of the person—those are always the questions accompanying us in this series—in terms of the person, it is an action done מתוך obligation to the command; that is called an act of commandment. Okay? Now perhaps an implication—so if I ask… if I ask myself why a person actually behaves morally, then there are many theories one way or another. Kant’s theory of course is that the moment you have a theory, it’s not a moral act, and you have to do it because it is a moral act, period. If you have other justifications for behaving morally, then it is not a moral action; rather it is an action drawing from those other justifications—love, fear, utility, whatever it may be. Therefore, for example, evolutionary explanations—the survival value of altruism. Right? If you also care for others, then the survival of the gene—not your survival, the survival of the gene, of the group—will be better. Right? Therefore there is survival value in altruism, and therefore altruism emerged or survived, and therefore we are altruists. You understand that this evolutionary explanation doesn’t really explain moral behavior. It explains why we perform moral acts. But someone who performs those moral acts because it is imprinted in him by the genome or evolution is not a moral person. A moral person is someone who does it because he is obligated by the moral imperative. Whether evolution planted it in you or not is another question, but that is not why you’re supposed to do it. In other words, I’m saying: evolution planted in you the tendency to behave altruistically, but now you can decide whether to do it or not. And when you decide to do it, you do it because you are obligated to morality, not because you have a tendency. I have many tendencies. I also have a tendency to speak gossip. I try to overcome it because it is forbidden. The fact that I have a tendency is not an explanation of why I do something. It’s an explanation of why I have an urge to do something. But the decision whether to do it or not depends on my choice—whether to respond to that urge or to struggle against it. Therefore evolutionary explanations are not competing in the same field at all. It is not an alternative explanation of moral behavior. It is a claim that there is no such thing as moral behavior. You act, you are altruistic, but you do it for reasons that were embedded in you by evolution, not because of choice or moral decision. And according to Kant, a moral action is only an action done out of a decision to respond to the moral imperative. That’s it. For no other reason. Now I want to show you an implication of this, an interesting implication. One of the most basic principles in Kant’s moral theory is called the categorical imperative. And the categorical imperative basically—a categorical command means a command I carry out solely by virtue of its existence. That is essentially what I said earlier. Meaning, a categorical imperative is a command that obligates me not because it has good consequences, but by virtue of its very existence. Fine? That is the definition of the concept of a categorical imperative. But what is the content of the categorical imperative? What does the categorical imperative demand of me? Here Kant has another claim. First of all, he says that the moral imperative is a categorical imperative. First claim. Second claim: what does that categorical imperative say? What does it tell me? To stand on one leg every morning and do it because that’s what the categorical imperative says? No. Morality tells me to do certain things and not do other things. Let’s try to define what that means. So Kant proposes the following definition, a well-known thing: do what you would want to become a general law. Many identify this with the statement of Rabbi Akiva, yes, or Hillel—Hillel the Elder—who says, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.” Some sort of reciprocity. Yes, you would want it to be a general law because don’t steal, otherwise they’ll steal from you too. But that’s a mistake. It’s a mistake in understanding Kant, not Hillel the Elder. With Hillel the Elder there’s room to debate, but with Kant it’s clear that this is wrong. I’ll give you a few examples that I like; I’ve already discussed them in other series. For example, I’m debating whether to evade taxes. Okay? Let’s say I owe the tax authority five hundred shekels. I don’t report the income and I evade those five hundred shekels. Is that okay? Is it not okay? It’s commonly thought not, right? I’m not talking about getting caught. I mean the act itself, without getting caught. Why not? Wait, before “if everyone did it.” Five hundred shekels missing from the state treasury changes nothing, right? Is that agreed? A state treasury doesn’t operate in the language of thousands of shekels. Meaning, absolutely nothing in the position of a fly’s wing will change if five hundred shekels are missing from the state treasury. No action of the state will change, nothing, nothing, nothing. Nothing. Maybe a few zeros somewhere in a computer will be registered differently, nothing beyond that. In the real world there will be nothing. So what is bad about evading the five hundred shekels? Let’s say—you say, look, if you evade the five hundred shekels, everyone will evade the five hundred shekels. Right? That’s Hillel the Elder. What nonsense. I’ll evade the five hundred shekels, but I won’t tell anyone I’m doing it—am I crazy? They’ll catch me. So my evading five hundred shekels will cause others to evade? They don’t even know I’m evading. You’ll say, okay, then they’ll do it too. And if they do, how does it help that I don’t? After all, they’re not doing it because of me. Right? Suppose everyone else evades—does it help anything if I don’t evade? Five hundred shekels one way or the other. Five hundred shekels here or there changes nothing. Therefore the fact that I do this action does not affect anyone else. So don’t tell me that if you do it then others will do it too. Not true, they won’t. Same with my eternal argument with my son: is it worthwhile, or proper, to go vote in elections? Even though there’s never anyone to vote for. Is it proper to go vote in elections? So he says, what are you talking about, of course not. Why not? Not because there’s no one to vote for because they’re all the same—that’s certainly true. But beyond that, because your vote has no effect. Not a small effect. Zero effect. Your vote has a big round zero effect. Not a small cumulative effect, one plus one. Those are fairy tales. Zero effect. When can your vote affect anything? Let’s compare. What will be the situation if I go and if I don’t go? Will there be some zero missing in some computer? Not even that. With tax evasion there will be. Here there won’t even be that. Why? Because my effect can only exist in a case where the party I favor got an exact whole number of seats minus one vote. There, if I voted, then I changed the map a little, but I changed it. Okay? That has never happened. Never happened. And it won’t happen either. I don’t know—if we wait infinite time then anything can happen, but you would need to wait such an enormous number of billions of years, there is no chance, it won’t happen. Or in other words, your impact as a voter is not negligible, it’s not small—it’s a big round zero. So why waste your time going to vote? Then they say, fine, if you don’t go vote then nobody will go vote. No, no. I won’t go vote and I won’t tell anyone. I’m in a submarine—I’m going diving in the Red Sea on election day. Nobody will know where I am. Fine? So I won’t influence anyone. You’ll say, but others will make the same calculation. If they make the same calculation, how does it help if I don’t? It’s like with the tax authority. So they won’t go vote—then they won’t go vote. Still, my vote changes nothing. So once again, I’m going diving in the Red Sea. So what shall we do?

[Speaker B] There’s a person who has this kind of thought, to take into account what would happen if others did as I do, even if my actual act right now doesn’t really have any effect—what would others do? That’s part of the thinking.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So you’re talking to me about what’s called a slippery slope or safeguards. I’m talking about an essential question. You’re basically telling me there could be problematic consequences in other cases. I’m asking whether in this act itself there is a problem. An essential question, not a tactical one. Okay? And I claim there is a problem. And this is what I’m saying—everyone argues with him, I so enjoy watching these arguments, they repeat themselves and he always makes a circus out of everybody. And the only answer that can be given, which he doesn’t accept, and it is the only answer that can be given, is Kant’s categorical imperative. Kant’s categorical imperative is not Hillel the Elder. It’s not that if you do this, then others will do this to you. No. Kant proposes a thought experiment. He says: you want to know whether a certain act is a commandment, or a good act, or not a good act? Do a thought experiment. Assume the whole world did the same thing. Assume it—not because if you do it then everyone will do it. Let’s think of a hypothetical situation in which the whole world does as you do. Is that a good world? If not, then the act is not moral. And that thought experiment merely helps you make a distinction—whether the act is good or not good. It is not a factual claim that if you do it then others will do it too. No, no, others won’t do it. But it is a claim that says that my diagnosis, or my determination, of whether this act is a good act is determined by some thought experiment that I perform. Let’s assume everyone does the same thing. Does the world seem good to you in such a state? Do you want such a world? No. If you don’t want such a world, that’s a sign that the act is not good. Don’t do it. I once wrote an article about this in Tzohar on the meaning of the categorical imperative in Jewish law. And I used some debate there about the sale permit. There was a debate between Rabbi Nahorai, who is today the head of Beit Hillel, a kibbutz rabbi, and rabbis from Otzar HaAretz. It’s a sort of Sabbatical-year religious court, right? So the policy of Otzar HaAretz was: we accept the sale permit in principle, but of course we’ll try—Otzar Beit Din—we’ll try other solutions. If there is no choice, we’ll buy produce under the sale permit for the stores they supervise. Okay? And Rabbi Nahorai argued: what do you mean? So you’re basically saying that you leave the—maybe there was another argument there too, but that doesn’t matter either—because the consumers of Otzar HaAretz are such a small quantity, and most consumers in the market after all simply buy whatever is in the supermarket, which is sale-permit produce, so basically nobody will lose. We’ll observe it in a more meticulous way, and the farmers using the sale permit won’t lose anything, so it’s win-win. And Rabbi Nahorai tried from every direction to raise arguments, and I felt that behind it stood a completely different claim, and he wasn’t succeeding in formulating it. So I wrote an article after that debate in a different issue, and I said that basically what Rabbi Nahorai meant to say was Kant’s categorical imperative. What he meant to say was this: he says to them, look, if everyone stopped buying sale-permit produce, then the sale-permit farmers would collapse. You claim correctly that in practice that won’t happen, because most consumers aren’t interested in meticulous Sabbatical observance and so on; they buy whatever is in the supermarket. And in the supermarket there is sale-permit produce. Fine, but I’m not making a practical claim. I’m not claiming that you will destroy the farmers, ruin the sale-permit farmers. I’m making a principled claim: if your action cannot be a general law, and you yourselves say it cannot be a general law, because a general law would be destructive—you yourselves are relying on the fact that it won’t become a general law—then the action is not moral. Don’t do it. No, there aren’t such cases. There aren’t such cases, but one can discuss it. No, no, fine. Everyone will be doctors, everyone will be pilots—these are well-known claims. I want the division to be such that some are this and some are that—that is what I want from the outset. Now the question is when do you define it this way, and when do you define it that way. There are many questions about the categorical imperative. I’m not going to get into that here. There are many objections to the… certainly to applications of the categorical imperative.

[Speaker B] No, but that’s—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not related.

[Speaker B] No, what he wanted to say was that there is no possibility in reality, and therefore one cannot obligate…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Mistake. Mistake. Not true. Because I would want everyone to follow a rule and put on this tekhelet. There isn’t enough tekhelet, so whoever can should put it on; it doesn’t hurt. But they’re relying on there being some people who won’t do it. That’s not the same thing. I’m not… it’s permitted to be more stringent. If I want to observe an enhancement in Jewish law or beautify a commandment, I don’t expect everyone to do it; not everyone can afford it either. Fine. But that doesn’t matter—my enhancement isn’t built on the fact that others won’t do it. Do you understand? That’s the point. Okay, this is also somewhat related to the answer to your question, but I’m not going into the details of the categorical imperative right now because that’s not my topic. So I just want to use it to illustrate the meaning of what I said earlier. When I ask now: why does a person act, why does he behave in this moral way? So it’s not because if he acts this way then others will also act this way. If that were so, it would be utilitarian. That would be consequentialism. There are explanations for why you do it, but it wouldn’t be a moral act. A moral act is an act done only because the act is moral; that’s why I do it. It points to no outcomes and nothing else. And that’s the meaning of Kant’s categorical imperative. Kant’s categorical imperative is clearly not consequentialist. I don’t do it because the outcomes are bad. The outcomes won’t be bad when I evade taxes—I won’t tell anyone, it doesn’t affect anyone at all. Meaning, the consideration is not a consequentialist one. With Hillel, you can interpret it at least as a consequentialist consideration: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.” If it’s hateful to you, don’t do it to him, because he’ll do it to you. You can. You can also understand it otherwise. But with Kant it is certainly not like that. With Kant this is not consequentialism; he is coming to oppose consequentialism. That’s his whole move. This is a conceptual mistake; a lot of people get this wrong, but it’s a conceptual mistake. With Kant this is a hypothetical consideration—you carry out some thought experiment, and that thought experiment helps you define whether the act is good or not good. You ask: why am I doing it? Because it is good. Not because of the outcomes. Like, for example, another example I gave there, about buying leavened food from a store that sold it to a gentile. Completely real leavened food people generally don’t sell to a gentile, but stores or businesses do, because it’s a substantial loss. Okay. Now in Bnei Brak, when I was in Bnei Brak, nobody bought from the grocery store the actual leavened food that had been sold to a gentile after Passover. Everyone is scrupulous in commandments. So I said to them: tell me, if nobody buys from him, what did it help him that he sold it to a gentile? He sold it to a gentile so that afterward he could sell it to someone and not lose money. Now you’re giving him permission to sell it to a gentile, but nobody buys it. Again the answer was: people who are less strict will buy it. There will be someone who buys from him. Less strict people, those who are less particular. And again the claim is the categorical imperative. If you’re relying on others not behaving like you, don’t do it. That’s a very subtle point, but it’s important. Meaning, being more stringent is possible and desirable, if your stringency is not built on the fact that you are some uniquely virtuous person, that others won’t do it. In practice they won’t do it—it doesn’t matter—but you’re not building on that. And if your stringency is built on that, then it’s not a stringency, and then it isn’t right to do it. Okay? Now, and here’s the punchline. We’ve only just started—this is the punchline. The punchline is this: if there were no categorical imperative, if everyone acted consequentially, what would happen? The state treasury would be empty. Right? Everyone would hide his own 500 shekels, each person wouldn’t tell anyone what he’s doing, right? The state treasury would be empty. Why does the state treasury exist? Or why are there elections at all, why do elections have results and it’s not zero-zero all the way down the column? Because people go and vote and don’t make this rational calculation that what’s the point, after all my vote won’t make a difference. Right? What would happen if everyone made that calculation? There would be no state. Right? So what does that mean? That in the end the categorical imperative is the only way to get results. It is not consequentialist. I’m not doing it for the sake of the results. But דווקא because I conduct myself in a non-consequentialist way, that is the only way to achieve the results. Because if everyone conducted themselves consequentially, then I’d say, what am I, crazy not to hide those 500 shekels? Others may also hide theirs. But the fact that I don’t hide mine won’t affect them in any case; after all I’m not telling them anything. So consequentialist thinking says: hide it. And each person would make that calculation; we’re all rational, right? At least when money is involved. We’re all rational, and therefore everyone would hide it, and there would be no state treasury. Meaning, the calculation is a non-consequentialist calculation. The conduct and the motivation are not consequentialist. But precisely because each person acts in a non-consequentialist way, the result is achieved. If everyone tries to achieve the best result, the worst result will be achieved. Which is of course the prisoner’s dilemma, right? The prisoner’s dilemma, game theory. What happens in the prisoner’s dilemma? The police catch two people suspected of theft. Okay? Now they have no evidence. They want one of them to inform, yes, to incriminate his friend. So they offer each one a deal. Of course neither one is in contact with the other; each one in his own cell is offered a deal. They say to him like this: look, if you inform on the other, then you’ll go free and he’ll get 15 years in prison. Okay? A state’s witness kind of deal. They say the same thing to the other one as well. Okay? Except that if both of you inform on each other, then we haven’t gained anything. I’m not even sure you could be convicted, because then it’s testimony from thieves, and also a person does not render himself wicked. But then both of you will get five years. Not 15—we still want to encourage you to inform—but if both of you inform, we gained nothing, both of you get five years. That’s it, that’s the calculation. Now here’s the table, the utility function table. One moment. Hello? The computer froze. What’s up? Did you add the squares there? X and Y? If both of them don’t inform, then each gets one year, let’s say for the sake of discussion. There’s almost no evidence, or it doesn’t matter—zero. You know what? Never mind. No, let’s make it one year. Okay? Because it works better with the calculation. We’ll make it one year. Okay? So the utility function, oop. People who think devices have some rigid rationality. Everything is clear, when they do what and when they don’t. Less than human beings. Worse than human beings. You can’t know when it works, when it stops working, when it comes back. So, did something happen? Is this the natural or the unnatural one? Well, can you see it there? There it is. We already said in the previous class that the categorical imperative leads to a good outcome, so the moral consideration will ultimately be finished off by consequentialist thinking. No—the fact that it leads to a good outcome is consequentialist, not moral.

[Speaker B] Wait, now I’m asking: the categorical imperative, doesn’t it also bring in the consideration of whether it’s useful or not useful?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It knows. No, no, no. If he asks whether it’s useful or not useful, he’ll evade taxes even after he knows that consideration. Because what I do by myself doesn’t matter if all the others are idiots; that’s what my son always answers me. I’m relying on all the others being idiots, not acting according to the categorical imperative. That’s what he’s relying on. Yes, that’s a good assumption. Fact is—there you go. I’m the chief idiot, because I always do it. He says, I’m relying on idiots like you—that’s what he tells me. Yes, that’s it. He’s right, because consequentialism—that’s the answer. Look, here it is, the utility function. You see? Prisoner A is in bold, Prisoner B is in regular type. Okay? You have two options: to inform or to stay silent, for Prisoner B, and Prisoner A can inform or stay silent. Okay? Now these are the prices in years of imprisonment. Okay? Let’s say Prisoner B informs and Prisoner A stays silent, then Prisoner A gets 15 years in prison. Fifteen years, because that’s the bold one—yes, that’s Prisoner A—and Prisoner B goes free, zero. Okay? If Prisoner B informs and Prisoner A also informs, both get five years. If Prisoner B and Prisoner A both stay silent, both get one year, and of course there’s symmetry here. Fine? Now let’s do the consequentialist calculation. In the consequentialist calculation, Prisoner B calculates for himself whether to inform or stay silent. Okay? So I say: look, I don’t know what Prisoner A will choose. Whatever he chooses, it’s better for me to inform, right? Because if I inform here, it’s zero, and if I stay silent it’s one—zero is better for me. And if he chooses to inform, then here it’s five and here it’s fifteen—still better for me to inform. So whatever Prisoner A chooses, it’s better for me to inform, so I inform. Now Prisoner A, of course, makes the same calculation, right? Prisoner A—now compare the columns. So clearly to inform is zero versus one, and here informing is five versus fifteen. So it’s better for him to inform. Therefore each one, by consequentialist reasoning, both of them inform, and each gets five years. Okay? But if they both stayed silent, they would each get one year. Now of course I can stay silent and not inform—but who knows what he’ll do. If I stay silent and he chooses to inform, I get hit with fifteen years. I have to rely on him also being some kind of Kantian nobleman. Meaning, that he’ll choose to act according to the categorical imperative. Right? But why? After all, if he’s a true consequentialist, regardless of what I do, he’s right—he should inform regardless of what I do. Do you understand that there’s something completely crazy here? It turns out that each one makes the calculation of maximum benefit for himself, and the result comes out bad. And if we forgo the immediate benefit, we’ll get the best result—of course, coalition benefit. Meaning, coalition thinking. But this is a coalition built on the good will of the parties without coordination. After all, I don’t know what he’ll really choose—we didn’t even agree. Even if we had agreed, who knows whether he’d stick to the agreement? But we didn’t even agree. I’m just making this Kantian calculation: should I act in a supposedly moral way—it doesn’t matter right now whether informing is really moral or not—or should I act consequentially? And it turns out that if both sides act consequentially, optimizing the utility function, we reach a bad result. And if both of them act in a way that is not trying to achieve results, you get the best result. But here—

[Speaker B] That’s also consequentialist, because their reason for staying silent—if the other one stays silent—is in order to reach a better result, if they’re thinking consequentially. I didn’t understand.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Their reason for staying silent is only because he’s a person…

[Speaker B] If the other person’s reason for staying silent is to get one year instead of five. Right, that’s consequentialist too.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously, but I don’t know what the other person is going to do—stay silent or not stay silent. The other person may also inform, and then he’ll completely screw me over and walk away with zero, better off. Okay? So it really parallels Kant’s categorical imperative. Why do you do it? It’s exactly the same thing. And in the end you sacrifice the optimum utility of your specific utility function for the sake of the collective utility. And of course that depends on the good will of all the players. Because if I don’t evade taxes but everyone else does evade taxes, then I just came out a sucker. Not only did I not evade taxes, I also gained nothing—there’s nothing in the state treasury. So I’m empty and the state treasury is empty. And that’s total idiocy. Right? I came out of the city with the fish too. So what does that actually mean? It means that many times, in situations of this kind, even the way to achieve the best result is non-consequentialist thinking. Yes. I’m saying: assuming we all understand the Kantian logic and we all understand that we all have to cooperate in order to get one year, then we really will arrive at the best result of one year. But the motive here is not a moral motive; he wants to maximize…

[Speaker B] No, you could…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Assuming—if I want to make the analogy to Kant—then I would say: I stay silent because I want to be a moral person, therefore I stay silent. But in practice it turns out that if both of us stay silent and are moral, then the outcome that will result will also be the best one. With thieves we usually don’t tend to attribute such intentions or such thinking to them, it doesn’t matter, but in the analogy to the categorical imperative that’s the point. So you are basically doing the moral act, and it turns out that a society made up of many moral agents will in fact also prosper, will also be the very best. Meaning, a society in which each person takes care of himself optimally—man is a wolf to man—that supposedly is best for me, regardless of what others do, but in the end it also turns out not to be best for me. This is a fascinating phenomenon on the mathematical and philosophical level. Right? Right. So I’m saying, it’s never everyone. But a society in which there are many such people will look better than a society that starts from the assumption that there is no trust between anyone and anyone, and everyone tries to maximize his own benefit. In the end, all of us will lose, including those who wanted to maximize their benefit. So this is an enormous lesson for very, very many things—how important trust is between the parts of society. We can see that in these days, or these years. What I—I can only recommend to you, there’s a BBC program, videos on YouTube, you can find it, called Golden Balls, okay? Search for it on YouTube and you’ll find it. There are hundreds of such clips. In each clip there is a competition between two people over the prisoner’s dilemma. It’s unbelievable how many combinations of clips there are there, it’s simply fascinating, it’s hypnotic really. The point they added to the prisoner’s dilemma is that the prisoners can reach an agreement with each other, but you can never know whether the other person will keep the agreement. You can try to persuade him—come on, let’s act this way, let’s make a coalition, agree, we’ll both gain everything—but you always take the risk that you’ll decide to stay silent because the two of you agreed to stay silent, and he’ll screw you over and inform. Then you’ll be completely ruined and he’ll walk away with all the money. So it’s unbelievable how many combinations there are there, it’s just wild. How many different combinations, how creative people are, all kinds of amazing arguments, people trying to force the other person to behave rationally in all sorts of ways. He tells him in advance: I’m going to cheat you, but know that I’m going to cheat you, so therefore you should do this and then I’ll split it with you. Unbelievable, really—it’s fascinating. No, no, it’s two people there, they gather them into the studio, people signed up, and Golden Balls—that’s what it’s called. So look, there are lots of clips. If you come across especially good ones, there are really some wonderful gems there, but in general it’s fascinating, truly fascinating. And it illustrates very nicely the concept of the prisoner’s dilemma, where even though you can coordinate, you still can’t really rely on your partner. Now if both of them are like that, then of course both of them will inform. They’ll agree that both of them stay silent in order to maximize gain, but in practice both of them will inform in order to screw each other over, and then both of them come out with nothing. And that happens there not a few times. Okay, now just an interesting moral question—I once wrote a post about this—an interesting moral question: is it immoral to lie in such a game? After all, that’s the game. The game is precisely the question of whether I lie or not, right? And it’s all just a matter of utility function. What does it mean to say it’s immoral to lie there? It’s just a tactic you choose. Both sides know the other can lie, and that’s the game. I don’t think there’s a moral problem with lying there. That’s the way it is; the question is whether you might lose because of it if you lie, because if he lies—fine, that’s the game. Make your calculation, and that’s all. Lying is one of the options on the table; meaning, it’s one of the options each side can take. Yes, exactly. Okay, that’s another discussion. Okay, we’ll stop here. Happy New Year.