Ethics and Halakha 1
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- [0:00] Introduction: the two branches of morality – faith and Jewish law
- [1:26] Critique of Kant’s argument: morality without God?
- [3:49] Morality and intention: a Kantian perspective and Plantinga
- [7:48] The connection between moral obligation and belief in God
- [10:26] An evolutionary explanation for moral behavior
- [12:10] The story of the rabbi and the sheep: morality beyond behavior
- [13:51] Distinguishing morality from phenomenology and undermining moral judgment
- [26:07] The question of equality and morality
- [27:29] Determinism and utilitarian judgment
- [29:12] Kantian morality versus utilitarianism
- [31:33] An external source of morality – divinity or reason
- [34:58] Ari Elon’s example – moral sovereignty
- [36:43] The concept of a sovereign person
- [44:16] Free choices and their connection to morality
- [49:27] The golden rule of morality – do not do to your fellow
Summary
General Overview
The opening sets up a series on morality with two branches: what morality is and what its relationship is to belief in the Holy One, blessed be He, and later morality and Jewish law. The speaker uses Kant to argue that the moral argument is not a utilitarian invention of God meant to create social order, but a logical claim: whoever assumes that moral principles have binding force is already assuming in the background a binding source. He draws a sharp distinction between “nice” or utilitarian behavior and morality in the Kantian sense of commitment to principles and intentions, and criticizes atheist attempts to justify binding norms through evolution, emotion, society, or personal “sovereignty.”
The Structure of the Series: Morality and Faith versus Morality and Jewish Law
The speaker divides the discussion into two branches and announces that today they will begin with the first branch, morality and its relation to faith and the Holy One, blessed be He. He notes that the second branch will deal with morality and Jewish law, their relationship, and the possibility of conflicts, but that this will be postponed. He agrees in principle that one can find moral behavior even in someone who does not believe, but says that the central question is the philosophical consistency of “obligation,” not practical functioning.
Kant and the Moral Proof for the Existence of God
The speaker mentions Kant’s division of the proofs in the Critique of Pure Reason into the ontological, cosmological, and physico-theological proofs, and adds that in other books Kant presents a proof from morality within the framework of practical reason. He describes a common criticism of Kant as if Kant were saying, “Without God there will be no morality, therefore there is a God,” and presents this as a pragmatist argument reminiscent of Marx’s “religion is the opium of the masses” and Leibowitz’s objection to the idea of God as a health fund. The speaker argues that this interpretation is incorrect, and that Kant is saying the opposite: assuming a person ascribes binding force to moral principles, the logical conclusion is that he is assuming God as the source of that obligation, even if he is not aware of it.
A Logical Argument, Premises, and the Rain-and-Clouds Analogy
The speaker presents Kant’s argument as an ordinary logical argument based on premises, and says that every logical argument assumes premises, and whoever does not accept them will not accept the conclusion. He compares this to Descartes’ cogito, which tries to produce a claim without premises, and asks whether it succeeded. He brings the analogy of rain and clouds to clarify that causality and logical inference move in opposite directions: not “if there are clouds there is rain,” but “if there is rain there were clouds,” and so too moral obligation leads by inference to belief in God even though God is the basis of obligation.
The Moral Atheist, Consistency, and Types of Replies to Kant’s Argument
The speaker describes “moral atheists” who declare themselves atheists but care deeply about moral principles in the Kantian sense, and says that Kant sees this as an internal contradiction that demands resolution. He stresses that he is not claiming it is impossible to behave well without faith, or that believers behave more morally, but rather that moral obligation requires a source, and therefore such atheism is not consistent. He describes one consistent option as “there is no God and no morality,” but says few are willing to make that claim, and presents alternatives that try to ground morality without God.
Critique of the Evolutionary Explanation: Behavior versus Obligation and Intention
The speaker presents the evolutionary claim that moral behavior emerges because it benefits group survival, and adds a reservation about communism and extreme socialism, which lose the maximum of survival. He argues that such an explanation can at most explain behavior, but not “morality,” because morality is not just facts of behavior but includes intention, choice, and willingness to pay a price. He brings the story told by Amnon Yitzhak about the rabbi escorting a sheep as a “righteous man” in order to show that non-harmful behavior is not enough for morality, and following Kant formulates that morality is also measured by motives.
Plantinga and the Gap Between Evolutionary Value for Behavior and Obligation
The speaker attributes to Alvin Plantinga the argument that there is no evolutionary advantage in feelings themselves or in moral obligation itself, but only in useful behavior, because evolution does not care why a person helps, only that he helps. He uses this to argue that the emergence of a feeling of “obligation” is not explained by evolution in the same way behavior is explained. He says that someone who explains how moral behavior arises is not answering the question of why moral principles are valid and why there is justification for judging someone who does not act that way.
Moral Judgment, Determinism, and Free Will
The speaker distinguishes between social self-protection and moral judgment, and argues that in a materialist world of molecules and motion there is no “right and wrong,” only behavior and the outcomes of structure. He argues that moral judgment in the substantive sense requires seeing a person as a chooser who could have acted otherwise, whereas an approach that translates judgment into emotion or tendency confuses an internal fact with a normative claim. He uses examples of murder, attempted murder, and punishment policy to show that if everything is merely outcome-based and defensive, then there is no meaning to the distinction between “coerced” and “guilty,” and under determinism everyone acts because of one defect or another, so the distinction dissolves.
The Legal System, Genetic Tendencies, and the Difference Between Mitigation and Exemption from Guilt
The speaker refers to the American discussion about brain scans and the mapping of genetic tendencies toward violence and their effect on punishment. He argues that one needs an orderly model of free choice in order to distinguish between an argument for reducing punishment and an exemption from guilt, and that the legal system necessarily also includes practical considerations. He ties this back to the claim that if judgment is only defensive-utilitarian, there is no point in subtle distinctions of responsibility, and the discussion of “judgment” becomes risk management rather than morality.
The Rabbinic Person and the Sovereign Person in Ari Elon
The speaker presents Ari Elon as a formerly religious “great preacher” who is secular and unusually articulate, and warns that the aesthetics may conceal problematic arguments. He describes Ari Elon’s distinction between “the rabbinic person,” subordinate to an external system of Torah / rabbis / the Holy One, blessed be He, and “the sovereign person,” who legislates laws for himself. The speaker rejects this as utter nonsense and argues that such a model collapses in the face of examples like a contract killer or a group with different norms, because even someone who sanctifies sovereignty still judges certain laws as unworthy and assumes an external standard for good and evil.
Autonomy: Choosing the Good, Not Inventing the Good
The speaker says autonomy is important because it is a condition for responsibility, but it is only part of the picture. He argues that a person can choose autonomously to behave well or badly, but cannot choose autonomously to define evil as good without making a mistake, because the very distinction between good and evil is not produced by internal legislation. He calls the concept of a “humanist atheist” an oxymoron, in the sense that humanism as a system of binding values distinguishes between a humanist and a wicked person, and he argues that such obligation requires an external source.
Reason, Axioms, and the Difference Between Facts and Values
The speaker rejects the comparison between moral principles and mathematical axioms, arguing that mathematics is a description of reality whereas “murder is forbidden” is a value claim, not a fact. He argues that talk of “our reason” requires a conception of reason as recognizing, not legislating, and therefore something external is needed that reason recognizes as defining good and evil. He claims that obligation cannot be based on society or on “human society,” because even an entire society can corrupt its ways, and he gives as an example that few would be willing to give up moral judgment of Nazi Germany even if it was a legal norm there.
The Election Analogy: Syria, Switzerland, and Israel as Structures for Meaningful Choice
The speaker presents an analogy from politics in order to illustrate that freedom has meaning only when faced with external data that create costs. He describes “Syria” as a fake choice with only one option, “Switzerland” as a free but meaningless choice when there are no problems and therefore no practical consequences, and “Israel” as a real choice when there are problems and costs attached to every choice. He concludes that free choice, without something outside the person that defines costs, good and evil, or benefit and price, is sovereignty emptied into a vacuum.
Maimonides, “I desire” and “I do not desire,” and the command at Sinai
The speaker refers to “the Maimonides passage with ‘I desire’ and ‘I do not desire,’” and distinguishes between moral rules that a person is supposed to understand even without command and the question of the binding source of the norm’s authority. He points to a contradiction in Maimonides and cites the end of chapter 8 of the laws of kings, where Maimonides says that someone who observes the commandments not because they were commanded at Sinai is one of the pious of the nations of the world but not one of their wise people, and he stresses that this is said specifically with regard to the seven Noahide commandments, which are moral commandments. He leaves for the next stage the question of the relationship between moral rules and the God “written in the Torah,” and the direct connection to the second branch of morality and Jewish law, and stops the lecture at that point.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Good morning. We’re starting a series now, and it’s about morality. The truth is, this could get very long, so I’m a little—well, we’ll see how it develops. It seems to me there are two branches to this field, or to this discussion. The first branch is morality—what morality is in general—and its relation to faith, to the Holy One, blessed be He. And the second branch is morality and Jewish law. So what is the relationship between morality and Jewish law, conflicts between morality and Jewish law, or what the difference or connection is between them. I’ll start with the first branch, and afterward—not today—we’ll move to the second branch. I think I mentioned one of the previous times, when we talked about the proofs for the existence of God, that Kant divides them into three types of proofs: the ontological proof, the cosmological proof, and the physico-theological proof, and that’s in the Critique of Pure Reason. In his other books he deals with—he presents—a proof from morality. And it’s kind of—it’s built a bit differently, it’s practical reason, not pure reason, but he still sees it as some sort of proof for the existence of God. And I think I already noted that a great many people attack Kant over this argument, because basically he’s telling us that without God there will be no morality, and therefore there is a God. That’s a pragmatist argument. Meaning, if without God—let’s say that without God there really would be no morality, and that too needs discussion—but suppose that without God there is no meaning to moral obligation, or there would be no morality, fine, so maybe there really is no morality. Why should the usefulness of belief in God dictate the belief itself? I’m not supposed to subordinate what exists to what is desirable. The fact that I want there to be morality in the world, that people behave properly—that’s very nice—but I can’t invent God for that purpose. That’s roughly what Marx said, right, that religion is the opium of the masses. Opium of the masses in the sense that it serves them for social purposes. Leibowitz constantly protested against that—God is not a health fund, and religion was not meant to provide an answer to people’s needs, but rather is some kind of demand on the person to serve God. And basically here they accused Kant of creating exactly that kind of religion, one that is opium for the masses. That is, let’s fool them into thinking there is a God so they’ll behave morally and we’ll achieve the outcomes we want to achieve. On the philosophical level, they said, that’s not an argument that holds water.
[Speaker C] But it could be that otherwise the world just won’t—it’s like—it’s anarchy, and maybe he’s coming from the direction that the world can’t exist except because there is morality. Morality comes because—no, that’s what Kant claims. It’s not that he says—it’s not that he says there must be morality, he says without morality there won’t be a world.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so why is that a proof for the existence of God? He sees it as a proof for the existence of God.
[Speaker C] Because otherwise there’s no reason to be moral.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, so there’s no reason—so what? Who said there is a God? Maybe there is no God and no reason to be moral.
[Speaker E] Or—
[Speaker F] At least not that reason.
[Speaker E] Exactly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Or—
[Speaker F] At least not that reason.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That reason.
[Speaker E] Yes. You could say that the fact that we think in moral terms, that there’s even such a definition as morality, shows that there is something.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so here we already have a first suggestion. I also think there are a few shades of it, but that’s one of the shades that can be raised here.
[Speaker D] Morality as a physical phenomenon.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not physical—a phenomenon in the world. I don’t know if it’s a phenomenon; I don’t think it’s a physical phenomenon, but yes, I’ll formulate it in a few ways—maybe that’s one of them. First of all, on the pure logical level, I think that’s simply a wrong interpretation of Kant’s argument. He wasn’t that stupid. It seems to me that what he’s arguing is the opposite claim. In other words, again, my focus isn’t to prove that there is a God. Through this I want to examine what morality is. I’m using Kant’s argument to examine what morality is, because that is very important for his argument. I think what Kant claimed is that assuming you think moral principles have validity, then you must believe. Meaning, if for you there is no God, then moral principles have no validity. Now in fact two possibilities stand before you—he doesn’t deny that. One possibility is to say there is no God and no morality, and the second possibility is to say there is a God and there is morality. Now examine where you stand. If people present this in utilitarian terms, they say: look, I’m inventing God so there will be morality and so we can live here. They don’t understand correctly—and in a moment I’ll explain—they don’t understand correctly what morality is, certainly not what Kantian morality is. Kant’s claim was that since morality—and we’ll get to that in a moment, and that’s why I’m bringing all this up—since morality is not a matter of producing utility, but rather some kind of conduct according to principles that are correct in some sense, and as we’ll also see later, it isn’t necessarily always what brings the most good or the most benefit, if it brings any benefit at all—therefore, you cannot accept such a system of principles without assuming there is a God. Now examine: if you really think such a system exists and has validity, and you attack those who do not behave that way and demand that people do behave that way, that is a sign that you assume there is a God, because without that there is no such thing. That is his claim, okay? He isn’t saying that in order for there to be morality we should invent God, but rather that whoever assumes there is morality should infer from that that he probably believes, even if he isn’t aware of it. Some implicit belief is sitting behind it. After all, understand: every logical argument—and I think we already talked about this—every logical argument assumes premises. There is no argument that is not based on premises. What Kant is basically saying is: I assume there is morality—that’s my premise—conclusion: there is a God. That’s all. Now whoever does not accept the premise obviously will not accept the conclusion; that’s true of every argument. That’s clear. What, are you expecting an argument that isn’t based on premises? We talked about Descartes’ cogito—“I think, therefore I exist”—that’s an argument that tries to produce some kind of claim without premises, meaning only by logical means, without assuming anything. Whether he succeeded or not is another question, but that’s what he was trying to do. Usually it doesn’t work that way. A logical argument is based on premises, and from them a conclusion is derived. Whoever doesn’t accept the premises, of course, won’t accept the conclusion. That’s true of every logical argument; there is nothing special about Kant’s argument in that respect. But what people don’t understand is that this is just an ordinary logical argument. He says: assuming there is morality, conclusion: there is a God. Of course morality does not create God; rather God creates morality. Morality is just an indication of God’s existence. It’s like rain and clouds. Logically speaking, it’s not correct to say that if there are clouds, there is rain. There are cases where there are clouds and no rain, right? But it is correct to say that if there is rain, there are clouds. That is, there is no case where rain falls and there are no clouds in the sky. But which one is the cause and which is the effect? The clouds create the rain, right. Yet on the logical level we go the other way around: because there is rain, clearly there were clouds that produced it. Okay, that alone is what we can say logically. Causality works in the opposite direction from logical inference. Same thing here. God is the basis—so Kant claims—for moral obligation. But the logical argument goes from moral obligation to God. He says: because without God there would not have been moral obligation, therefore if you think there is moral obligation, then perforce you probably assume there is a God, even if very often you are not aware of it. A great many people are moral atheists. They declare themselves atheists, but moral principles are very important to them; they understand morality in an entirely Kantian sense, and Kant is basically saying that they are living in an internal contradiction. They need to decide. They understand morality in a completely religious sense, with completely religious obligation. Yes, exactly. And therefore he says there is no religious obligation unless there is a source for that obligation. That’s basically what Kant is claiming. Fine. So now we need to begin discussing whether that really is the nature of moral obligation, and for me this is really just the starting point. I really want to discuss this issue a little. Now someone who is a bit more aware of these nuances, and understands that there really is some difficulty here, offers alternative suggestions for how to be a moral atheist. And maybe I’ll add one more preliminary remark here: at no stage will I argue that it’s impossible to be moral without believing in God. In other words, that basic claim—I also agree with it—as far as the Kantian claim goes. I am not arguing that a person who doesn’t believe in God is a bad person, or that he will behave badly. What I am arguing is that his commitment to morality is not consistent. He can be committed to morality, and there are many such people. I don’t even think statistically—I don’t think that specifically among believers behavior is more moral than in the general population. I very much doubt that. But I’m saying that the moral theory to which you are committed—the moral commitment—is not consistent. That is, this is a philosophical problem, not a problem on the practical plane. Okay? That’s basically the claim. Now what can one answer to this kind of argument? Well, of course one can say: there is no morality and no God, as I said earlier—but very few people are willing to make such a claim.
[Speaker G] You’d claim that there is morality, but it’s subjective?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but obligation is not—there is no such thing. There is no such thing as subjective obligation; there is only behavior. That’s how he behaves. True—he behaves well. But obligation, by definition, has to be above. It can be interpreted as utilitarianism, for example. Okay, so the alternative suggestions basically say: let’s say there is no God, but there are evolutionary mechanisms that create an advantage for moral behavior. Behavior—an advantage for the group—which is fairly obvious. A group in which there is moral commitment among its members will survive better than a group where every man is a wolf to every other man. On some level, by the way, communists or extreme socialists, in my opinion, take this too far; that’s a parabola. Meaning, if there is too much morality or a total loss of private interest in favor of seeing only the collective, then you go back down to zero survivability. Meaning, there is some maximum. Social democracy in one shade or another. Okay. In any case, the claim is that one can try to explain how morality arose even without resorting to the existence of an external factor, a source of morality, of God. How? Say through evolutionary advantage. Evolution basically created a situation in which we became more moral because that helped our survival. Meaning, the one who survived is the individual or the group that was more moral. Whoever was not moral became extinct. This stupid argument is so widespread that it’s hard for me even—I wouldn’t have thought it needed addressing at all, but it’s so widespread, made by very intelligent people, that it really surprises me every time anew. After all, nobody is talking about the question of how the tendency to benefit the other came into being. Fine—so does a sheep benefit the other. What is this, yes? I think I once talked about a story of Amnon Yitzhak, right? I once heard Amnon Yitzhak tell some story, that the rabbi of the city got up at four in the morning, slaughtered a sheep, covered it with a prayer shawl on the road, and shouted, “A righteous man, a righteous man has died, a righteous man has died.” Everyone wakes up at four in the morning as if there’s some NBA game, and they come out and look outside and join in. Well, the rabbi is mourning this righteous man, so they come outside and join him. A funeral procession sets out, they reach the cemetery, he removes the prayer shawl, and they see there’s a sheep under it. So people want to stone this rabbi to death, and he says to them, “I don’t understand what you want from me. Whenever I rebuke you, you always say, what do you want from us? We’re righteous. We help one another, we don’t kill one another, we don’t steal from one another.” So the rabbi says to them, “This sheep is righteous too. It doesn’t steal from anyone, it doesn’t hurt anyone, it doesn’t murder anyone. So what’s the problem? What do you want? If that’s your definition of righteousness, then the sheep really is righteous too. So what’s the problem? Then let’s escort it honorably to its final resting place.”
[Speaker F] What? It also died for the sanctification of God’s name—exactly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It also died for the sanctification of God’s name. We’ll talk about that too, just not today. Maybe a future topic—maybe those funny myths about dying for the sanctification of God’s name. Well, maybe not funny, but ridiculous. In any case, what is Amnon Yitzhak actually claiming? That to be moral, you can’t measure it in terms of behavior. Meaning, the fact that someone behaves in a way that does not harm others is not enough to define him as moral. If he is programmed to be moral, I don’t think we would define him as a moral person, even though he also harms no one; he behaves well. Why? Because in morality there is something beyond facts, beyond how you actually behave—the phenomenology. Right, how you behave. Your morality is not measured only through how you do it, as Kant says—I already moved from Amnon Yitzhak to Kant—but through your intentions when you do what you do. That is a no less important parameter when you come to evaluate the morality of some act. Now, when you offer an evolutionary explanation, the evolutionary explanation merely says why we behave this way. Why do we help one another? Because it has evolutionary value. But that says nothing about whether we are moral. Because the sheep, too, came about evolutionarily, and it helps its fellows. So does that mean that it, too, is moral? I assume few people would define sheep as moral creatures, even though they behave very nicely and hurt no one. Why not? Because actions do not determine—no, not only they determine—whether you are moral or not. It matters a lot whether you decide on it, whether you are committed to it, whether you are willing to pay a price for it, whether your intention is morality itself or other reasons—honor, whatever, it doesn’t matter. Intentions too take part in the evaluation of the moral act. Now intentions—there’s an American Christian philosopher, what’s his name? Very well known. What? Plantinga. Exactly, Alvin Plantinga, something like that. Yes, exactly. So he basically raises this argument; he even formulates it in some mathematical way. Alvin Plantinga is one of the important philosophers today. Many, of course, smear him because he is conservative and Christian and religious, but he is a very smart man. Not “but”—a very smart man. In any case, what he says is that there is no evolutionary advantage at all in moral feelings or in moral obligation. There is evolutionary advantage in moral behavior. After all, what causes me to survive is that I help you and you help me. It doesn’t matter why I do it. And it also doesn’t matter whether I feel obligated to do it or whether I do it because that’s how I’m built. The evolutionary value of those two models is the same. We will survive at the same level. So then why did moral obligation arise, not moral behavior? Which is really an expression of what I wanted to say from the beginning, and that’s why I started this whole discussion: morality does not mean facts. And someone who describes how moral behavior comes into being is not answering the question of why moral principles are valid. That is not the same thing. Suppose evolutionarily I reached a point where I help others and others help me too. Is there now justification to criticize or judge someone who is not built that way? He’s an evolutionary mutation, fine. For him it didn’t develop—that empathetic wing, or ethical wing, okay? He doesn’t help other creatures in the group. Fine. I am built in a way that helps, and he is built in a way that doesn’t help. Is there justification to judge him, condemn him, demand different behavior from him, say that he is not okay? There is no such thing as okay and not okay in a world that is all matter and evolution. There is only behavior. Now if people are built well, then they behave well—that’s obvious. And if people are built badly, then they behave badly. But the demand, the requirement that you behave differently—that does not exist in such a world. In a world of molecules—let’s move to materialism, yes—in a world of molecules and motion, there is no such thing as morality. There is no such thing as morality not because people behave badly—they may behave wonderfully, like the sheep—but moral obligation in the sense that I think we are used to defining it does not really exist there. It’s only an illusion on the phenomenological plane. The behavior is the same, but it isn’t really moral behavior.
[Speaker F] When you examine—going back to what we said before in the case of dying for the sanctification of God’s name—when you examine why a soldier should sacrifice himself—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] For the collective.
[Speaker F] Part of that is not only his utility at that moment. It’s his total belief, his belief that the soldier next to him would also sacrifice himself for him. So there’s importance not only to behavior but also to the commitment of the collective—to the ethos and the commitment of the collective to behave morally. And then I actually can challenge this, because you say I can’t judge the other person. Meaning, if another soldier doesn’t behave the same way, I can judge him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can judge him if you believe in moral obligation that is valid—certainly. But if you think it’s just because that’s how we’re built, then in what sense can you judge him?
[Speaker F] No, I can say that evolution produced it—fine, in his case it didn’t produce it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So in his case it didn’t produce it.
[Speaker F] So I still can judge him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? Because evolution produced in you a tendency to judge, that’s all. In what sense is judgment judgment in the essential sense? Meaning, to say, listen, you’re not okay. What do you mean he’s not okay? When I behave this way, I do it because that’s how I’m built; he behaves differently because that’s how he’s built. So what meaning is there here to okay and not okay?
[Speaker F] When you talk about evolution, in the end you’re talking about the collective good.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the product of evolution. Evolution is the mechanism that creates it. The product is that we act for the good of the collective.
[Speaker F] When you say evolution created such an ethos that everyone—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, certainly I’m willing to say such a thing, only that is not moral obligation. You can say it; I’m not disputing the facts. On the level of facts, you can argue that this came from evolution.
[Speaker F] There’s a gap between obligation and behavior, as if it’s just a collection of isolated acts.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So—
[Speaker F] I’m claiming that evolution can create—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, again, that’s not what I call obligation. No, no—validity of a norm. Obligation as a feeling is also an evolutionary phenomenon; it can even be physiological if you’re a materialist. Evolution can produce that. But a feeling is still not the validity of a norm. Even if I feel inside that it’s not okay, that too is ultimately just a fact. I feel it’s not okay because that’s how I’m built. That’s why I feel that way. I’m asking you not whether you—I feel that he’s not okay, because that too is a fact. It’s a fact like walking, like feeling—it too is a fact. I’m talking about whether you judge him. To judge him is a cognitive act. It’s not a matter of feeling, but of thinking that there is something wrong here, and that he is behaving wrongly. Not because that’s how I feel—how I feel is a fact. That’s irrelevant. When we judge someone, we are not just expressing an emotion toward him. There are people who think we are, but they are mistaken. The fact that I am built in such a way that I condemn someone else is in no way different from the fact that I am built in such a way that I help or do not help others. That too is a product of how I am built. That is not called condemnation and judgment.
[Speaker F] I don’t know why I can’t judge him. No, so I’m saying—it’s not that you think—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That he harms the collective? In the end, of course he does. You can judge him not in a court of law—you can judge him in moral judgment. Are you talking about a court of law?
[Speaker F] No problem, judge him in court, but I’m talking now about moral judgment. Moral judgment—you can’t judge him. If you define moral judgment as obligation that comes from outside, obviously that’s how he defines it, but that’s semantics.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not semantics, no. Check very carefully what it means to be—to judge. Can sheep judge one another? Judge in the sense in which we’re talking about moral judgment.
[Speaker F] I think animals sometimes settle accounts with one another.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, settling accounts is behavior. Again, that is exactly the distinction I’m trying to make. When I talk about judging someone, I mean moral judgment—he is not okay—not expressing a feeling that he threatens me, or a feeling that I feel bad about what he did. Feeling bad is an event in the world exactly like walking and sitting. In my view, that is not what is called moral judgment. Moral judgment happens here, not here. Moral judgment means: you behaved in a certain way, that way is immoral, and I think you are not okay—not that I feel bad about it or that you threaten me, that’s not the point. Moral judgment means judging the act. Meaning, of course I can always say, look, if he murders, I’ll put him in prison so he won’t harm me. That’s not moral judgment; that’s self-defense. Moral judgment says: if you are a murderer, you are a bad person, even if I don’t put you in prison, you are a bad person. Now, a bad person—again—not in the sense that you are built in a way that leads you to do bad acts. That’s not a bad person; that’s a person built differently from me. A bad person in the moral sense means a person who chooses to do acts that are unworthy. He could have done this, he could have done otherwise, and he chooses to do unworthy acts. That is usually what is understood as moral judgment. What happens today is that because people suppress or object to free will, they try to translate these concepts into phenomenological concepts. So moral judgment means expressing a feeling of anger toward you. That’s what it’s called—but that’s not what it means.
[Speaker D] You don’t judge him for the murder?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You don’t judge him. You only express what feelings are created in you.
[Speaker D] A person who murdered—right, so he’s immoral, true, and he will be judged for the murder itself, but you’re saying the moral judgment with which you want to judge him is about the very fact that he is a murderer, right?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Morally speaking there is no difference whatsoever between a murderer and someone who attempts murder.
[Speaker F] It goes back to the definitional question of what morality is. If morality is behavior that does not harm the collective, obviously, okay, then I can judge him for immoral behavior. I completely agree. But I’m claiming that that isn’t morality.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so it goes back to the definition of morality. Right, of course, of course. That’s why I’m proposing a definition here. I’m not making some absolute claim. If someone defines it differently, fine, he can define it however he wants. Anyone who—again, we return to Kant’s proof—meaning everyone should examine himself as to what he calls moral judgment. Very often it’s simply the result of mixing things up, of confusion—not that you really think differently, but that you just don’t understand that there are two different things here. That’s why it’s important to me to make the distinction. If even after the distinction someone doesn’t accept it, fine, then we have a disagreement. But that’s the—yes.
[Speaker B] Part of the things people talk about, especially in the United States, is the whole question in criminal law of whether you should or should not take into account various people’s genetic tendencies. And today, today it’s possible to map people with a tendency toward violence, a tendency toward all kinds of other things.
[Speaker I] Also regarding punishment. Regarding punishment. Regarding punishment.
[Speaker B] Not that—that is, the prevalent approach is, listen, I can’t start taking every individual into account because every individual really is different, and then if everyone does a genetic test, one person will get two years for murder and another fifty years because he’s—so—but also, when it comes to the side of judging, when people say we will ignore each person’s evolutionary or genetic tendencies, that too is judgment. But it’s not judgment as I understand it; it’s not moral judgment but rather a more practical utilitarian kind of judgment.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, so for that we need to go a bit into the question of what morality is—what choice is, sorry—and I don’t want to get into that now because that’s another topic that needs expansion. Maybe we’ll do it in one of the next series, because there are a few points here that I think need to be noted about what you said, and also about what happens in legal systems and so on—brain scans, genetic tendencies, all kinds of such things—what role that plays. But I do want to make use of—
[Speaker B] But you agree that this kind of judgment is really not judgment? No.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I don’t entirely agree. I don’t entirely agree. It depends on several distinctions. Meaning, let’s say it’s completely not in his control because he has some brain structure—I don’t know—his amygdala is damaged, so he has no empathy at all, nothing at all; he’s like that, built that way. Can you judge someone like that? I doubt it.
[Speaker D] No, that’s not—I’m saying there is a definition of not responsible for his actions.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, that’s why I’m saying this needs to be defined—
[Speaker D] Here.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. I’m saying it needs to be defined here. There are things that are only arguments for mitigation of punishment, and there are things that are exemption from guilt. I’m saying that for this you need some more orderly model of what free choice is.
[Speaker B] Fine, but from the standpoint of the society that judges or discusses this issue, how do I judge such a person—mitigate for him or not mitigate? The whole perspective is basically utilitarian?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, there too there are certainly practical considerations as well, I agree. But fine, that’s the question of how the legal system works. I’m asking the principled question. Clearly one also has to make practical considerations from time to time; that I agree with.
[Speaker D] You’re assuming all sheep are equal, right? All the—there’s no—all sheep are equal, there’s no queen of the sheep.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If that’s what you’re saying, okay.
[Speaker D] Are all people equal?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In what sense?
[Speaker D] Are all creatures equal? That’s already a different lecture.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In what sense am I asking? Not everyone is equal; people have different heights.
[Speaker D] Is the moral obligation toward each and every person equal?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. There are people toward whom one has greater moral obligations, and people toward whom one has less.
[Speaker D] No, no, no. Does the obligation to be moral apply equally to all people… I’ll tell you what my question is. Clearing rubble to save a person is a moral obligation, right? So why is a Jew forbidden to clear rubble on the Sabbath in order to save a non-Jew?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so now you’re taking me… you’re taking me to the second branch, and there we’ll talk about Jewish law and morality, so I’ll get to that later—that’s my topic.
[Speaker D] But I’m asking whether from the standpoint of… right now, in your lecture today, now…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] From the standpoint of today’s lecture, it’s all the same.
[Speaker D] Everyone is equal. Yes. All people in the world are equal. Right. Just like all sheep are equal. Right. Okay.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the second part we’ll talk exactly about these kinds of questions, but I want to use what you said to continue
[Speaker I] the discussion a little—like two people wearing shirts of this color. Got it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, that’s to
[Speaker E] annoy
[Speaker I] the
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] local lord.
[Speaker E] Let’s leave Tel Aviv out of this.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But I do want to use…
[Speaker E] But I do want to use the comment…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] your comment to continue the discussion, to continue the previous discussion. If indeed the whole issue is determined only by actions and consequences, then it seems to me that it’s very hard to justify leniency in punishment on the basis of things like that. Right? If in the end the judgment—what you proposed as judgment—is how much damage you do to society and how much society needs to protect itself from you, then if that’s so, what difference does it make whether you were coerced or not? What difference does it make if your genetics are different or your brain structure is different and that led you to do this act? In the end you’re equally dangerous. So if punishment or judgment… what?
[Speaker B] Or if your parents were using drugs…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, it doesn’t matter, not important. Right. If punishment or judgment is aimed only at preservation, if the goal is consequentialist—that is, factual—then I don’t see any difference. In the end, put him in prison, kill him, he won’t do any more harm, and everything is fine. What difference does it make? More than that: if we move into determinism, then we’re all like that. The deterministic view says that everything each of us does, he does because that’s how he’s built. So what’s the difference between someone who, you saw, has no amygdala and someone who does have an amygdala and still does it? So he does it not because of the amygdala but because of some other defect. What difference does it make?
[Speaker F] The claim is that society can tolerate a few exceptions.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And if there are many exceptions, all of whom are coerced?
[Speaker F] Then they’re no longer exceptions.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Doesn’t matter—and they’re all coerced, so then there’s no excuse? So you need to examine
[Speaker F] that issue.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So you’re going back to defining morality as self-protection—that’s exactly what I’m saying. And now okay, I have no problem with that; that’s a definition. I’m only asking whether beyond self-protection there’s something more. Anyone who thinks there’s nothing more, only the utilitarian matter—let’s call it that—then fine, fair enough, and then Kant’s proof collapses. An atheist? Yes, he can be an atheist—not that he is an atheist, but he can be an atheist, and that’s consistent, okay? Kant’s proof is speaking on the assumption that morality is Kantian morality. Meaning that morality is some kind of claim, some kind of something that exists in me and not in sheep. That someone who is coerced, I exempt him because he’s not such a great villain, he’s not guilty. The utilitarian moral person doesn’t care whether you’re wicked or not; the question is whether you harm him. The question is whether you interfere with the functioning of society or not.
[Speaker I] You have to distinguish between law and something legal, legal law, and morality, which is completely different behavior.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m talking about morality.
[Speaker I] Not law. A moral issue isn’t just law; legally speaking, that’s a very low threshold.
[Speaker E] He’s not talking about
[Speaker I] law at all, he’s talking
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] only about morality.
[Speaker I] What are you talking about?
[Speaker E] Okay, so
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] judgment—no, judgment
[Speaker E] moral judgment, yes, not judgment in court, yes. Also regarding a person—if it’s only defensive, why not.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Defensive? Life imprisonment is enough. If you want to save money, why keep him there all his life and feed him and all that? You kill him.
[Speaker F] There’s research recently showing that imprisonment—people sentenced to death in the United States cost taxpayers more than life imprisonment, for example.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who, the ones who are executed?
[Speaker F] Ah, because of the appeals
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] and the endless proceedings.
[Speaker F] Ah, okay. There are a few states that are currently abolishing the death penalty because it costs them more.
[Speaker I] Not
[Speaker F] because of morality, by the way, but because of utilitarianism.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, fine. Americans—that’s their middle name. The American pragmatist arguments—they invented them. Anyway, what I really wanted to illustrate through this issue is the point of what Kantian morality is, and in my view that is what’s called morality. Meaning all the other things are only phenomenological resemblance; they’re not really the same thing. Moral judgment, moral behavior—that’s correct behavior that comes from the correct motives. Without the motives, judgment has no meaning at all; that is, it doesn’t matter what you do. And therefore I said that when I say that you need God in order to create moral obligation, in order to understand that I need to act—to understand intellectually, not through inclinations or feelings. That could also be evolution. But if I think—if I think—that there’s something beyond that, meaning that even on the philosophical level I understand that this thing obligates, the concept of obligation—as distinct from a feeling of obligation, but rather a conception of obligation—the obligating concept requires some factor that is the source of the obligation.
[Speaker B] But why is it important in that way? Why should a person care whether the feelings he has, his desire to do good or not do evil, come from some factor that obligates him to do it? I mean, if you want to believe in God and say okay, since I believe, I think He’s the one who obligates me, fine. But if I start from a point where I don’t know whether yes or no, why should it matter to me to say that it goes beyond that?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t say it has to matter to you. If it matters to you, then there is a God in the background, and if not, then not. After all, that’s how I started with Kant. Meaning, someone may come and say, you know what, you’re right, I understood your distinction—he says to me, I understood your distinction, you’re right, for me it’s only an inclination, not a conception. Fine. So from his standpoint he can remain an atheist, and that’s consistent. Kant is speaking to those people, but
[Speaker B] I have a self-conception, meaning I—you say some image, wrapping it in a conception, that’s not…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] because in this case you’re wrapping it in a conception empty of content. Basically, because that’s how I’m built, therefore I behave this way—that’s all. There’s nothing beyond that; there can’t be anything beyond that. What is there besides how I’m built? After all, you don’t believe there’s anything else in the world besides that—anything else substantial for our purposes. I don’t mean there aren’t other people, other buildings—but there isn’t anything beyond my feelings that plays on this field. So clearly what you’re doing is just because that’s how you’re built, more than a sheep is. That’s all. Anyone willing to define a sheep too in terms of moral and immoral—Kant’s argument truly isn’t addressed to him. That’s obvious, and it’s completely consistent. I don’t agree with it, but it’s completely consistent.
[Speaker B] Also people—also atheists, or a large part of them—believe, that’s how they see it, that even if there’s no Creator of the world, still we’re not sheep because we have, I don’t know if to call it a soul, some kind of rationality.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And what does that rationality say? What does that mean? That you’re built in a certain way—fine, so what?
[Speaker C] You’re
[Speaker B] more
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] rational and the monkey is a bit less rational. That’s a quantitative difference; it’s not… In the end you do it because that’s how you are, that’s all, with no reasoning beyond that. So we come back again to behavior like a sheep rolling dice.
[Speaker I] Ah, no, this relates more specifically to the latter—freedom studies. The view, let’s say the somewhat Torah-based view, the view that guides us when we are commanded and yet we still understand that it’s right—that Abraham our forefather, in his evolution, in his development, okay, so that’s only after the fact, that’s Kantian, right? That our view is that Abraham understood that it’s not only that there is a God and separately there is morality that obligates, but little by little he understood that one must do good and therefore there must be God, an obligation from above—and this repeats itself between one and the other and they complete one another.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I agree. Again, I won’t use the words “our view,” because each person has his own view, but I agree.
[Speaker I] The view we all got since kindergarten. It may be so.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case, I agree if you’re asking me. I maybe want to sharpen this through some example. I don’t remember whether I mentioned this. There’s an interesting Jew named Ari Elon, the son of Judge Elon, of blessed memory, who passed away. He’s the brother of Moti and Benny. No, no, there’s another brother, Sefi, who’s the judge. Yes. There are four brothers there. Ari Elon is some sort of secular preacher. He left religious observance, and he became a kind of secular maggid. And he has an extraordinary gift of expression, really. He’s a man with unusual expressive talents. But precisely because of that one has to be careful, because people who have such a strong ability of expression are very dangerous, because it can hide problematic arguments behind it. People are captivated by the aesthetics of what’s being said and examine the logic less.
[Speaker D] Like Lapid. What? Like going with a torch?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Or that you have to be careful with charismatic people? Yes, exactly. Several of those brothers are very charismatic, yes. In any case, the claim he makes in one of his articles—he writes there, he makes
[Speaker E] some genetics thing or something like that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, I hope not, I’m not… I also want to give a person credit, not just for who he happened to be born as.
[Speaker F] But that goes both for good and bad.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, right, it goes both for good and bad. Here there’s a complex personality with different sides; you have to be careful with him and also respect him.
[Speaker F] If it’s genetics, that also goes to…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, it may be that the phenomenon itself also has… In any case, he talks there about the difference between the rabbinic person and the sovereign person. He says that the rabbinic person is basically subordinate to some system outside himself that dictates to him what is right and what is not right—rabbis, or the Holy One blessed be He, the Torah, it doesn’t matter right now what—but there is something external that dictates to him what is right and wrong, the rules according to which he lives. Whereas the sovereign person is the one who legislates his own laws for himself. Okay? And that, indeed, is the secular person—the crown of creation. In any case, the problem with this argument is that on the face of it, when you read it, it really works on you. Meaning, he knows how to frame things. It’s complete nonsense, of course. Really complete nonsense—truly. Meaning if someone with less expressive ability had said this, no one would get past the first line. Why? Because think about the sovereign person who chooses for himself a career as a contract killer. He legislates his own laws and decides he wants to make a living—not a bad living altogether—and he works as a hired murderer for a modest fee.
[Speaker F] What? That already becomes subjective; they’ll tell him what’s moral and what isn’t.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, right. If everyone chooses—we have to be careful, we need to preserve all the moral fools so we’ll continue to have a livelihood. Also true.
[Speaker D] And if there’s a group of cannibals, is someone who doesn’t eat people immoral? A group of cannibals—someone who doesn’t eat people, is he immoral?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And in general, regarding eating human flesh, I’m not sure that it’s immoral. It doesn’t—Rabbi Amital doesn’t do it for me, I have to say. Meaning, I’m not… it’s repulsive.
[Speaker D] But if there’s a group, if there’s a group in the world in some jungle where they eat people—let them eat, good health. And someone who doesn’t eat—is he immoral?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, and someone who does eat is moral. I’m saying, I don’t think eating human flesh is immoral; I don’t see any moral problem in it. A person who’s already dead, yes—not to kill him. Not to eat his flesh raw. But I’m saying, it’s repulsive. But repulsive and moral are not exactly the same thing. Meaning, if there’s a person for whom it isn’t repulsive, good health, I don’t see any major moral problem in it. Anyway, what’s the issue, what is happening with this mistake of the sovereign person? It’s obvious that even in a view that supposedly doesn’t take into account laws imposed on you from outside—meaning, no, these are laws imposed on me from inside, right? That’s the autonomous person who obeys morality not because there’s some God or Torah or rabbis or I don’t know exactly what, but because I myself legislate the moral law for myself. But whenever you legislate the moral law for yourself, you still have to decide whether it’s a good law or not. You can’t neutralize judgment from the question whether this law is good. Because I don’t think he would say the same about a contract killer who legislates his own laws for himself. Why not? Because a contract killer chose in a sovereign and autonomous way a behavior that is improper, behavior that is not right. But if right and wrong are only what you legislate, then in what sense is it not right? Is it not right because I legislated for myself otherwise? So therefore it’s not right? He legislated for himself this way. Do you want him not to be sovereign? To obey the laws that you legislate? I thought we were talking about sovereign people.
[Speaker B] Do you deny that there are social norms?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no—social norms, I’m not talking about social norms at all. I’m talking about moral principles. Moral principles—on the contrary. People, secular thought, yes—the new atheism—tries to claim that there is morality in the full sense of the word, in its full meaning, even without resorting to anything outside the person. By the way, they also attribute this to Kant. And I think that’s simply utter nonsense, in my opinion.
[Speaker I] A great many of those people do, yes. I assume—just for the sake of argument—that part of his sovereign argument is that the rabbinic argument harms people many times. No, the sovereign one is more moral than the rabbinic. Again, I assume many can…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But I’m saying, I share the criticism of excessive obedience, or of the fact that many times autonomy is harmed within religious life. Fine. I’m speaking right now about the principled philosophical question: can a person legislate laws for himself, and is someone who legislates laws for himself necessarily a better person than someone who responds to laws outside himself? And I want to argue that Ari Elon too would not respect people whose self-legislated laws are laws that don’t appeal to him. They don’t seem moral to him—laws that are really not good. Meaning that behind this statement about sovereignty there sits something else that he simply ignores. You legislate laws for yourself and you decide to do good and not evil. But if good is only what you decided, then whatever you decide is always good—it’s true by definition. But in order to decide to do good, there has to be some standard that is not you defining what good and evil are. Now maybe it’s God, maybe it’s the toad in the puddle beside me—I don’t care—but there has to be something outside the legislation that I legislate for myself that defines what is good and what is evil. After we define that, now I need to choose, in a sovereign way, to be good. That is truly Kantian morality. But it must be that in the background there is some distinction between good and evil that is not generated by you. Because if it is generated by you, then there is no such thing as good and evil. There is no such thing. Whatever you legislate is the good.
[Speaker D] That’s Aharon Barak’s “reasonable person.” And if he goes—therefore he’s God? Aharon Barak?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Okay, fine, I said—it can be the toad, it can be Aharon Barak, I don’t care, but it has to be somebody external. It can’t be that the very fact that you legislate something for yourself turns you into a better person—even though in the previous segment I spoke only about the importance of autonomy, about how strongly I believe in the value of autonomy. But autonomy is only part of the picture. You need to make a decision autonomously, because only that way are you truly the one responsible for what you decided. But which decision to make is not open. The fact that you make it autonomously means that you decide autonomously to behave well. But you do not decide autonomously what good is. That you don’t. You can decide to behave badly, but you cannot decide that good is bad. That, no. You can decide it, but you’ll be mistaken about it, understand? Now many times this feeling that there can be morality or binding principles that arise from within me without an external factor is almost a cornerstone of the secular humanist, atheistic humanist outlook, where many people attach those two things together as though they were an alternative to religious outlooks. And I think there is a great misunderstanding at the foundation of the matter. There is no such thing. There is no such thing. “Atheistic humanist” is an oxymoron. A good atheist—that is, good behavior on the part of an atheist—that definitely exists; I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about a humanist. To be a humanist means a certain defined set of values, such that someone faithful to it is a humanist and someone not faithful to it is wicked. But if all there is is only how I’m built and what I legislate for myself, then what is the standard that determines whether I chose autonomously to do good or chose autonomously to do evil? After all, if good and evil are only what I legislate.
[Speaker C] Our reason. What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But it’s our reason, right.
[Speaker C] It’s not arbitrary; it’s something reasonable that exists out there.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying—then there has to be something out there, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Reason in this sense is considered recognizing reason, not legislating reason. Meaning, with your reason you apprehend that this is good and this is evil—not that you legislate for yourself that this is good and this is evil, because legislating for yourself is just words. You’re built in such a way that this seems good to you, fine, and he’s built in such a way that it doesn’t seem good to him. When you speak of reason, again you’re speaking of recognizing reason—now what does it recognize? There has to be something outside it that it recognizes, without getting into the question right now of what that thing is. But there has to be something external that defines what good and evil are; otherwise— I think I once gave the example of democratic elections, right? In Switzerland, Syria, and Israel. I think we talked about that once, didn’t we? It’s an example more connected to the question of choice, but here it’s hard to ignore the question of choice. There are several models one can think about regarding political elections, yes? But for me it’s a parable for a person’s choice, a person’s value-choice. In Syria, a person goes into the voting booth, chooses the only slip there is, puts it in, and the one elected in the end is Assad. Okay? Democratic elections, nobody interferes with him doing what he chooses; whatever he decides, he does, okay? But clearly that’s an illusory, fake democracy. Why? Because he has only one option, right? That is, the only thing he can do is choose Assad’s ballot; there is no other ballot. Okay? So apparently nothing is stopping you, everything is fine, you do what you decide—the sovereign person—but there is only one thing you can do. There is only one route before you. You’re standing at a junction with only one continuation, and you have to decide where you’re going while freely deciding to continue in the only direction available. So the second model is elections in Switzerland. Swiss elections are a situation in which a person goes into the voting booth, freely chooses one of several ballots, drops it in, in the end they count the votes, the majority determines who will be president. If Switzerland has a president, I don’t know, who will be president, okay? What’s the problem there? The problem there is that Switzerland has no problems. So what do I care who the president is? Draw lots. No, seriously—I mean metaphorical Switzerland, yes? Today they have problems, they have a virus, they have to deal with it. But I mean metaphorical Switzerland, with no problems—so what is the meaning of all these free democratic elections? Flip a coin. The only practical difference is who gets the president’s salary. Let them split it, okay, like two people holding a garment. There’s no meaning to it. Why do I care how he’ll run life? There isn’t any—you’re not dealing with anything. So there’s no issue. Now there you already have freedom with several paths, unlike Syria. And still something is missing. What’s missing? Something that we know as evil. That there should be some problems around. Right? Meaning, in a place where there are problems around and you choose freely—democracy—you or you, we, the public, democratically decide who, in our view, is responsible for managing the matter, solving the problems, and of course there will be costs to every choice we make, for good and for bad—that is real democracy, only that. Now you need to understand: this is exactly the parable for Ari Elon, because what does it mean? That we choose freely—we supposedly legislate for ourselves the path we will follow. That’s the value of democracy. But that’s also true in Switzerland. In order for the thing to have meaning, there have to be some surrounding givens that define costs—good and evil in the moral context, or in the political context, economic costs, security costs, whatever it may be, it doesn’t matter. Once there is nothing outside you that defines costs of good and evil, benefit and cost, your freedom of choice is meaningless. You are the sovereign person, but it has no meaning. You live in a vacuum.
[Speaker I] And there’s an even stronger point here, one that’s being tested today in the liberal center, yes—that in such a situation you can’t think well enough to make a choice and you’ll always be subject to some…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that’s a psychological question. I’m not dealing with psychology, I’m dealing with philosophy. Is there choice? Fine, so I’m saying—but that’s a psychological question, I’m dealing with philosophy. I choose him because I like him, he’s a good man, he’s a wonderful man, I choose him—but it has no meaning that he’s a good man, because in his role being good or bad has no significance. Let’s say this is a purely technical role, in another parable. Understand? I can choose him because in my eyes he’s the best person, and I have considerations this way and that way, everything is fine. The only question is: why should I care whether there’s a good person there or a bad person? He’s just someone who needs to do technical work.
[Speaker I] A fateful choice, yes, if there are serious consequences for society or something like that—the choice, yes, that’s what’s on the table.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, so what didn’t I understand? What’s the question?
[Speaker I] That’s what you mean, no?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Anything, yes. It doesn’t have to be specifically fateful, but there have to be costs. Sometimes very strong costs, sometimes small ones. Doesn’t matter. But there has to be something that… this parable comes to say that there must be something outside me to give meaning to my choices. People who think my choices can live in a vacuum and that this is an alternative to the rabbinic person, yes, let’s call it that, without there being something external not dependent on me—they are mistaken.
[Speaker F] They are mistaken; your sovereignty has no meaning if you are not confronting something opposite it. If you freely choose to be a good person, then you’re a good person. If you freely choose to be a bad person, then you’re a bad person. But if you choose freely and there is no such thing as good and evil, then choose whatever you choose—that is the good. That’s the definition. Okay? Yes. I would make a distinction regarding the sovereign person—there really are things that are… meaning, if there’s nothing external, then it’s completely in a vacuum.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But I’m going back to what we discussed
[Speaker F] before. You know, the basic secular moral rule is “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.” And then you can place this within the framework of, you know, the sovereign person, up to the point where he doesn’t harm another person. No, but I’m saying again: where does that rule itself come from? So I’m saying that Ari Elon too would say that your choices are under this rule of freedom…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, if so, then he too is not sovereign.
[Speaker F] Still there are all kinds of things that we…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] How sovereign he is—that’s already another question. The principled distinction between a sovereign and a non-sovereign person has collapsed, because he too is not sovereign.
[Speaker F] Not sovereign because he starts from the assumption that he accepts this rule as…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I also start from the assumption that I accept these general 613 commandments—what difference does the number of rules make? I’m saying that in principle you cannot offer an alternative devoid of objective rules, where only what you legislate determines good and evil. Because if that were so, then there is no such thing as good and evil. What you determine is by definition good. So I’m saying the concept of the sovereign person is an illusion; there is no such thing. There can be a sovereign person who is not moral, and his actions have no meaning at all. An atheist too? Obviously, that’s consistent. I’m not claiming otherwise. But there is no alternative here to the moral outlook. A sovereign alternative, yes, supposedly to the moral outlook. The definition of good and evil is not given over to you—and by the way, not to society either. I don’t think anyone would refrain from judging Nazi Germany even though society decided, and there was some law in the Reichstag or whatever exactly, that murder was permitted.
[Speaker F] But not from absoluteness, this rule… do you notice how you…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Do you notice how slowly you’re retreating? It’s not society.
[Speaker F] I defined from the outset that such a thing exists.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So where do you get to? Where do you get to? So I say—fine—but suddenly people may say maybe it isn’t bad. People may say there’s nothing bad about it.
[Speaker F] Right. And in that case, supposedly not under the rule that what’s around them…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no problem. But I’m asking where this rule comes from. You’re saying from society—not anymore, we already agreed not, because even a society that doesn’t agree with it, you condemn it, right? So this rule doesn’t come from society.
[Speaker D] So now I’m asking you again: then where does it come from?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] From humanity as a whole. If all of humanity is corrupt? I wrote there, like Rabbi Nachman—I’m sane, you know the story? From a utilitarian standpoint.
[Speaker D] What does “from a utilitarian standpoint” mean?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m asking, what is the rule? Again, we’ve returned to utilitarianism, so I told you: right now I’m within Kantian morality, where morality is not only utilitarianism but obligation to principles. Now I’m asking where those principles come from. If those principles come from society, then you can’t judge a society that decided on other principles. I think very few people would accept such a claim. Whoever does accept it—again, he’s consistent. I can’t say he’s wrong. He’s wrong in my opinion, but I can’t prove to him that he’s wrong. He’s consistent. But the question is whether that’s really what he thinks. The question is whether he really agrees. The question is whether he would see an entire wicked society that decided on wicked rules and not judge it because those are the norms the society decided on.
[Speaker B] And the atheist comes and says—I think I once heard—that one plus one is two, or that between two points a straight line passes: mathematical axioms are not something created, but rather some kind of thing outside…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s nature itself, yes.
[Speaker B] It’s necessitated by itself. So there are things where you can say I don’t have to say someone created them. Why can’t we say there are certain conventions that we see as non-mathematical axioms?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I understand. But the difference is that “between two points a straight line passes” is a claim about reality. So you can say that by the nature of reality it’s obviously so; it can’t be otherwise. But the claim that murder is forbidden is not a claim about reality; it’s not a factual claim. It’s a value claim. Now to say that such a thing is a logical necessity…
[Speaker B] I understand that it’s different. I’m only saying: humanity can take a position and say, I see this as some sort of social axiom.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but a social axiom is not interesting. Because a social axiom—I’m asking you where it comes from. No problem, say it’s an axiom, everything is fine. I’m asking you where it comes from. The fact that you see something doesn’t mean that therefore you also ought to behave that way. But it’s been that way for generations. So what if it’s been that way for generations? Then our generation will be innovative and change it. I always—you eventually come back to the question of why it obligates. You can’t make do with some neutral fact. And when I ask why it obligates, then basically we always arrive at something outside me. Because if it is only my legislation, then this whole discourse loses its meaning. Now I say: that’s consistent. I can’t say that a person who thinks that—I can’t prove to him that he’s wrong. I think he’s wrong, but I can’t prove he’s wrong. He’s consistent. But let each person examine himself as to whether that’s really what he thinks, because it seems to me that very few people think that way. And then when I ask myself, so where does this distinction between good and evil come from?—it’s not the society I live in, and it’s not all humanity either. Because all humanity too can corrupt its ways. That’s what happened in the Flood, at least on the principled level. Right? So it’s not all humanity either. These are Dworkin’s principles—those familiar with the legal world know that people speak of a system of principles outside the legislation of a particular state; they are universal. But clearly they don’t really have a source; it’s a fiction. It’s just that you can’t speak about the Holy One blessed be He in legal theory. So you say there are principles that bind all human beings, agreed upon by all human beings. Then I say—not me. What do you mean? Rather, you understand that there is something binding. People come with claims against me. I can’t say “not me.” Why? By what force? So you can say: I’m just defending myself. That’s the usual escape. I’m defending myself, right? I have no way to condemn you, but I’ll still put you in prison, I’ll kill you so you don’t harm me. Fine, that’s consistent. But if someone says, “I judge you—you are wrong because you didn’t act on the basis of Dworkin’s principles,” then Dworkin’s principles are just a word. The question is where those principles came from. And I’m saying that if there isn’t some factor outside us that obligates us regarding good and evil, defines what good and evil are, and therefore good means what one ought to do—not only as a theoretical definition—without that, there is no such thing as being a moral person. There is no such thing. It’s a mere illusion. You can behave nicely, you can behave pleasantly, you can behave well. On the contrary: many times people for whom it comes naturally are more pleasant than people who weigh every step and decide to do the good. People who are too good are people who are very hard to live next to. Really.
[Speaker I] Since every…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Every single thing they check whether it’s appropriate or not appropriate. Come on—live like a normal human being. But still, morality—being a moral person, not a pleasant person—that is this. That’s how it seems to me, in my humble opinion.
[Speaker F] The Talmudic statement as explained by Maimonides, with “I desire it” and “I do not desire it.” What? The Talmudic statement as explained by Maimonides about “I desire it” and “I do not desire it,” meaning eating pork and killing a person.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. The deed and the Holy One blessed be He, yes.
[Speaker F] Right, you need something from outside, where there he says that the Holy One blessed be He—that it should come naturally to you.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That you shouldn’t have to say, “I desire it.”
[Speaker F] I can say, “I desire it, and I desire it, but Heaven decreed otherwise.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And moral matters.
[Speaker F] But moral matters—there he should feel…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But moral matters—yes, but in Maimonides there are explicit contradictions on this matter. I don’t remember whether I ever spoke about this. Maimonides certainly does not mean that. No, in my opinion he says “I desire it” and “I do not desire it” only in this sense: that if it’s not—if it’s a moral rule, then what he means is that you should do it even without a command. But that doesn’t mean that this thing can stand without the Holy One blessed be He. Those are two different things. He says a command is not needed for a moral rule, because a moral rule is supposed to come from your understanding—that’s what morality is called. The question whether the moral norm, when there is no command on it, draws its validity from the Holy One blessed be He or not—that’s a question he is not addressing.
[Speaker F] Right, so why do you say there are contradictions?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But he does address it. Elsewhere he says, at the end of chapter 8 of Laws of Kings—and I did bring this once—that someone who performs the commandments not because we were commanded through Moses our teacher at Mount Sinai is one of the pious of the nations of the world, but not one of their wise people. And the commentators there also say that this applies to a Jew too, not only to a non-Jew. That you need to do it because the Holy One blessed be He commanded. And there he makes no distinction between those commandments—on the contrary, the seven commandments he’s talking about there are moral commandments, the seven Noahide commandments. He’s not talking about redeeming a firstborn donkey. And about that he says that someone who doesn’t do it because of the command at Sinai—he is not, let’s call it, religious. He’s a good person; he’s not religious. Meaning there isn’t here…
[Speaker D] Is there a God who is not moral? I mean, could that be?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Is that by His nature? The nature of the good is to do good.
[Speaker D] Are all gods moral?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does “all gods” mean?
[Speaker D] There’s only one. And if there is divinity—wait, for me there’s only one.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what I think. Are you asking me about a god that somebody else invented for himself?
[Speaker D] Ask him about what he invented, I don’t know.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] When you speak about an immoral God, what do you mean?
[Speaker D] The God
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] we’re talking about.
[Speaker D] The God we’re talking about? Yes. Fine. That too is a starting point somebody invented for himself. No, if somebody invented it for himself, he can invent whatever
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] he wants, so how are you asking me what he invented for himself? Whatever he invented, he invented. Yes, what you’re asking about is whether the rules of morality that God established are the ones written in the Torah, or whether He has to be God? We’ve returned again to branch B. I’ll speak about that at length later. I’ll still discuss it at length. Okay? Fine, we’ll stop here.