Ethics, Faith, and Halakha – Lesson 13 – Rabbi Michael Avraham

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, as I said, this is the last lecture of this semester. Last time I began talking about the argument from morality—or began, I actually presented it—and in brief the claim was the following: if we say that values have validity, objective validity, because morality assumes that, then all the other positions are not positions within morality, but positions that say there is no such thing as morality. So that means there must be some authoritative source that gives these values their validity. Because without that, there is no reason—yes, this is what is perhaps called the naturalistic fallacy—or the idea that the mere fact that there are facts in the world does not obligate me to anything. Therefore, if I think there are standards of good and evil, there has to be some source responsible for those standards, and that is God. Right? That is basically the argument, the argument from morality. I spoke a bit about the methodology of this argument, or the logic of this argument, and I said that it is easy to see it as a pragmatist argument. Meaning: I want there to be morality, so let’s invent God so that morality will have validity and everything will be wonderful. But that is actually deriving what is from what ought to be. Just as you can’t derive the ought from the is, you also can’t derive the is from the ought. That is the inverted naturalistic fallacy. The naturalistic fallacy says that I derive the ought—what is forbidden and permitted—from the is, from facts, and that can’t be done. It’s the “ought from is.” But by the same token, you also can’t derive the is from the ought. Meaning, I can’t say: well, because this ought to be done, that means such-and-such exists. What does that mean? The fact that I need this entity in order to create the obligation to behave in a certain way does not mean that this entity exists. It either exists or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t exist, then indeed there will be no obligation. Okay? No God and no obligation. So I said that when you hear this argument for the first time, it sounds like a pragmatist argument. I’m basically inventing God in order to have a more convenient, pleasant, moral life, whatever. But my claim was that this is not a pragmatist argument, because the argument does not say: I invent God in order to have morality. The argument goes in the opposite direction. I assume there is valid morality—my intuition says so, my conscience says there is validity to moral principles, to moral values—and then I say, wait a second, but without God it cannot be that moral values have validity. Therefore there is God. In other words, I begin with the intuition that says moral principles have validity, that intuition is very clear to me, and then I work backward and ask myself: wait, but how can that be? If there is no God, then this intuition is probably just deceiving me or misleading me, because without God there cannot be validity to moral principles. Therefore, if I assume that moral principles do have validity, then in the background I must also believe that there is God. That does not mean there is God. It means that I believe there is God. Maybe I’m mistaken. But if I think moral principles have validity, then necessarily, implicitly—maybe not consciously—I also believe there is God. Now whether I am right about that or not is another question. That is, I don’t know. But at least I can show the person that he believes. Now go deal with that belief yourself—whether it is an illusion or something real. Fine. But I showed you that inside you there is a nesting belief, that in fact you believe even if you are not aware of it. So that is basically the argument from morality, and I began dealing with a few objections or counterarguments against it. So I explained why it is not pragmatism. In other words, that is not a relevant claim. There are claims that say morality is the result of evolution. Meaning, evolution implanted in us—because altruism has survival value, right? Cooperation, concern for the whole group and not just for myself—so because that has survival value, it developed within us, took shape within us. Fine? So then there is no validity to moral principles. All you are really saying is that there is no validity to moral principles. Forget evolution. It just explains why I feel that there is validity even though in truth there isn’t. The explanation is evolution. Something put that into me. But clearly what I am really saying is that there is no validity to moral principles. Because if you tell me that moral principles were created by evolution, then you have said that they have no validity. Because evolution also told me to gossip, right? Presumably our tendency to gossip also has some evolutionary root. So what does that mean—that therefore we ought to gossip? The fact that evolution created something in me says nothing about whether that thing is positive or negative. So you can explain to me why I feel that moral principles have validity—evolution created that feeling. But evolution is not an explanation of why moral principles actually have validity. It is an explanation of the psychological state within me, that I feel they have validity, not of the claim that they really do have validity. Okay? Therefore I say: this argument, this counterclaim, is really attacking the very existence of morality. You are basically saying there is no morality. Fine. But the argument from morality speaks to someone who thinks there is valid morality, and says: if you think there is valid morality, then necessarily God is in the background, because without that there could not have been valid morality. If you don’t think so, then fine. If someone doesn’t accept the premises, I can never bring him an argument that proves the conclusion. An argument is based on premises. If you don’t accept the premises, then okay, this argument is not relevant to you. This argument is addressed only to someone who does accept the premises. Therefore the objection from evolution is irrelevant.

[Speaker B] It’s not enough as an explanation, because for every intuition you can say it’s an illusion. But isn’t that enough of an explanation to show why there is such an intuition even without it reflecting something in reality?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It does, yes, it explains.

[Speaker B] No, if evolution is a sufficient explanation, then—then you can say it’s an illusion.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can say that, and you can also not say it. Now decide whether you think this is just an illusion that evolution implanted in us, and then the argument doesn’t address you because you don’t accept the premises. But if you think morality really is valid—regardless of whether evolution implanted it in us and it is still valid, or whether you don’t think evolution implanted it, that’s a different matter—if you think it really is valid, then God has to be in the background. In other words, evolution does not attack that. Evolution can at most explain why you don’t accept the premise. But that doesn’t matter. If you don’t accept the premise, then fine, I’m not talking to you anyway. Still, I’ll say one sentence about that claim itself—why I think evolution also cannot explain the feeling that moral principles have validity. Because what evolution actually needed to do was implant the behavior in me. It needed to make sure I would behave that way, altruistically. But why did it implant in me the feeling that this is how one ought to behave? That is not an evolutionary need. In other words, all that is needed evolutionarily is just to make sure that I in fact do it. But that same consciousness that says there is an obligation to behave this way, by virtue of which I also do it—that is not an evolutionary need. There is no evolutionary need for that at all. Why?

[Speaker C] It could be that there are situations where you need to make a decision between taking care of yourself and your descendants—that’s exactly the whole idea of evolution—versus helping another person. And you need to decide what’s right and what’s wrong. So that’s exactly where the feeling comes in: you feel that you need to help him, but in any case you could make the decision here to help yourself.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand the claim. So what is the claim? Why do I need—why does evolution need—why is it survival-beneficial to think that there is an obligation to behave morally? What is survival-beneficial is actually behaving morally. So if the explanation were evolutionary, I would understand if people actually behaved morally. That I understand—that has an evolutionary explanation. But why do people feel there is an obligation to behave morally? No, they behave too—but feeling the obligation is superfluous. Make sure the behavior is like that. Why does it need to be accompanied by a feeling of obligation? Think about that sheep that has been with us since the beginning of the semester, right? That sheep that behaves so nicely toward its fellow sheep and doesn’t hurt anyone and everything is wonderful. It also behaves morally and altruistically, and that probably really is for evolutionary reasons. But I assume it has no feeling of obligation that this is how it ought to behave, because it has no feelings of obligation at all, okay? So why aren’t human beings the same as the sheep? On the evolutionary level that would be good enough. I don’t need the feelings, the feelings of obligation that accompany the behavior. What has evolutionary value is only the behavior itself, not the feeling of obligation that accompanies it. So what’s the problem?

[Speaker C] It’s a bit of a hard question, because there is similarity between them and—as you become more…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, the sheep is only an example. I’m asking about us. Forget the sheep, whether we resemble a sheep. The sheep just shows you that the sheep survives just as well because even without a feeling of obligation, if it behaves altruistically, then it survives. So now as far as we are concerned, if the whole point were just survival, then we too should behave like the sheep. In other words, without a feeling of obligation, just behave altruistically. I should have to sacrifice myself for the sake of the Jewish people and the State of Israel not because of a feeling of obligation, but like a sheep. In other words, simply do it. And if evolution operates only for the sake of survival, that would have been enough for it; there would be no need for the feeling of obligation that accompanies it.

[Speaker D] But why does this consciousness need rationalization?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And why is that? Evolution created that too. Why? What for? It is completely unnecessary. This whole developed consciousness—that’s what I’m talking about—is entirely unnecessary. On the contrary, it only does harm. Because if they had implanted in us the behavior itself and not the feeling of obligation—but then afterward I still have a dilemma whether to go with this feeling of obligation or not—that is much worse evolutionarily. It is much better evolutionarily to act directly, meaning simply to make sure that I behave as evolutionarily required. Why do I need to be allowed not to do that? That is only an evolutionary disadvantage.

[Speaker C] Why do I have an evolutionary feeling to eat? Why don’t I just eat?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, same question. Why don’t I just eat?

[Speaker C] Evolution gave you the desire to eat so that you would eat.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? But it could have given me eating without the desire to eat, like a sheep. What’s the problem? A sheep is also a product of evolution. So why do I need anything more than a sheep? What do I have

[Speaker C] that a sheep doesn’t?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The feeling of obligation. A sheep has no feeling of obligation.

[Speaker C] You’re assuming something about the sheep that you don’t really know.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] נכון, but let’s assume that assumption is correct. You understand that from an evolutionary standpoint that’s enough, right? So that’s it; then for us too it should have been enough. There is an element here that is superfluous, it has no survival value. The behavior has survival value, but not the motivations because of which I behave. On the contrary, as I said before, if I do it because of motivations or feelings of obligation, that is worse for survival. Because that means I have a feeling of obligation, but who knows whether I will act on it. Because I can decide whether or not to do it. But that is bad for survival. Why? Because there is

[Speaker E] the possibility of choice for me. If I have some other element that is better for survival.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No problem, so implant that behavior in me—not the altruistic behavior? Fine. But why do we need all the dilemmas? The dilemmas are superfluous. Program me to do whatever is most beneficial for survival. That’s all. No, it’s not exactly that. With us there is consciousness. Consciousness is superfluous, it has no role. You’re talking about the mental dimension. Of course. But in the context of the feeling of obligation, if that’s what you’re talking about, then it’s exactly the same thing. Right, the feeling of hunger is the same thing. Same thing. The very existence of consciousness, the very existence of a mental dimension, is completely unnecessary in the survival sense. Completely unnecessary. Make a society of human beings that looks exactly like our society, behaves exactly the same way, everything exactly the same—but inside we’re all sheep. Meaning: nothing there. It’s all simply the result of programming. That’s it, with no mental dimension at all. What’s the problem? Or robots. Today you don’t even need sheep. There are robots that really behave like human beings, right? And they don’t have—presumably they don’t have—that same awareness or feelings or… What’s the problem? They would survive just like us. Because what determines survival is behavior, not feelings.

[Speaker C] And in my view this already gets into the scientific problem of consciousness, because it’s very hard to define consciousness.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t care—what do I care? I don’t need to define consciousness. I know I have consciousness, right? I’m asking why. That’s all. Fine, but this is a parenthesis, it’s not important for our purposes, because I said the attack from evolution attacks the premise of the argument. That doesn’t interest me. The argument always addresses whoever accepts the premise, so it doesn’t matter. All you are saying to me is: I don’t believe there is valid morality. If you don’t believe there is valid morality, then obviously I can’t prove to you the existence of God from the premise that there is valid morality. But if you do accept the existence of valid morality, then in the background, implicitly, you really believe in God. That is actually the claim. So that’s regarding the moral argument. After that I moved to the categorical imperative. I said that Kant’s categorical imperative actually leads us to the existence of God on two planes. I’m just digging even deeper into the same argument—it’s the same argument, not a different one—but I’m trying to excavate further in order to strengthen it. Because the essence of morality is that it is a categorical imperative. Right? That’s what Kant says: a moral act is an act done out of commitment to the moral command. Right? That is supposed to be the motivation. So first of all, as I said before—evolution. Evolutionarily there is no need to resort to motivations. In other words, do what has to be done in order to survive, and that will bring you survival. The question is why they implanted in us this feeling—not only implanted the motivation, but also implanted in us the feeling that the motivation is essential to the moral evaluation of the act. That if you do it from another motivation, then no, it’s not a moral act. What’s the issue? If you did the act that is beneficial for survival, then you did it. Why does the motivation matter? That itself already says there is some problem here with the evolutionary account. Beyond that, I say that once you do the act because of commitment to the moral command, then you must believe in the existence of a moral command, and therefore there is a commander of that moral command. Because without that, there is no command. That is, in a materialist world, a world in which only we exist and chairs and pigeons—what does it mean to say “moral command”? It’s just a collection of facts, which are facts, they exist because they exist. Where does a moral command come from here? A command needs a commander. A law must be a law; a law needs a legislator. Therefore it cannot be that there is a binding command that I am supposed to follow not because of any other consideration, but only because of commitment to the command—when the command itself has no commander. So what does “commitment to the command” even mean? Why should I have commitment to the command? So the very category of command, the meaning of the category of command, itself says there is God. Because otherwise there cannot be a category of command. It cannot be binding just by virtue of being a moral command—not because of considerations of utility, this kind of harm or that kind of harm, whatever—but simply by virtue of this command being a moral command, it binds me. Why does it bind me? Because behind it stands an authority that commanded this command. Okay? Otherwise it is very hard to understand how this command can be binding. Now, I once had a debate with David Enoch on this matter of God and morality, and there he said to me: listen, what do you mean, and why do I need to listen to God? That’s a postulate, an axiom—that if He created me, I need to obey Him. So I said: then let it be a postulate to obey moral commands. Why go one step back? Okay? I say, fine, I agree that your postulate is the duty to obey the command. I am only asking why you have that feeling that this is a duty. Because without a commanding factor there is no logic in it. Why be obligated to something that has no commanding factor behind it, one to whom you are obligated? So I understand that you have such a feeling, and now you need to give yourself an accounting of whether that feeling is not just nonsense. So what if you have a feeling? I also have a feeling that I want to gossip. The fact that you have a feeling inside you proves nothing. Intuition alone is not always a sufficient condition. In other words, intuition tells me something, but maybe there will be criticism, I will compare it with something else, and suddenly I will understand that the intuition here is misleading me. Or I ask myself what could underlie this intuition in order for it to be correct. Because if it had no basis, then it could not be correct. So if there is an intuition that this is correct, fine—but then I ask myself, how can that be? How can there be an obligation to a command? Apparently there is an authoritative factor behind it, one to whom I am obligated. Okay? Therefore I think it is a mistake to say that if you accept obligation to God as a postulate, then you can accept obligation to the moral command as a postulate without needing God who commanded it. That is not true. Because if the moral command is not an entity—if it is not that—then why behave this way rather than another way? Why on earth? Why should I do that? Obligation is always obligation toward something that has some kind of authority. Okay? And if there is no such thing, then there is none. So that’s about the category of command. But I also said that the content of the command sharpens the point of why God is really at its foundation. And here I don’t remember how much I already got into this, so I’ll do it now a bit more systematically. I want to explain more what the categorical imperative is. We talked about this, right? That it is a hypothetical experiment, and that it is not really a consequentialist matter. We talked about it, right? I’ll illustrate it through examples. Again, I don’t completely remember what we did, but maybe we already did some of this. Suppose I’m deliberating whether to evade income tax. Okay? Did we talk about that? So I say: suppose I hide a thousand shekels from the income tax authorities. In the state treasury, a thousand shekels is a joke, right? Nothing will happen because of that thousand shekels. Whether my thousand shekels are in the state treasury or not—it doesn’t matter. Right, a thousand shekels plays no role. Therefore on the consequentialist level there is no justification for the demand not to evade taxes. So Kant says: true, but if everyone evaded taxes, then it would be significant, because then there would be no money at all in the state coffers. I am assuming everyone else pays and I hide a thousand shekels. But if everyone hides, then the state will not be able to function. And that is certainly bad. And what Kant says is: do the calculation—what would happen if that were the general situation, that everyone evaded tax? But then I asked: what do you mean? Whether I pay or don’t pay does not affect anyone else in any way. Everyone else makes his own decision whether to evade tax, not evade tax, and so on. Those who decide to pay, pay; those who don’t, don’t. Now what I decide concerns only my own thousand shekels. And my thousand shekels, in any case, play no role. If all the others didn’t pay, then the state will collapse anyway, even if I give the thousand shekels—I just threw them in the trash. If the others did pay, or enough others paid, then my hiding a thousand shekels again changes nothing. So it’s true that if everyone did what I do and evaded tax, the situation would be bad—I completely agree. But my decision is not about everyone; it is only about me. So whatever everyone decides, they will decide. But when I weigh the two possibilities—either to pay the thousand shekels or not—and I compare the situations: if I paid the thousand shekels, what is the situation, and if I didn’t pay the thousand shekels, what is the situation—there is no difference. So if there is no difference, why pay? Therefore the fact that everyone would evade taxes like me is irrelevant to the discussion. And the same thing goes for the dilemma—these are my endless arguments with my son—whether there is any logic to going out and voting in elections. Okay? So voting—there is no logic to going to vote in elections. Your vote affects nothing. Not that it affects a little and each person affects a little, so therefore—it’s actually even worse than taxes. In taxes your thousand shekels will eventually do something once many such things accumulate; your thousand shekels together with many other people’s thousand shekels eventually are the state treasury. So you contributed one tiny bit and everyone else contributed another tiny bit. Okay? In voting you don’t even contribute a tiny bit. You have no influence whatsoever, zero, absolute zero, not epsilon. The only place where you could possibly have influence is in a case where the party you voted for received an exact whole multiple of the number of votes needed for a seat. Right? Let’s say the number of votes needed for one seat is fifty thousand votes, okay? If there is a party that got exactly a whole multiple of fifty thousand votes, then the fact that I voted there added a seat, right? And if I had not voted, then a seat would have been lost. But that doesn’t happen. From the establishment of the state until today, and also in the future, there has never been and never will be a situation where one of the parties gets exactly a whole multiple of the number of votes needed for a seat. It doesn’t happen. The chance is zero. There was once, in a small town in municipal elections, long ago—a small place with, I don’t know, maybe three hundred votes or something—there I think there was an exact tie between two candidates, an absolute tie, exactly. Fine, but that’s when there are three hundred votes. In elections for the Knesset you’re talking about fifty thousand votes for a seat. What are the odds it lands exactly on fifty thousand? There is no chance. It won’t happen. So notice this: your vote doesn’t have a small effect that accumulates with many other votes. It has no effect at all, none. And again, you can say: wait, but if everyone didn’t vote, then of course there would be an effect. If all the millions didn’t vote, then there would be no elections, no Knesset, nothing. True—but I have no influence over the others. My decision concerns only whether to place my own vote, just as I said about income tax. So whether they decide to vote or not, let them decide whatever they decide. My input into the matter is one additional vote, and about that vote I need to examine two possibilities: either I vote or I don’t vote. Let’s see what the situation will be if I vote, and what the situation will be if I don’t. Is there any difference? The answer is no. So why go vote? Okay? Now this issue of such actions is a philosophical question that many people have dealt with in many fields, and I once wrote two or three columns about this issue of cumulative impact versus impact that has a cutoff. Right? There is cumulative impact. For example, a thousand shekels is cumulative impact. Each additional thousand shekels—true, a thousand shekels by itself affects nothing, but in practice a million is made up of a thousand thousands. Right? Meaning a thousand people who each paid a thousand shekels gave us a million shekels. Okay? So that is cumulative impact. In elections it is not cumulative impact. In elections it is simply zero impact. There is, of course, a cutoff. Meaning, if fifty thousand people don’t vote, then a seat is lost or something like that. But as long as you are below the cutoff, there is no impact at all. Okay? Environmental quality, for example—there are also philosophical discussions about this. Why shouldn’t I throw plastic into the trash or into the sea? Okay? What will my plastic bottle do? Nothing. Of course the sum total of plastic bottles has a very bad effect. But still, what I have to decide about is only my own plastic bottle. That is, whatever everyone else is doing, they are doing. And so on; there are a million things. Today in the world, in the global village in which we live, almost all problems are like that. Recycling and all those things. So the claim is that in practice there is no consequentialist consideration that can cause you to act in all these situations, because there is no consequentialist difference.

[Speaker C] And one could always say that it starts with one person, even if it’s a change…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know, that’s just words. I am now weighing the difference between two options. I have the option of going to vote or not going to vote, right? Those are my two options. Now I check: if I went to vote, that’s the result; if I didn’t go to vote, that’s the result. I compare the outcomes. Same thing. That’s it. That’s it. So what else is left? This is my decision. We don’t make collective decisions; I make decisions about myself. I’m not even going to tell anyone what I decided; I’ll do it quietly. Fine? Nobody will know. It’s irrelevant that changes start small and so on. That doesn’t matter. I am now talking about the question of what I am supposed to do—I, the little one, with the tiny influence I have. Okay? So in practice

[Speaker C] there is no difference between this outcome and that outcome. I still think you should make the choice to act.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why?

[Speaker C] Because let’s suppose you don’t do it—then there will never be change in life. Even—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There won’t be change this way either. What do you mean?

[Speaker C] No, listen. No, that can’t be.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is no change. The vote of one person never changes anything. I can vote all my life, go devotedly to the polling stations, in every municipal and national election and everything, and never in the past and never in the future will I have any impact. Absolute zero—not small, absolute zero. No impact whatsoever. So why go? Why waste time? Just to go? What good is that?

[Speaker C] Let’s say everyone acts… yes, exactly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I know, I’ve got experience with my son. These arguments happen all the time. Wait, but what if everyone did what you do? If everyone did what I do, then in any case what I do has no significance, because the state treasury is empty and elections don’t exist. But what is the point? Others don’t do what I do. Good thing there are fools in the world. They don’t do what I do, and therefore I won’t do it either. My impact does not exist.

[Speaker C] That’s exactly the point—we need fools.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, but why am I guilty? Let the fools go vote. I’m not guilty. I want to make my thousand shekels. Why should I throw a thousand shekels in the trash when they won’t help anyone, and I need the thousand shekels? From my perspective, it is significant. So why throw it in the trash when it doesn’t help anyone? Okay, so that’s exactly the point. What I want to say is that the only justification that can come up in this context, precisely because consequentialist justifications don’t work here, the only justification is the categorical imperative. Now what does the categorical imperative say? On a simple reading, the categorical imperative is basically a consequentialist consideration: what happens if everyone does what you do? Then look, the world will be destroyed. So apparently it’s a consequentialist consideration. But Kant’s whole idea is that we’re not talking about consequentialist considerations at all. That’s the whole point. The consideration is really that I want to sort actions into good actions and bad actions. How do I know what a good action is? So in order to know whether this action is a good action, I do a hypothetical experiment: let’s assume everyone does this action exactly as I do. Will the world look good? The answer is yes. If everyone pays income tax, the world will look good; if everyone doesn’t pay income tax, the world will look bad. Therefore paying income tax is a good action. Once it’s a good action, then I have to do it. Notice: this is not a consequentialist consideration. Rather, the hypothetical experiment only helps me classify the action, to categorize the action as a good action. Once it’s good, I have to do it because it’s good, okay? And not because of the results. It has no results. And therefore no consequentialist consideration can cause me to do it. I do it because it is good. And that is the whole idea of Kant’s categorical imperative. That’s why this interpretive mistake is so problematic, even though many people fall into it, but it is so problematic because… rather, simply because it is good. And this categorical test, checking what the general law would be, only helps me classify the action, categorize the action: is the action good or not good. And once I’ve reached the conclusion that this action is good—because if nobody goes to vote it would be very bad, if nobody pays taxes it would be very bad, if everyone throws bottles into the sea it would be very bad—then accordingly throwing a bottle into the sea, or not voting, or evading income tax, is a bad action. Once it’s a bad action, I don’t do it. I don’t do it not because it has some problematic consequence—it doesn’t. I don’t do it because it is a bad action. And I think this sharpens much more the need for God in the background. Because there are people who think, fine, if I have a consequentialist explanation—I don’t want to hurt people, I don’t want this or that—then that’s a sufficient explanation for why I behave morally. The result is the explanation: I don’t want to hurt people. Even though I think that’s not correct. Meaning, what do you mean you don’t want to? Then don’t hurt people, no problem. But why am I obligated not to hurt people? If you feel bad after hurting people, fine, then don’t hurt them. But why do you come with complaints against someone else who hurt people and feels perfectly fine about it—what’s the problem? That’s why I don’t accept that claim. But I’m saying even someone who does make that claim—when I place him in situations of the categorical imperative, where there is already no harming of people and no consequential issue, then why behave that way? So what do I care that it is defined as good? So what if it is defined as good? It’s defined that way, so I’ll do a not-good act, a bad act. There is no result, nobody is harmed by it, so why should I care that I’m doing a bad act? Okay? Here you need some kind of authority, I think. This sharpens even more the need for there to be some authority behind this imperative that you must obey, and therefore you do it—not because of the results.

[Speaker B] Okay, if it has no connection to utility at all, why is utility a sign? Why is general utility still a sign that something is good?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s a philosophical consideration, not a consequentialist one. If the consideration is consequentialist, then—

[Speaker B] —we’ve accomplished nothing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. But why do you—

[Speaker B] —need it as a sign?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying, Kant has writings that explain why that is the sign. Those are philosophical explanations, not consequentialist explanations. So if you’re looking for a consequentialist explanation, then you’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater. So what other explanation do you want? Simply that I understand that this is the right way to behave. I don’t know what else I can explain.

[Speaker B] What about things that are questionable from the outset? Meaning, if I become a carpenter—if everyone were carpenters, that would be bad. In other words, things where from the outset there’s a question whether they’re moral or not?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, those are already various objections to the categorical imperative. There are all kinds of objections. Wait—but it would also be very bad if everyone went to become doctors, right? The world also needs other professions. So maybe not be a doctor, because I wouldn’t want that to become a general law. Fine. I would want it to be a general law that there be ten percent doctors, ten percent cobblers, and ten percent soldiers, I don’t know what, okay? Obviously there are a lot of degrees of freedom here. This is far from determining in a one-to-one way what is right and what is not right to do. But still, I think there is an important moral intuition here. Okay? It’s not a decisive rule, it’s not a rule that tells you in every situation what the correct answer is, but it is an important moral intuition—like, for example, in the issues I spoke about earlier. So the point is that if the categorical imperative is really not consequentialist, but rather you do the good because it is good and refrain from doing evil only because it is evil, then it is even clearer that behind this good and evil there must stand an authoritative factor that commands them, and I do the good because that is what it commanded to do. But if there is no such factor, then so what if it is defined as good? Why is that of interest? I mean, why is it relevant? Okay? Now, in a moment I’m going to challenge this a bit, but before that I’ll bring an example I like, which I was once asked about on my website. Someone asked me during the cheerful siren period—not with Iran, that was earlier, I think with rockets from Gaza or from Hezbollah or things like that, not in the twelve days of Iran. So he said to me: if I’m locked out of my house on the Sabbath and the door is electric, is it permissible to open the electric door in order to get into the protected room, the safe room? Okay? Because it’s saving a life. I told him that in my opinion, no, it is forbidden to do that. Why? I told him this. Basically, suppose I’m walking in the street and suddenly a siren is heard. The chance that I’ll be hit is zero. There is no reason to fear anything. There is no chance of being hurt—it’s nonsense. The fear is from the siren, not from the missile. Meaning, there is some kind of instinct: we hear a siren and it creates fear in us. If they didn’t sound a siren, nothing would happen. Meaning, nobody needs to be afraid of anything. The chance that you’ll be hit is nothing. Again, I’m not talking about—leave aside the Iranian missile for now, although even there I think this is true. But the Hamas or Hezbollah missiles—nothing. Suppose you are in an area of, I don’t know, one square kilometer, which is very small. The sirens usually sent people to shelters over an area much larger than one square kilometer, right? But let’s say even one square kilometer. And the missile hits, I don’t know, ten square meters. So what’s the chance that it—this is one in ten thousand that it will hit you. What? Yes, never mind—one in ten thousand is more or less the chance that you’ll be hit in one square kilometer. Now if you’re talking about an entire country—come on, really—what’s the chance that I… it’s just zero. There is no chance I’ll be hit. It’s nonsense. All these fears are really just empty. I wasn’t the least bit afraid of these things. Already from the First Gulf War it was like that. You don’t remember it at all, but that too amused me so much. People were terribly scared. What is there to be scared of? Meaning, once it was a chemical missile, that was frightening. Because a chemical missile covers an area, and then everyone will suffer. But once it became clear that these weren’t chemical missiles but ballistic missiles—nothing, there’s nothing to it, it’s nothing. So what? But still, in my opinion you should enter a protected room. You have to. Why? It’s like the categorical imperative. Similar to the categorical imperative, but even a bit stronger. What do I mean? Suppose none of us enters a protected room. Then one person will get hit. In that whole square kilometer there are people, broadly speaking, right? Now suppose nobody enters the protected room because there’s no chance of being hit—one chance in ten thousand. So there’s no chance of being hit. Okay? Fine. But if there are, say, ten thousand people, then one person will be hit. Okay? So if one person is hit, that’s very bad. And we don’t know which one of us will be hit, right? So in order to prevent the fact that one person will be hit, all of us have to enter the shelter. Okay? And more than that: true, I can take on risk at the personal level, okay? But at the public level, if one person is hit, that is an injury to the whole country. Because when the Iranians or Hezbollah or whoever managed to kill an Israeli civilian with their missiles, that’s a morale problem, an image problem, a deterrence problem, whatever, all sorts of things like that. Meaning, there is a strategic consideration here. It’s not only the question of my private life, on which I can take a risk. Okay? So if I had to take on a risk to my own life, I would certainly take it—it’s a negligible risk. Okay? But since if all of us take this negligible risk, in the end one person will certainly be hurt, or almost certainly be hurt, then yes, all of us should enter the protected room. So that means the obligation to enter the protected room is a collective obligation. It is not a private obligation. This is the categorical imperative. Meaning, if everyone behaved like me and did not enter a protected room, the situation would be bad because one person would get hurt. Therefore all of us have to enter the protected room, even though again, entering the protected room will bring me no benefit, because my chance of being hurt is negligible. Here there is benefit, but a benefit of one in ten thousand—that is, a very, very small chance. Okay? So therefore the claim is that here too this is basically a kind of categorical imperative. Because it is basically saying: in my consequentialist calculation, there is no justification to behave this way. But since this cannot be a general law, then this act is not a good act—not entering a protected room—and therefore I am obligated to enter a protected room. Okay? That is the reason why we enter a protected room. And here is the practical difference. What happens if we got locked out on the Sabbath by an electric door and there’s a siren? There is no permission to open the door. Because you are not in a situation of saving a life. There is no risk; the risk is negligible. Now if the whole country had been locked outside its door on the Sabbath and they fired a missile, then yes, then everyone would have to open the door and go in. Because one of us would get hurt, one person would get hurt. Right? But that’s not the situation. Everyone is in a protected room. I personally, specifically, got stuck outside. In order to neutralize the small risk facing me personally, there is no justification whatsoever to desecrate the Sabbath by opening the door. Such a tiny risk does not justify desecrating the Sabbath. Okay? So here is an excellent practical difference regarding the distinction. Because they’re always telling us that a protected room saves lives and so on, vote and have influence, you know all the… It’s nonsense, it’s propaganda. Okay? But still, the propaganda is calling on us to do something that really is the right thing. We need to go vote, we need to enter a protected room, we need to pay income tax, we need to do this thing. It is the right thing. It is right because of the categorical imperative, not because of the result. Not because there is danger and the protected room saves lives. It saves nothing. Collectively it saves—meaning, one of us may be saved if we all enter the protected room. Okay? But now, since this is not saving a life, but only this collective consideration, then if the problem I encounter is my personal problem—say, if they fire a missile at the country and only I am walking around in it, no one else is walking around in it. I was left alone in the country, I’m the last one who turns off the light. Okay? At Ben Gurion Airport. Right? Then obviously there is no reason at all to go into a shelter, and no justification for this, and not to throw bottles into the sea and whatever else you want. It is a world where you can do whatever you want. A world in which you are alone. And therefore when you get stuck outside the building on the Sabbath, if I compare the situations—meaning, if I desecrate the Sabbath, then I’ll enter a protected room; if I don’t desecrate the Sabbath, then I’ll remain outside with zero risk. So there is no justification whatsoever to desecrate the Sabbath.

[Speaker B] Simply this general value.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The general value, yes—but it doesn’t exist here, because the general value does not mean that everyone will desecrate the Sabbath now in order to… they don’t need to desecrate the Sabbath, they weren’t stuck outside, only I was stuck outside. Meaning, if everyone were stuck outside, then yes, I would tell everyone to desecrate the Sabbath, even though for each individual outside there is no chance at all that he’ll be hurt. Fine, but because of the general consideration we all desecrate the Sabbath. But the general consideration says to enter the shelter, not to desecrate the Sabbath in this case, where desecrating the Sabbath is required for entering the shelter only for me, not for all the other people. And in my case, I don’t have this categorical consideration.

[Speaker B] So it’s part of the…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Part of nothing. What do you mean part? I stay outside and no one gets hurt, everything is fine.

[Speaker B] In a case where desecrating the Sabbath is required here, it’s just some clash between some value…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but that value does not override the Sabbath. Saving a life overrides the Sabbath, not some other value. Okay? Therefore it’s not relevant. Doing good does not override the Sabbath. Saving a life overrides the Sabbath. And in a place where everyone got caught outside their homes, that is saving a life, which overrides the Sabbath. Why? For me personally, no—but collectively one of us will get hurt. Fine. One of my students once wrote an article about using public transportation. He argued that there is an obligation to use public transportation because private cars are dangerous. There are many traffic accidents and so on, on weekdays, not on the Sabbath. Never mind. So he wrote an article in which among other things he touched on these points of collective problems of the categorical imperative. And he brought there some case he had seen from Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu—yes, the father of Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu—where a religious officer from the army once came to him and asked him: the army’s instructions are that when, as an officer, you unload a weapon from a soldier, you have to turn on a flashlight to illuminate the chamber and see whether there is still a bullet left there in the chamber. And you have to do it in the dark, you have to do it with a flashlight. Meaning, it’s not enough to stick a finger in and feel. And he came to Rabbi Eliyahu and asked him what happens on the Sabbath: when I unload the weapons for soldiers, am I allowed to turn on a flashlight in order to look into the chamber? So he told him that definitely yes. You should turn on a flashlight. Why? Because this is a general instruction for all officers who inspect weapons after guard duty. And since there are many guards and officers in the army in a great many places, then even if the chance that, if you didn’t shine a flashlight, there would still be a bullet there—the chance is very, very small—but since there are very many cases, many days, many officers, many soldiers, multiply it out, that’s millions of cases. Okay? So among those millions of cases, in one case there is saving a life; someone will shoot because of this. And therefore everyone has to turn on a flashlight to illuminate the chamber. Okay? That is basically the claim. Now that’s an interesting comment, because as for the consideration itself, I agree—it’s like the consideration I mentioned earlier. But how many religious officers are there? After all, most of them shine a flashlight anyway, even without Rabbi Eliyahu. They shine a flashlight because they don’t care. They shine a flashlight… how many officers are there who are deliberating whether to shine a flashlight? Twenty? I don’t know, something like that. That’s no longer a large mass. Meaning, what’s the chance that among them they’ll be strict, they’ll put in a finger and feel that there’s no bullet in the chamber? All in all, it is a check. What?

[Speaker C] When you’re the Chief Rabbi of Israel, it seems to me that you really do need to look from the perspective of okay, what everyone will implement.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But that’s not correct, because the public doesn’t listen to the Chief Rabbi of Israel.

[Speaker C] State the Jewish law here. Whether they listen or not, that doesn’t matter.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but the Jewish law here is a function of reality. If in reality my Jewish law ruling will not save lives, then what is the justification for desecrating the Sabbath? In reality it won’t save lives.

[Speaker C] Yes, but whether it will save lives or not depends on whether they follow the Jewish law ruling.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But I know they won’t do it. I know most of them won’t do it. So what? I’ll give you another example—I’m not rejecting what you’re saying. That’s a real argument. I’ll give you another example where I also said something similar to what you’re saying now, I think. There was once—where did the penny drop for me? I wrote an article about the categorical imperative in Jewish law. Where did the penny drop for me? There was a debate between two rabbis in Tzohar—you know Tzohar? May it rest in peace. There was Rabbi Nehorai, who is a rabbi of a kibbutz, and Rabbi Yehuda Amichai, who is from Otzar Haaretz, an organization dealing with commandments dependent on the Land and so on. And this Otzar Haaretz organization set guidelines for how to conduct oneself during the Sabbatical year. And it said that we try not to consume produce sold under the sale permit (heter mekhira), but rather produce from the court storehouse arrangement. If there isn’t produce or something like that, then we’ll buy from the sale permit. Okay? Then Rabbi Nehorai cried out: what do you mean? What’s this supposed to mean? Are you casting doubt on the sale permit? So he said: no, I’m not casting doubt on the sale permit, but if I can be more stringent, then I’ll be more stringent. Those who use the sale permit, good for them, but I recommend that people be stricter. If you have no choice, rely on the sale permit. That’s fine. I’m not slandering the sale permit, but it’s still less ideal than the court storehouse arrangement. That was the claim. And Rabbi Nehorai argued with him like this, and I felt he couldn’t find the words. So I wrote an article in the following issue about the categorical imperative. And I said that basically what Rabbi Nehorai meant to argue was the categorical imperative. What does that mean? There’s no real solution in which everyone would rely on Otzar Haaretz. Right? Because the debate went like this. Rabbi Nehorai said to him: and what happens if everyone does this? They’ll all rely on Otzar Haaretz? What will the farmers using the sale permit do? How will they make a living? And we want to make sure they can support themselves. Right? He said: fine, but it’s only a small minority that uses Otzar Haaretz. After all, the whole country eats produce from the sale permit, because in supermarkets and all that it’s all sale permit produce—it’s the regular produce, sale permit produce, okay? In all the supermarkets. So the whole country, including secular people and not just religious people, buys the sale permit produce, so there’s no concern for their livelihood. And I felt he couldn’t find the words, Rabbi Nehorai, to say what I think he really wanted to say, which is this: it’s not a consequentialist question at all. It’s a matter of a hypothetical test. Meaning: if everyone bought from the court storehouse arrangement, then the sale-permit farmers wouldn’t have an income. Now, true, in practice that won’t happen. In practice everything is fine, they have an income and everything is excellent. But if everyone acted that way, the world would not be a good world—even you agree. If so, then it’s forbidden to act that way, even though there’s no practical consequential problem. Meaning, the livelihood of those farmers is not actually in danger. But since that act is not a good act, it’s forbidden to do it, regardless of consequential concerns. That’s probably what he wanted to say.

Now, that’s an interesting point, because here I completely agree—as opposed to Rabbi Eliyahu. And I’ll tell you what the difference is. The difference is that I can always say: look, I want to be more stringent. I’m not invalidating those who use the sale permit. I want to beautify the commandment more, so I choose the court storehouse arrangement. So I say no. In a place where your stringency is based on the fact that others must not be stringent, don’t do it. Meaning, if you’re more stringent and others are less stringent, fine—but not when, in order for you to be stringent, you need them not to be stringent. Wait, one second, one second—you need them not to be stringent? Then don’t be more stringent. Where can you be more stringent than the norm? You want to do the most meticulous possible version of the Hanukkah candles—you’re not relying on others not to be meticulous. On the contrary, everyone can choose to be meticulous or not. So I don’t need everyone else not to do the most meticulous version in order for there to be value in my doing it. But in a place where I cannot be more stringent unless others are not, then that stringency has no value. That’s the categorical imperative. Okay?

Now why do I say this is not exactly the same thing as Rabbi Eliyahu? I’m saying there is such an aspect, but it’s not exactly the same thing. Here I’m saying you’re allowed not to be stringent—that too is a legitimate option, namely the sale permit. You want to be more righteous, more stringent. But you’re not more righteous, because if you’re not acting according to the categorical imperative, then you’re not righteous. So what did you gain? But here we’re talking about desecrating the Sabbath. In the case of desecrating the Sabbath, if you do something for the sake of the categorical imperative, that does not justify Sabbath desecration. Saving a life overrides the Sabbath—not the categorical imperative. Okay? So here you need an actual danger to life. There is room to discuss it, I’m not ruling it out, there is room to discuss it. Because even if, say, you desecrate the Sabbath due to a consideration of danger to life, maybe that means it is permitted and there is no real prohibition of Sabbath desecration, because if you do it for life-saving reasons then it isn’t a prohibition. Yes, but again I’m claiming—yes, but these are not life-saving considerations, because there isn’t actually a danger to life. It’s only a categorical imperative. So here there is room for some hesitation.

It’s like another example I once thought of. When I lived in Bnei Brak, there was a grocery store downstairs from us. And with grocery stores, our practice is not to sell actual leavened food on Passover. Mixtures containing leaven and so on, yes—but not actual leaven. Businesses are allowed to sell actual leaven. Okay? There are questions about the sale and so on, but for businesses, if you don’t allow them to sell actual leaven, it’s a huge loss, because they hold stock of actual leaven and lose a lot of money. Okay? So they allow them to sell actual leaven. Now in Bnei Brak it was customary that the righteous people wouldn’t buy from the grocery store the actual leaven that he had sold. As far as they were concerned, that was leaven over which Passover had passed—we don’t sell actual leaven. At first I also did that, but at some point I came to my senses and said, wait, this can’t be right. After all, if no one bought from him the leaven he sold, then what good did it do him to have permission to sell actual leaven? The whole point of allowing him to sell actual leaven is so that afterward he can sell it to people and make a living and not lose money. And if you don’t buy from him that actual leaven because for you it’s forbidden to buy, even though it was permitted for him to sell, then what good is his permission to sell if you have no permission to buy what he sold? In his selling actual leaven—yes, there’s no point in permitting it. Meaning, once you permit him to do it, you’ve essentially also permitted others to buy from him. Otherwise, the permission to sell is worthless unless I’m permitted to buy what he sold. Right? Therefore it’s obvious you can buy from him. There is absolutely no reason in the world to be stringent. On the contrary, whoever is stringent in this matter is acting improperly. And you’re relying on others to be sinners and buy leaven over which Passover passed—what exactly are you relying on? His permission to sell stems from the fact that afterward you can buy it. Especially since it’s not even really leaven over which Passover passed; it’s just an extra stringency, similar to the Sabbatical year in that sense. It’s only an embellishment, because after all he sold it. It isn’t leaven over which Passover passed. That prohibition itself is rabbinic to begin with—just hysteria, just an overblown stringency. There’s really nothing to it. More than that, I think it’s a totally irrelevant stringency, not just a hysterical one. Even the slight chance that there was any problem doesn’t exist here. It’s not only the hysteria issue. Because all a business wants is to sell its products. How can you say he didn’t sell with full intention? He would be thrilled if the non-Jew didn’t return the leaven and instead paid him for it. So there, he sold his whole stock—that’s exactly what he wants to do. With a private merchant, there’s no concern that the sale isn’t serious. With a private individual who sells his leaven, he wants it—it’s his leaven. He sells it to a non-Jew; maybe he didn’t really intend to sell seriously, maybe he was just doing tricks. But a merchant who has leaven in his store—that’s what he does. He makes a living selling leaven. So when he sold it to the non-Jew, he was dying for the non-Jew not to return the leaven and instead to pay him according to the deal. Excellent—then he sold all his merchandise. Therefore, in that case there is no reason at all to worry that the sale is not a serious sale. It’s just nonsense. In any case, that too is a kind of categorical-imperative consideration. Okay.

Now again, all these things show you—and this is an important point before I move to the next part—that the content, not only the categories, of the imperative means that behind it there has to be someone with categorical authority in order for the imperative to have authority in itself, but also the content of the imperative. Because the content of the imperative says that you need to do the act because it is good, not because of the results it produces. Which is even less understandable—so why is this act good? Why should I do it? Only if behind this act there is an authority commanding me, or expecting of me, to do the act. Then it has value even without results.

Now I want to—I now want to turn the whole thing upside down a bit. And in fact the consideration of the categorical imperative—it’s interesting that I didn’t find much discussion of this, I wrote about it on my website, I looked a bit—it is really equivalent to the prisoner’s dilemma in game theory. What happens in the prisoner’s dilemma? Police catch two people suspected of theft. Okay? They’re suspected of having cooperated and stolen together. That’s the suspicion. Now they’re being held in separate cells. And if the police find no evidence of theft, then they’ll only be charged with a minor offense, and each one will get one year. But if there is evidence of theft, fifteen years. Fine? Otherwise it’s some minor offense—breaking into somewhere or whatever, doesn’t matter. Fine? So if there’s no evidence against either of them, each one gets one year. If there is evidence against one of them or both that they stole, fifteen years. Now the fact is there is no evidence. They didn’t find any evidence. Now the police offer them a deal. Yes, this is the prisoner’s dilemma. The police offer each one a deal separately, each in his own cell, right? If you inform on your friend, okay, then he’ll get fifteen years because there is evidence against him that he stole. And you’ll be a state witness, right? And you’ll go free. You’ll get a bonus, because otherwise you’d get one year in prison. Inform on him and go free. Right? Without evidence, each gets one year. So if you inform on him, he gets fifteen years and you go free. They say the same thing to the other one too: inform on him and you’ll go free and he’ll get fifteen years. Okay?

But there’s another rule, another point. If both of them inform on each other, then they each get five years. Not fifteen years. Because understand: if I informed on him, I can go free. But if he informed on me, then I get fifteen years. So from the standpoint that he informed on me, I deserve fifteen years. From the standpoint that I cooperated and informed on him, I deserve to go free. It’s not reasonable that if we both informed on each other, we both go free. What did the system gain? You go free only if I gained the ability to convict him, right? So obviously they should get something between one and fifteen years. If both informed, five years each. Okay?

So now the table—there’s a table. Wait, let’s share something here for a second so you can see it more clearly. There is—okay. So look. I’m showing the table here. Okay? You see it? Yes. So, here we have a table showing the different options of the two prisoners. Prisoner A is in bold, and Prisoner B is not in bold. Okay? Now if Prisoner A keeps quiet and Prisoner B also keeps quiet, then Prisoner A—the bold one—gets one year, and Prisoner B also gets one year. Right? If Prisoner A keeps quiet and Prisoner B informs, then Prisoner A gets fifteen years—that’s the bold—and Prisoner B gets zero. If they both inform, then five and five. If Prisoner B keeps quiet and Prisoner A informs, then Prisoner B gets fifteen years and Prisoner A goes free. That’s the payoff table—not truth table, the table, what’s called the strategy table, okay, in game theory.

So now Prisoner A does—let’s do Prisoner A’s calculation. Prisoner A says: look, I don’t know what Prisoner B will decide, right? He’s in some other cell, I have no communication with him, I don’t know what he’ll decide. Let’s calculate. Suppose Prisoner B decides to keep quiet. Okay? What is it better for Prisoner A to do? Hm? Right? Because if he also keeps quiet, what does he get? One year, right? And if he informs, he gets zero. So it’s better for him to inform. What happens if Prisoner B informs? What is it better for Prisoner A to do? Let’s look at this column, yes? I’m looking at this column. Okay? Prisoner B informs—what should Prisoner A do? Also inform, right? Because then he gets five years instead of fifteen. Meaning, in every case it’s better for him to inform. Right? Therefore he informs. Now you understand this is completely symmetric. Meaning Prisoner B also understands that in every case it’s better for him to inform, and therefore he too informs. What happens? This is the result, right? So look what the result is. When they both decide to inform, each one gets five years. Is that the optimal result? No. The optimal result is this one. For both of them, let’s say. Right? The optimal result is this one. Meaning it turns out that when each one acts to maximize his own gain, the overall result is that both of them lose. If they both cooperated and kept quiet, both of them would gain. Not maximal gain—in the sense that if I inform and he keeps quiet, then I go completely free—but the reverse is equally possible, and I don’t know what he will do. Therefore, it is clearly better for both of them to keep quiet than for both of them to inform. And in coalition reasoning, when we talk about coalitions and not each one separately, the result is basically that both of them should keep quiet. In individual reasoning, it comes out that both should inform. Okay? Meaning if each one acts to maximize his own gain, the general outcome is worse. But if each one acts for the benefit of the other—he keeps quiet, he refuses to inform on the other, he acts for the other’s benefit—then he himself also gains from it. Provided they both do it. Because if I decide to keep quiet but he’s a bastard and he informs on me, I get fifteen. Meaning, my keeping quiet is a good strategy on condition that he also keeps quiet. If we both keep quiet, excellent. But if he maximizes his gain, then I also need to maximize my gain. Meaning society can be built either on agreed altruism or on the egoism of all its members. If one side is egoistic, it’s not worthwhile for the other side to be altruistic. That’s basically the claim. And so the interesting mathematical phenomenon here is that coalition reasoning leads to a different game outcome than individual reasoning. Meaning, if they could coordinate positions and establish a joint coalition, then a joint coalition strategy—obviously they would choose for both to keep quiet, right? But they’re in separate cells. Since they’re in separate cells, I don’t know what the other will do; maybe he’ll maximize his gain, and then it’s worthwhile for me too to maximize mine. Only if I trust his honesty or decency—that he’ll keep quiet, the decency of thieves, yes?—then I too will keep quiet and we’ll both gain. But it’s very tricky, because you don’t know what he’ll do, you have no communication with him. Okay?

On the BBC there’s a program called Golden Balls—have you heard of it? Golden Balls or something like that. It’s a show that tests the prisoner’s dilemma in front of the camera. It’s unbelievable. One of the most fascinating programs I’ve ever seen. And it’s a collection of clips, each one three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, no more than that. Tons of them—dozens, hundreds of clips. And no two games are alike. What happens? Two people sit there and each has to choose a strategy. They sit facing each other and the table is like the prisoner’s dilemma. Meaning, if both of you keep quiet then this happens, if both of you inform then that happens—but it’s monetary gain, they’re playing for money. So what’s written here, think of it as thousands of shekels. If you steal and he’s honest, you earn fifteen thousand shekels and he walks away with zero. Fine? If he steals and you’re honest—this is split or steal, that’s what it’s called. Either you steal or you split. If you’re willing to split with him, excellent, each of you gets half, five and five. Fine? Or actually one and one, in the earlier table. If you want to gain all the money—that is, you choose steal—then if he also steals it’s five and five. If he doesn’t steal, then fifteen. He gets hit, I get fifteen and he gets nothing. Exactly like this table. Okay?

Now the only difference is that there it’s a prisoner’s dilemma where they can coordinate between themselves. They’re not in separate cells. And ostensibly that’s different, but in practice it’s not really different. Why? Because you coordinate a coalition with him. But you don’t know what he’ll do in the end. You can agree between yourselves that both of you are going for split, sure, and we’ll at least make half the money, we’ll gain. That’s the dilemma there. Either you get all the money and the other gets nothing, or you split the amount in half and each gets half. Right? And if both of you choose steal, nobody gets anything. Fine? So I’m saying, each one tries to convince the other: okay, let’s do split, at least we’ll get half. But some of them are crooks. They try to convince the other to choose split while they themselves plan to choose steal. Then they’ll get everything and he’ll get nothing. Now each one doesn’t know whether the other is lying or not lying, and what he’ll actually do. We can agree between ourselves that we both do split, with all sorts of considerations. But in the end, what he does depends on him. And nobody knows what the other did. So in the end it’s like separate cells, even though they can talk. Now what’s fascinating there are the arguments people raise in order to convince each other, or the strategies they propose in order to persuade one another. And no clip is like another. None. And I’m talking about hundreds of clips. It’s simply fascinating, amazing. There are a few clips with truly brilliant arguments people make there, because these are people who have already thought about it—it’s a known format, it apparently ran for a long time on the BBC, each time with different people. In any case, it really is a fascinating phenomenon.

Now, you understand that this picture you see here is exactly the categorical imperative. What is the categorical imperative? The categorical imperative says: look, I’ll pay a thousand shekels and you’ll also pay a thousand shekels to the state treasury. And then there will be a state treasury. Right? Now I say, wait a second, but if I steal my thousand shekels, I lose nothing. Because you’ll pay, there will still be a state treasury, I’ll receive all the services, and I’ll still have my thousand shekels. So let’s steal the thousand shekels, right? That’s the steal. The split is that everyone pays a thousand shekels. But the risk is that everyone steals and doesn’t hand over the thousand shekels, and hides it. Then what happens? There won’t be a state treasury and we’ll all suffer. Okay? When I steal, I’m relying on the others being honest. Okay? If everyone steals, then we’re in terrible shape. So it really is the prisoner’s dilemma. It’s exactly the prisoner’s dilemma. And the categorical imperative basically says: let’s use a coalition strategy. Let’s behave fairly by mutual agreement so that at least we each get one. True, I could have had zero, better if I stole—but the risk is that the other steals too. What? Wait, one second, that’s exactly the point I’m getting to. So the categorical imperative is really just the prisoner’s dilemma at the social level. It’s the same thing. Okay?

Now what happens here is a very, very tricky phenomenon. Why? Because in the end, individual reasoning remains just as I described before. On the individual level, it is worthwhile for me to hide the thousand shekels from the tax authorities. Right? Obviously. It is worthwhile for me—that’s the individual calculation, like in the prisoner’s dilemma. Meaning, it’s worthwhile for me to steal. Right? To inform, in that case. Okay? But if we all inform, what happens if everyone does as you do? Right? If we all inform, five and five—we’re sunk. Okay? Same thing in the state. If we all hide our thousand shekels, then we’re all sunk. Okay? But on the other hand, I keep saying: but I’ll hide my thousand shekels, others can do whatever they do, it doesn’t affect them anyway, everyone makes his own decisions, so why shouldn’t I hide my thousand shekels? The answer is: yes, but everyone will make that calculation. Everyone will make that calculation. Notice—not a coalition. Everyone will make the individual calculation. Exactly like here: he decided to inform and he decided to inform. Each one maximizes his own gain, right? And then the result is five and five, we all lose. So what happens is that the gap between utilitarian behavior and altruistic behavior gets pretty blurred. Because in the end, now I’m making a decision that seems altruistic—I don’t hide the thousand shekels for the sake of the public, right? But in the end that also brings me utility, because only if everyone really makes this Kantian calculation of the categorical imperative and pays the thousand shekels, will there be a treasury for the state. If each one behaves egoistically and maximizes his own gain without supposedly hurting anyone else—my individual point doesn’t hurt anyone else. But if we all make that decision, we’re all finished. So in the end, is this a consequentialist utilitarian calculation or not? Not a simple question, right? Meaning, in the end, the coalition calculation is utilitarian, while the individual calculation is altruistic. But you have to understand that if you won’t be altruistic, it may be that all the others also won’t be altruistic, and then we’ll be in awful shape. The problem is that I hesitate to be altruistic, because even if I am altruistic, who says the others will decide that way too? They may decide to do steal and not split. So is it altruistic or not altruistic? It’s really not clear. Meaning, it’s built on the fact that we all have an altruistic good will, and once we are all altruistic, we’ll have a better result—even though altruism is not acting for the sake of a result. Okay, if we all behave altruistically, we’ll reach the optimal result, so in the end the consideration is consequentialist after all. Society cannot exist if individuals do not make Kant’s categorical-imperative calculation. Meaning this is indeed a condition for society’s existence; there is a consequentialist aspect here. Because the categorical imperative is always presented as something non-consequentialist, altruistic. I do it because it is right, not because of the results—there are no results. No, there are results. It’s just that the results are results of the action of the entire coalition, not of your personal action. To the decision of all of us as a group, of course there are results. A state cannot exist without this.

Yes, it’s like a parable for this thing. You know, I once heard a radio interview with a very interesting Jew named Sam Vaknin—Shmuel Vaknin. He’s my age, from Kiryat Yam, and we have a mutual friend. A pathological genius, really a genius. My friend told me that in sixth or seventh grade or something, he decided to memorize the dictionary and that’s how he knew English. He simply memorized the dictionary and knew English. The guy is a diagnosed genius. At some point in his life he got into trouble, sat in prison, business affairs, a colorful character. In any case, there was once a radio interview with him, and he proposed solving the Israeli-Palestinian problem as follows. He said using game theory: do you know how you divide a cake between two children so that they divide it and get exactly equal parts? You have one of them divide it and let the other choose first. You cut the cake, and the other chooses whichever half he wants. Why does that ensure exact division? Because the first one, the moment he makes an inexact division, the second will choose the bigger piece and you’ll be left with the smaller one. The optimal method for you is to divide it exactly half and half; then he chooses one half and you choose the other. That’s a game-theory method for reaching an exact, fair division between two people.

Now he says: let’s list all the disputed points between us and the Palestinians; one side will divide them into two parts and the other will choose first. That was his proposal. Of course it’s stupid. It’s stupid for many reasons. It’s stupid because there’s no way to enforce it, first of all. You’ll divide it in half and then they’ll start a war with you because they’re unhappy with their half. It’s like when Kishon once suggested: why don’t we play chess with the Palestinians? Instead of killing people, why have wars? Let’s play chess and whoever wins gets the benefit. What’s the problem with that? The problem is that after you win, they’ll go to war with you and won’t agree to give you what they promised. In the end, force will have to be used to enforce the results. In the end force always plays a role, so even if you do these tricks, in the end… Like here, in the prisoner’s dilemma we finish by agreeing on everything between ourselves, but in the end you can do whatever you decide. What we agreed on is written on ice. So in that context too.

But beyond that, my claim was that if a mother who wants—or parents who want—to educate their children to be altruistic, the last thing I would recommend to them is this cake-dividing method. Because this cake-dividing method will make the children as egoistic as possible. If the child is as egoistic as possible, that is the best method to get an exact half-and-half division, right? Because he’ll make sure it’s exactly half and half so that, God forbid, he won’t lose anything. If you want to achieve a half-and-half split, it’s an excellent method. If you want to educate the children, it’s a very bad method. Because you’re educating them to be egoistic. And that is exactly the tension I’m talking about here, which says that in Kantian reasoning, it is not consequentialist. It demands that you be altruistic. Okay? But obviously in the end it also produces results. But if a person acts in order to produce the results, that will be very bad. You’ll get five and five and not one and one. If a person acts in order to produce the results, in order to maximize his own gain, then it won’t be good. Precisely if he acts as an altruist, you’ll achieve the results. Okay. Therefore, if you want to achieve good results with your children, then educate them to be altruistic. Don’t educate them to divide the cake equally. Dividing the cake equally—you can train them in all kinds of ways and you’ll get an equal division of the cake. Next time they’ll beat each other up over everything. If you want to achieve the result, you need to educate them to be altruistic, not to act for the sake of results.

[Speaker B] Like someone who works while thinking about his wages.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly. This is a paradigm for all sorts of methods for solving problems in the state. At one time they thought that the law of direct election for prime minister was the be-all and end-all, that it would solve all the problems of the universe for us. Once they changed the electoral system, everything would be wonderful. They changed it once, and it was a total disaster. They immediately changed it back. And all the prophets and political scientists and everyone explained that it would bring complete redemption. Nothing. It was a total disaster. Why? Because you can’t solve complicated problems with formal tactics. Dividing a cake in two—fine, you can manage to divide a cake in two with some formal game-theory trick like that. But real-life problems are so complicated that a trick like that from game theory will never get you to a solution. The world is more complex than your tricks. It will always get around you.

Yes, I’ve written about this a few times. My son-in-law’s father once told me that his father owned a furniture store in London. And in London there was a law that stores couldn’t open on Sunday, only food stores, not other kinds of stores. He also closed on the Sabbath, so he had a problem—both Sunday and Sabbath. So he wanted to open the store on Sunday. What did he do? He opened the store and said he was selling tomatoes, and anyone who bought a kilo of tomatoes would receive a sofa worth ten thousand shekels as a bonus. Okay? And that’s how he opened the store on Sunday. Or he once told me that in India there was a snake plague in some region. So the government announced that whoever brought in a snake would get a rupee, get some money. What happened? People caught snakes, raised them, bred them so they’d have lots of snakes to bring in and get rupees. You can’t solve real problems in the world with formal tricks. Game theory, as is known, doesn’t help anyone in any situation, contrary to the legends game theorists try to sell us. Game theory is good for solving mathematical problems. Or simple problems. Complex problems cannot be solved with game theory. The world is too complicated for a mathematical tactic to produce results. It never works. If you come from here, it’ll come at you through the window. You’ll close the door and it’ll come through the window. It won’t help.

Recently—remember the argument a few weeks ago about parking lots, where they said they should charge for parking by the minute, not by the quarter hour? Of course all the parking-lot owners raised the per-minute rate. People just paid more for parking. The Knesset is always trying to solve problems with laws and it only comes out worse. The Books Law—I can give you a thousand examples. The Books Law: Miri Regev was very proud as culture minister that she passed the Books Law. From the outset it was clear to me she was going to screw everyone. The Books Law says that publishers cannot sell a book below a certain price or something like that. The author gets percentages of what the publisher receives. Therefore the publisher tries to maximize its revenue, and if it maximizes its revenue, that will also maximize my percentage. So if the publisher thinks it’s worthwhile to run promotions, that will maximize both its income and mine. You in the Knesset don’t know better how to sell books than Steimatzky does. Steimatzky sells books better than you do. And then you tell it not to run promotions but only sell at full price—you reduce the money it receives and the money the author receives. Same thing with bank fees, whatever you want. Meaning every trick the Knesset devises, the market will get around it. There are some very, very specific things that succeeded, like the law protecting wildflowers, the classic example, where they really did change consciousness. But they succeeded because they changed consciousness. Not because the law did some trick and managed to reach the desired result, but because they succeeded in changing people’s consciousness, so that now people really don’t touch protected flowers.

Anyway, for our purposes, what I want to say is that this is exactly the tension between altruistic behavior and consequentialist behavior. Ostensibly, everyone will maximize his own outcomes, and that’s how we’ll get the best result, right? Capitalism at its best. Okay? But it doesn’t work that way. If everyone tries to maximize his own outcomes, very often we all end up with worse outcomes. We all lose from it. And some kind of guiding hand is needed—not only the invisible hand of capitalism, but a guiding hand that helps solve problems, including cartels and monopolies of course, that’s obvious. But beyond that, also in places of market failure of this sort. Some arrangement is needed that will help people make altruistic decisions—and if not, they’ll go to jail. Meaning: help them be altruistic. Because otherwise the formal solutions don’t solve the issue.

And therefore even with the categorical imperative you can say that what Kant is really talking about is consequentialist behavior and not altruistic behavior, but that’s not true. Because the private individual who is considering whether to hide a thousand shekels—obviously he’ll hide the thousand shekels. From the standpoint of his own outcomes, he gains a thousand shekels and no loss occurs. Why shouldn’t he do it? The results only come if all of us decide that way. But if all the others decided and I hid a thousand shekels, the results would still be excellent. So what’s the problem? Especially since there are many players here, not just two. There are a lot of players. So there’s no reason to make the calculation except for the altruistic reason—that I know that if we all make the altruistic calculation, the situation will be good. And if we don’t make the altruistic calculation, then each of us will be a steal and not a split, and then we’ll all be in terrible shape. So in the end it really is altruistic. Meaning, in the end you need to educate people. It’s not enough to provide an algorithm that will steer them to do what you want them to do, like in dividing the cake. And therefore, yes, the categorical imperative really does talk about altruism; it does not talk about consequentialism. Even though in the end only altruistic behavior yields the best outcomes. That’s the point.

And therefore, if we return to the proof for the existence of God, I say: so why behave altruistically? Why behave altruistically? I can gain a thousand shekels. Because it’s a bad act. The Holy One, blessed be He, said not to. But here it’s already a bit trickier. Because someone who says “results” can also say that results can lead me to good behavior, not only the Holy One, blessed be He. So there is some consequentialist consideration here. If all of us are altruistic, the condition of the state will be better. There is a consequentialist aspect here. So from the point of view of a person’s considerations, it resembles cases that have results and not only cases that have no results. Still, in my opinion, without God there is no basis, no validity, for moral values. But that’s on this lower level, not on the level that says there are no results at all so why do it—only the divine command. Meaning, the argument is a bit weaker here, not the really strong argument. Okay, anyway, for our purposes, a bit of semi-mathematical amusement. That’s it for now. So good luck to you—if you have exams or something, then we’ll see each other.