Free Will and Choice – Lesson 2

Table of Contents

• The topographic model and the difference between determinism and libertarianism
• Difficulty and ease are not good and evil
• Actions that are not the result of choice within a libertarian framework
• Lack of attention, inadvertent involvement, and Rabbi Akiva Eiger’s approach
• Picking versus choosing, and the Libet experiment
• “Rabbi Ilai said” and the dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim)
• The Rif and the Rosh, “everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven,” and meta-Jewish law
• Rabbi Amsalem, immersion in drawn water, and minimizing sin for the many
• Influence versus determination, statistics, and the laws of the social sciences
• Maimonides and the Raavad on Egypt and the law of large numbers
• Bees, risk versus certainty, and the mistake of inferring determinism
• Beyond implications: fatalism and morality, and scientific claims
• Fatalism and determinism
• Moral and legal judgment, and the theory of punishment under determinism
• An uncontrollable impulse, deterrence, and house demolitions
• Participants’ questions and the lecturer’s clarifications

Summary

General overview

The lecturer summarizes the libertarian picture in a non-caricatured way through a model of a topographic landscape: education, environment, genetics, and brain structure exert forces and influences on a person, but they do not determine his path in a one-to-one way the way they would determine the path of a little ball or a stream of water in the deterministic picture. He emphasizes that the difficulty or ease of an action is not identical with good or evil, and presents exceptions within a libertarian framework in which a person acts not out of choice. Later, he argues that determinism has implications for fatalism and for moral and legal judgment, and criticizes sweeping scientific claims by brain researchers as though the question of determinism could be decided in a laboratory, stressing that even in a libertarian picture, the laws of the social sciences operate statistically rather than deterministically on the individual.

The topographic model and the difference between determinism and libertarianism

The lecturer describes all the influences on a person—such as education, environment, genetics, and brain structure—as a topographic outline within which the person conducts himself. He says that in the deterministic picture, the terrain dictates a single, definite path like a little ball or a stream of water, so that one can know from where to where it will go at every stage. He argues that in the libertarian picture, the terrain exerts pressures and pushes, but the person can veto them, can climb a “mountain” even though it requires effort and is uncomfortable, or avoid a “valley” even though it is easy, and that the question is who is inside the environment, not what the environment is.

Difficulty and ease are not good and evil

The lecturer argues that a mountain in a direction that is hard to walk toward is not necessarily a good direction, and a valley that is easy to slide into is not necessarily a bad direction. He presents the possibility of natural tendencies toward doing good, so that specifically good actions can be easy and pleasant. He clarifies that the topographic outline describes only difficulty, ease, inclinations, and opposing or neutral forces, whereas good and evil are matters of value imposed on the terrain and are not derived from the height or slope.

Actions that are not the result of choice within a libertarian framework

The lecturer states that the claim that a person has choice does not imply that every action is performed through choice, and he presents “two that are really three” mechanisms of non-voluntary action. He describes an uncontrollable impulse as a state of frenzy or loss of control in which a person reacts in a way that is not under his control, and explains that claims for exemption from responsibility in court may rely on a psychiatrist’s assessment that control was absent. He connects this to Rabbi Dessler’s idea of the point of choice: below the point of choice it is obvious that one will withstand the test, above it there is no chance of withstanding it, and in the middle lie the dilemmas in which a person is tested. He argues that the distinction between an uncontrollable impulse and a normal action is actually evidence against determinism, because in a deterministic world every action is the product of constraints and impulses and is therefore similar to an uncontrollable impulse.

Lack of attention, inadvertent involvement, and Rabbi Akiva Eiger’s approach

The lecturer presents a second kind of action without choice, in which a person could have chosen but does not choose because of lack of attention, because he does not notice that a dilemma exists. He connects this in Jewish law to the concept of inadvertent involvement and distinguishes it from an unintended act, presenting the assumption that inadvertent involvement is “completely permitted” because there is no conscious decision. He cites Rabbi Akiva Eiger’s position in a responsum that inadvertent involvement carries a rabbinic prohibition, and explains this by saying that the person could have been more alert and avoided getting into the situation, so the very lack of focus itself belongs to the point of choice. He compares this to an unwitting sinner who brings an offering because there is some degree of negligence involved, whereas something close to coercion is exempt.

Picking versus choosing, and the Libet experiment

The lecturer presents a third type of action that is not the result of choice, when there is no dilemma at all, and calls this picking as opposed to choosing. He gives as an example Benjamin Libet’s experiments, in which subjects were asked to press a button “whenever you decide,” and presents the criticism that this is a meaningless act with no considerations in one direction or the other, and therefore not an act of choice. He concludes that arguments which demonstrate situations in which “there was no choice” usually strengthen the libertarian assumption that there generally is choice, with only exceptional cases in which one does not choose.

“Rabbi Ilai said” and the dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim)

The lecturer cites the saying: Rabbi Ilai said: If a person sees that his evil inclination is overcoming him, let him wear black, go to a distant place, and do what his heart desires. He presents two approaches among the medieval authorities (Rishonim): one interpretation sees this as advice to cool off and cope with the impulse so as not to come to sin, out of unwillingness to accept that Jewish law would give advice on how to sin. He argues that most medieval authorities (Rishonim) interpret it literally: the person will probably not succeed in coping, and so one should minimize the damage in order to reduce desecration of God’s name, and he identifies this as a halakhic expression of an uncontrollable impulse in an expanded sense.

The Rif and the Rosh, “everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven,” and meta-Jewish law

The lecturer notes that the Rif and the Rosh write, “And the Jewish law does not follow Rabbi Ilai, for we hold that everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven,” and explains that they reject giving advice to compromise with the evil inclination because fear of Heaven is in human hands. He adds that Tosafot in tractate Chagigah imply that the Jewish law does follow Rabbi Ilai, but argues that even then this is not a halakhic permission to violate a prohibition, but rather a meta-halakhic recognition of the legitimacy of a step taken to minimize damage. He compares this to conscientious objection in law, where the order is legal but the person refuses because of deep values and is prepared to “face the consequences,” and he gives as an example Yuli Edelstein, who presented his refusal to comply with a Supreme Court decision as conscientious objection while resigning.

Rabbi Amsalem, immersion in drawn water, and minimizing sin for the many

The lecturer describes a column he wrote about Rabbi Amsalem’s permission to immerse in drawn water under certain conditions when women are being prevented from going to immerse, and he agrees in principle but argues that this should be presented as an option for minimizing sin or damage, not as a permission. He distinguishes between a ruling for an individual, where one should not give “advice for minimizing a prohibition,” and guidance for the public, where one assumes that some will fail at the margins, and therefore one may act according to the idea that “better that they eat meat of animals that were properly slaughtered but dying than eat outright forbidden meat.” He brings an anecdote about a person who eats kosher food only from the beginning of Elul until Yom Kippur and asks whether to start on the first of Elul or the second, and he raises a dispute with Aviezer Ravitzky over whether to answer such questions.

Influence versus determination, statistics, and the laws of the social sciences

The lecturer argues that the libertarian agrees with the facts of education, impulses, environment, and genetics, but sees them as influences that do not determine the result, whereas the determinist sees them as factors that do determine the result. He says that at the statistical level the two pictures will look similar, because a libertarian too will accept a “psychological law” as a statistical law, and therefore if you place a thousand people on the same terrain, more of them will go down to the valley than climb the mountain. He distinguishes between a determinist who claims that in principle, with full information, one could predict the individual’s behavior with certainty, and a libertarian who claims that even with full information the laws remain statistical because there is always a human decision.

Maimonides and the Raavad on Egypt and the law of large numbers

The lecturer cites Maimonides in Laws of Repentance, chapter 6, on the question of why the Egyptians were punished despite the decree, “and they will enslave them and afflict them four hundred years,” and despite Pharaoh’s hardened heart. He describes Maimonides’ answer: that each Egyptian as an individual had free choice, while the decree was collective; and he mentions the Raavad’s objection, that if all of them choose good, how will the decree be fulfilled? He suggests that Maimonides relies on a distinction between the individual and the collective, and on the law of large numbers, using the image of rolling dice, in which a stable distribution emerges דווקא because each roll is independent.

Bees, risk versus certainty, and the mistake of inferring determinism

The lecturer cites an Israeli study in Nature about bees choosing between an option of high sweetness in 80% of cases and lower but certain sweetness in 100% of cases, and says that the bees prefer the certain option, like human beings. He argues that inferring from this that “bees, human beings—it’s all the same thing” is a mistake, because this is a statistical law, and even in a libertarian picture there is no reason the group averages must necessarily be different. He concludes that studies about genes or mechanisms do not refute free choice, because the libertarian accepts statistical laws in the natural, human, and social sciences without inferring determinism regarding the individual.

Beyond implications: fatalism and morality, and scientific claims

The lecturer presents the continuation of the series as an examination of practical and moral implications, and of deciding between determinism and libertarianism by means of philosophical and scientific arguments, including Libet experiments and split-brain cases. He describes his motivation for writing a book as stemming from the feeling that a consensus had emerged among brain researchers that determinism can be decided in the laboratory, and he argues that at present there is no way to show that, and that all the sweeping talk reflects a lack of understanding of the philosophical meaning of scientific findings. He says that the implications of the discussion mainly revolve around morality and fatalism, and that these are connected to one another.

Fatalism and determinism

The lecturer defines fatalism as the view that whatever will happen will happen, so there is no point in making an effort, and he brings Somerset Maugham’s story of the appointment in Samarra, where fleeing from death is what actually brings fate about. He also cites Osmo’s parable from Richard Taylor about a book that predicts a person’s life up to a plane crash, and the attempt to escape that leads to the crash. He notes the common claim that determinism leads to the lazy argument, but adds that in practice determinism is not necessarily fatalism, because even in a deterministic world money comes through work, and he cites Luther and Calvin and Protestantism as an example of determinism giving rise to industriousness and “overactivity.” He mentions Max Weber’s thesis that Western competitiveness and neurosis draw from Protestant sources, and remarks that determinists in neuroscience also work hard, so they are not fatalists.

Moral and legal judgment, and the theory of punishment under determinism

The lecturer presents a common claim that libertarians raise against determinists, namely that it is impossible to judge a person morally or legally in a deterministic world, because the person was compelled to act and is always like someone acting under an uncontrollable impulse. He presents a deterministic answer according to which the judge too is compelled to judge and has no choice, but argues that the determinist still makes a cognitive judgment and sees people as evil and justifies punishment, which is inconsistent with determinism. He presents a deterministic justification for punishment as a way to program, deter, and train people in order to prevent future sins, and distinguishes this from the libertarian justification, where punishment is also a sanction for choosing evil.

An uncontrollable impulse, deterrence, and house demolitions

The lecturer argues that in a deterministic picture there is justification for punishing even someone who acted under an uncontrollable impulse, because the question is future benefit rather than guilt, and therefore the claim of lack of control is irrelevant. He connects this to the discussion of house demolitions and argues that if the punishment does not deter, then according to a utilitarian approach there is no point in it, whereas according to an approach of “he deserves it,” one can punish even without future benefit. He concludes that concepts like criminal intent and central elements of criminal law are eroded in a deterministic world, and that there is a gap between the way determinists in practice judge and punish and what follows from their worldview.

Participants’ questions and the lecturer’s clarifications

The lecturer agrees that Rabbi Ilai’s case expands the idea of an uncontrollable impulse because it includes discretion aimed at minimizing damage, and adds that someone who does not accept Rabbi Ilai can still accept an uncontrollable impulse as a defense claim. He rejects the link, “Doesn’t the fact that the Jewish law does not follow Rabbi Ilai mean that this goes against Rabbi Dessler?” by saying that the point of choice describes levels of ability and does not require permission to minimize damage. He notes that arguments from Newton’s laws or quantum theory will be discussed at the stage of arguments for and against, and confirms that a Spinozist claim would say that belief in determinism or anti-determinism is itself dictated. He responds to a comment about restitution without regeneration as a suggestion for a picture in which there is “something beyond the brain,” but says that this depends on which of the pictures is accepted. He admits that he does not know how to decide whether animals have free choice, and emphasizes that even with human beings there is no conclusive scientific way to determine that “at least as of today.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, up to now I’ve described the two pictures side by side: the deterministic picture and the libertarian picture. And it’s important—I’ll summarize. The deterministic picture is simple. The libertarian picture—I’ll summarize it, because that’s what will accompany us going forward. Contrary to the almost caricatured view of libertarianism, as if we’re talking about action in a vacuum—that is, action with no context, where a person is under no influences, acts in a completely free way, yes, with no limitations and no influences on him, not environment, not education, not genetics, all kinds of things of that sort, because supposedly all of those are determinism—so of course that’s not true. I described it using some kind of model in which, let’s say, there is some kind of—I describe all the influences on a person: education, environment, genetics, brain structure, whatever you want. All of that is described in the form of some sort of topographical layout or contour, within which a person functions. If he were just a little ball or a stream of water, then the topographical layout would dictate the path in a one-to-one way. From where to where would you get if you’re in a certain place—I’ll tell you where you’ll be at the next point. And in the metaphor, what that means is that our environment essentially dictates where we’ll go or what we’ll do. That’s the deterministic conception. In the libertarian conception, the layout exerts forces on me, influences me, tries to take me to certain places or push me away from other places—but unlike a little ball rolling on a topographical surface, a person who is on a topographical surface can decide that he climbs the mountain even though that means losing potential energy, it’s not comfortable for him, it will cost him effort—but he can decide to do that. Or not to descend into the valley even though that’s very comfortable—he can decide not to do that. And therefore the environment, the topographical layout, is shared by both pictures. The question really is not what the environment is, but who is inside the environment. Is the person a little ball or a stream of water, in the deterministic conception? Or is the person some kind of creature that can also decide to impose a veto, yes, or go against the pressures or influences of the environment? And I said—I think I said—that this environment, let’s say when there’s some kind of mountain that represents a direction that is very hard for me to go in—that doesn’t necessarily mean that this direction is a good direction. Or a direction that’s easy for me to slide toward, yes, the valley, doesn’t necessarily mean that this direction is a bad one. A person has certain very natural tendencies to do good. Meaning, it’s pleasant for me to do good, it feels called for, it’s comfortable for me to do good, and therefore I have a valley in the direction of good actions, not in the direction of bad actions. We always tend to think that if something is too easy, then apparently it’s not okay, or if something is good, then it has to be hard. No, not necessarily. In principle there can be actions that are hard and easy in both the positive and the negative direction. Therefore the topographical layout is unrelated to the question of good and evil. The topographical layout relates only to the question: is this hard for me or easy for me? Do my natural inclinations take me in this direction, or on the contrary hold me back from going in that direction, or are neutral, if it’s a flat plain, yes. So on a plain it’s neutral—you can go and you can not go, there are no forces affecting you and no forces stopping you. That’s the topographical layout. What is bad and what is good is imposed, yes, on the topographical layout. Meaning, it’s a value issue: one has to decide whether such a direction is bad or such a direction is good. It doesn’t derive from its height or slope. There is no connection between those things and whether this direction is bad or good. That, basically in a nutshell, is the picture of the libertarian conception.

Before I continue, I just want to note that even in the libertarian conception, as part of that same qualification of caricatured, naive libertarianism, it’s also clear that in the libertarian view there are actions that a person performs not out of choice. Meaning, the fact that I say a person has choice does not mean that every single action a person performs is done out of choice. This again is a very common attack by determinists. In my view, if anything, it attacks them, not the libertarian. I’ll bring two mechanisms—or actually three. One mechanism, perhaps the obvious and well-known one, is the mechanism of an irresistible impulse. A person sometimes is in a situation—yes, he gets seized, goes into some kind of frenzy, suddenly some impulse overcomes him and he cannot cope with it, and he reacts in a certain way that is not under his control. Yes, all kinds of claims for exemption from responsibility in court can be based on an evaluation by a psychiatrist who says that the person acted in a way over which he had no control. That’s an irresistible impulse. Does such a thing indicate determinism? Absolutely not. Even in the libertarian picture, where a person has free choice, it doesn’t mean that everything is done through free choice, as I said earlier. There can be moments or situations in which a person enters some kind of situation where he has no control. He loses control—either because something broke down in him, or because the situation really is very, very difficult, some kind of provocation that perhaps, let’s say, no reasonable person would withstand. Could be, I don’t know. So it could be that even a reasonable person in such a situation—it doesn’t have to be someone with something wrong in his head.

This is somewhat related to the concept known from Rabbi Dessler as the “point of choice,” if I mentioned this last time. Rabbi Dessler says there are certain actions regarding which it’s clear that we will withstand the test. These are tests, yes, but if I see someone in the street I don’t like, I’m not going to murder him. That’s not because I overcame my impulse and chose not to kill him, but because this isn’t even an issue over which I have any deliberation. It’s below my point of choice—there it’s obvious that I will behave properly. There are situations above the point of choice—these are situations where there is no chance I’ll do the right thing; it’s above my spiritual level. It’s some sort of thing where there’s just no chance—I can’t, can’t, can’t meet that very high standard. I don’t know—devote my whole life to benefiting others, running around the globe and the universe, I don’t know what, searching for all kinds of creatures and people who need help. That’s a very lofty level; almost no one in the world is capable of doing that—not capable of it because it’s not a deliberation for him. It’s not that he fails at it—rather, it doesn’t even enter discussion for him, except for very, very rare people. So that’s above the point of choice. The dilemmas in which we are tested, the ones we confront, are dilemmas that lie in between—in some range where we do have a deliberation of yes or no; it’s not too easy and not too hard. And there in the middle, that’s where we are tested—whether we choose good or choose evil or don’t choose. So in this context, when I speak about an irresistible impulse, I’m speaking about the “too difficult.” Meaning, I behave improperly but not as the result of a decision—it’s not under my control. Meaning, this is not a test I can withstand.

Now of course, for each person, what counts as such a test is a personal function—how each one is built, his inclinations, his strengths, his abilities, his tendencies and impulses. So each person has a different point of choice, but apparently each person has some point of choice—that is, beyond it there are acts in which he probably will not succeed in withstanding the test. Therefore irresistible impulse exists also in the libertarian worldview. It is not a derivative of a deterministic worldview, and I’d even say the opposite. The very fact that we distinguish between a state of irresistible impulse and a normal action for which we have responsibility and can be judged morally or legally—the very existence of that distinction actually indicates, constitutes evidence against determinism. Because within a deterministic world, all actions are irresistible impulse. That is, all our actions are basically the result of an impulse—never mind its strength right now, but an internal impulse that determines what we will do. It doesn’t matter right now whether I’m sweating and trembling with rage and out of control and that’s why I do it, or whether I do it calmly and serenely. In all these cases, in the deterministic picture, the person is acting under constraints—external or internal, we talked about that—but under constraints, meaning not under his control. Therefore, on the contrary, the distinction between irresistible impulse and a normative action indicates that fundamentally we are speaking in a libertarian worldview. Precisely in the libertarian worldview one can say that in contrast to normative actions, there are certain types of actions in which…

The first exception of an action not done out of choice within the libertarian worldview. The second exception—which splits into two, I said two that are really three—the second exception is actions in which I do not choose. It’s not an irresistible impulse. I could withstand it, but I don’t choose. Why not? Here this divides into two types, at least two types. One type is lack of attention. That is, lack of attention—I did something and didn’t notice that there was a dilemma here that required attention and a decision about what I’m going to do. Sometimes a person reacts instinctively without choosing. Again, this is not irresistible impulse in the sense that if he had stopped he could have chosen and withstood the test. It’s not something he can’t withstand, but something he doesn’t even notice is a dilemma. Meaning, he simply acts—in the halakhic language, this is called “one who is occupied with something else,” where one acts without awareness of the prohibited element. And in such a case, the person performs an action not out of choice, even though we are speaking within a libertarian worldview. A person has choice. It’s not that basically we deny that a person has choice—on the contrary. Precisely in a picture where a person fundamentally has choice, there can still be situations like the previous one of irresistible impulse, and there can be another situation, namely an action that I did not choose because of lack of attention.

By the way, in this regard it’s very interesting, because in Jewish law, I connected this to the concept of “one who is occupied,” and in Jewish law it is commonly thought that such a case is permitted—not only exempt, but completely permitted. When you do something through lack of attention, you don’t even know that you performed some prohibited act, you simply proceeded as usual and something happened there. Yes, this is not an unintended act. An unintended act is when someone drags a bench in order to move it from place to place and makes a furrow; but in an unintended act the person knows that a furrow might be made here, only that was not the purpose of the action—therefore it is not “occupied,” it is “unintended.” In “occupied,” we are talking about someone who is not even aware that another act is simultaneously taking place. Here he is walking past a bush on the Sabbath, and somehow he plucks leaves from the bush. He doesn’t even notice; he’s simply walking down the street. So that is “occupied,” not “unintended,” because if it were “unintended” he would be liable—maybe a case of inevitability. But no, this is “occupied.” What happens in “occupied”? So as I said, the simple assumption is that in “occupied” it is permitted, and the reason again is that an action not done out of choice is not an action for which a person can be judged, even in a libertarian worldview, because you didn’t decide in this context at all. It wasn’t even before your eyes that there was a dilemma here, and therefore there is no decision of yours. You simply proceeded innocently. For that a person is not held accountable.

But it’s interesting that Rabbi Akiva Eiger’s position, as is well known in a responsum, is that “occupied” still involves a rabbinic prohibition. And the question is: why is there a rabbinic prohibition? What—this isn’t something I decided upon. So clearly what Rabbi Akiva Eiger claims is that since this does ultimately belong to your point of choice—because if you had been more alert and paid attention, then yes, you could have made the right decisions—then the fact that you were unfocused, yes, or inattentive and failed to notice that you entered a situation in which you were violating a prohibition, that itself is a prohibition. Don’t violate the prohibition of reaping on the Sabbath—it’s not a Torah-level labor prohibition, but regarding the very fact that you were not focused, yes, that you put yourself into such a situation—for that there is a rabbinic prohibition. And the underlying reason why one can say such a thing at all is exactly because “occupied” is not irresistible impulse. Irresistible impulse is not a rabbinic prohibition; irresistible impulse is coercion. In “occupied,” you are not coerced. You are not coerced—you are coerced once you are already in the situation, because you don’t even know there’s a problem. But you are not coerced in the fact that if you had been focused you wouldn’t have entered the situation in the first place. Just as people talk about inadvertence: why does someone who sins inadvertently bring an offering? Because inadvertence is a kind of negligence—you should have paid attention. Inadvertence close to coercion, yes, inadvertence where he really could not have noticed, does not bring an offering. Such inadvertence does not bring an offering and does not go into exile. The kind of inadvertence that brings an offering is inadvertence involving some degree of negligence in what he did. Otherwise it is coercion and not inadvertence. So with “occupied” it’s the same.

So that was, I said, the second type: actions in which I do not choose. The third type—which again consists of actions where I could choose but don’t—is what I’ll later call, and we’ll see this more later, actions of “picking” as opposed to “choosing.” Yes, choosing is a real choice; picking is something—I don’t know what to call it, how to translate it into Hebrew—just some empty act, plain selection. These actions—for example, if you know Libet’s experiment, which we’ll get to later—Benjamin Libet was an American neurologist in the 1970s and 1980s who carried out a series of experiments trying to see whether a person has free choice. So without getting into it, because we’ll still discuss it, the case he examined was a person sitting at a table with a button on it. And he tells the person: press the button whenever you decide to do it. And he performed various tests there in order to see whether the person chooses to do it or does not choose but rather it is dictated to him from within. Those are the Libet experiments—those of you with whom we once discussed this in Ra’anana. In any case, one of the strongest criticisms of those experiments is that pressing a button is an action of the type of picking, not of the type of choosing. Meaning, because pressing the button—whether to press it now or in ten seconds or in half a minute—is not a dilemma involving considerations this way or that. What difference does it make whether I press now or in ten seconds? It’s not as if there’s some dilemma with considerations one way and considerations the other way, requiring a decision and choosing one option over another. It’s just a meaningless act. In such an act I do not engage in an act of choice because there is nothing to choose between. There’s nothing there. This is what we spoke about last time, yes—this is Switzerland. I can toss a coin. That is, there are no considerations one way or the other, and therefore here it’s not because of lack of attention, as in the second example, and it’s also not irresistible impulse, as in the first example. It’s simply an action that does not place a dilemma before me. An action that does not place a dilemma before me does not depend on anything; there are no prices for good or evil if I do it this way or that way, and so there too I am not choosing. But I’m not choosing because there is no dilemma before me, not because there is no choice in my world or I have no free will, but because in such a situation there simply is nothing for me to choose between.

Okay, so that is the third type of action done not out of choice, even within a libertarian worldview. And therefore this is very important, because very often in these discussions people show others: look, here, these circumstances caused the person to act in such and such a way—he had no choice. And people think this is an argument against libertarianism, that it is an argument showing the world is deterministic. Usually such arguments show the opposite. They show the opposite because they show that, on the contrary, our simple assumption is that a person has control and has choice; here was a certain situation in which the person did not choose. So this exception is actually meant to contradict—that is, this exception says that in normal conduct that is not the case, except that there are cases where yes, there are cases where I do not do something out of choice. So those are the three exceptions.

I’ll bring perhaps one more example, again a halakhic or meta-halakhic example. The Talmud in Moed Katan and in Chagigah, in several places, brings the saying of Rabbi Ilai. Yes, Rabbi Ilai said: “If a person sees that his impulse is overpowering him, let him wear black, go to a distant place, and do what his heart desires.” So Rabbi Ilai’s claim, basically—there is some disagreement among the medieval authorities (Rishonim). Rashi on the spot already in Moed Katan brings two interpretations, and in other places too this appears—there are Rabbi Hananel and Rav Hai Gaon and other positions—two main approaches among the medieval authorities. One approach says that this advice—to wear black and go to a distant place—is basically advice that will help him deal with the impulse. You see that you have a strong impulse that you can’t deal with? Go to a distant place, exile yourself somewhere else, wear black, and this will help you cool down. Meaning, it will help you cope so that ultimately you won’t actually do the deed. What lies behind this interpretation—which of course is not the simple interpretation of the Talmud—is the unwillingness to accept that Jewish law would give advice telling a person how to commit a prohibition. Meaning, it says to him: listen, if you have a strong impulse, no choice, you’ll probably sin—at least minimize the damage: go to a distant place, wear black. That can’t be, say these commentators. It must be only advice that will help you cope. It cannot be that Jewish law gives you legitimacy to commit a sin so long as you minimize the expected damage. That is the conception of some medieval authorities.

But most medieval authorities do not read it that way. There are Rashi and Rif and Rosh and others—most of the medieval authorities, Tosafot—they read the Talmud literally: Rabbi Ilai is basically saying to a person, if you—if you see that, in the earlier language I used, you have an irresistible impulse, then go to a distant place and wear black, at least minimize the damage. Meaning, you probably won’t succeed in coping, so instead of fighting and failing here, and then there will also be desecration of God’s name and all kinds of problematic things—go to a distant place, wear black, so that people won’t recognize you, won’t notice; you will commit the transgression, but at least there won’t be desecration of God’s name—you’ll minimize the damage. That is of course the plain meaning of the Talmud, however problematic it sounds, and that is how most medieval authorities interpret it.

What does this actually mean? In practice, this is probably the halakhic expression of the situation I earlier called irresistible impulse. Irresistible impulse means: I feel—only here I even foresee in advance that I’m going to have something like this. Meaning, I have some degree of control over the situation: I see that I am going to fail here, I have no chance of coping, and therefore I have a very, very strong impulse that I cannot overcome. So they tell me, okay, then we give you legitimacy to give in, to compromise with that impulse, but try to minimize the damage—go to a distant place. So this is halakhic recognition of an impulse that is irresistible.

In this context it is interesting to note several things. First, the Rif and the Rosh there in Moed Katan write: “And the Jewish law is not in accordance with Rabbi Ilai, for we hold that everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven.” Meaning, the Rif and the Rosh basically claim that it’s true, this is Rabbi Ilai’s view—they interpret like Rashi, not like Arukh and Rav Hai Gaon, but like Rashi—that this really is permission to commit a prohibition while trying to minimize the damage. But they say this cannot be ruled as Jewish law, because the Talmud says elsewhere: everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven. Or in other words, things that concern fear of Heaven are in your hands, not in Heaven’s hands. And if it is in your hands, then when you see that your impulse is overpowering you, you should overcome it even more—you should cope. In the end, a person may not compromise even with something that appears to him like an irresistible impulse. That is what the Rif and the Rosh say.

And in Tosafot on Chagigah it sounds as though the Jewish law does follow Rabbi Ilai. But even someone who says that the law follows Rabbi Ilai probably does not really mean to say that this is “the law,” because it cannot be that Jewish law says you are permitted to violate a prohibition. All that can be said here is that the meta-law says we treat this as a legitimate decision. Like, say, in the legal context, one could compare this to conscientious objection. Yes, there is a difference between conscientious objection and a manifestly illegal order. A manifestly illegal order, like in Kafr Qasim for example, is an order such that anyone who obeys it will stand trial. And the one who gave the order gave it without authority—it is against the law—and if you obey the order and say “I obeyed orders,” that will not be a defense. You will stand trial. The order is illegal. That is one matter.

But conscientious objection, which people often confuse with that, is something else. Conscientious objection is a situation where the order is clearly legal, but you, from the standpoint of your own value system, are unwilling to carry it out. It crosses a red line for you, and you are unwilling to obey that order. In a case where it truly is a clear red line from your own personal standpoint—not from the standpoint of the legislator or of society. From the standpoint of the legislator and society, it doesn’t cross any red line—it’s a legal order, and in principle according to the law you are obligated to obey it. But from your own personal standpoint this is an order that crosses a very significant red line; morally, you are unwilling to obey such an order, and so you refuse. Of course the law does not permit you to refuse, but legal thought recognizes the meta-legal legitimacy of such a decision—provided that you accept the consequences. Meaning, if you refuse and afterward go to prison, people see you as a normative citizen. You violated the law because the order was legal; no one will tell you it was manifestly illegal. It was clearly legal. But we recognize a person’s right to behave according to his deepest values, and it cannot be that values—even values that seem entirely correct to society—completely crush the values of the individual. So the middle way that legal thought found is that it’s not permitted to you; legally you must obey. But if you chose to refuse and accepted the penalty, we look at you as a legitimate person. Meaning, you will sit in prison of course, because otherwise everyone would do this—you have to pay the price. But if you paid the price, then it’s okay.

By the way, this is very interesting in the context of—yes, just a short political note, impossible without it—Yuli Edelstein really did present his refusal to comply with the Supreme Court decision as conscientious refusal. He basically said: true, it’s a Supreme Court order, but my conscience does not allow me to do this, and therefore I resign. Meaning, he supposedly paid the price, and once you pay the price, that was basically the subtext there, once you pay the price then there is some legitimacy to conscientious objection. Except that of course he paid no price whatsoever—so that is another discussion. He is even now insisting on returning to the chair from which he resigned. So that puts those excuses under a very large question mark, especially since there was, in my opinion, no such deeply conscientious issue there; there was a political interest there. But fine, that’s just a parenthetical note.

I return to our topic. Rabbi Ilai’s ruling seems to me to be comparable in a certain sense, at least, to conscientious objection. It’s not exactly the same thing—I’m saying only that the mechanism is similar. I am basically saying to the person: look, what you are doing is forbidden. This is not a halakhic permit to do what you are doing. But if you assess that you will fail, I will understand if you go to a distant place and at least try to minimize the damage. I view that move as a legitimate step.

In this context I recently wrote a column on the website about Rabbi Amsalem’s permit to immerse in drawn water. If there were a prohibition, say, against women going to immerse—there is no such situation now, they are allowed—but let’s say, he said, if a situation were to arise, and there are places in the world where apparently this was the case, where women were forbidden to go immerse, then Rabbi Amsalem found some permit under very specific conditions, when there is a very large bathtub, jacuzzi, I don’t know exactly what, with a large amount of water—even if the water is drawn, one can immerse. Then maybe it’s a rabbinic prohibition or something like that, but at least this solves the problem of menstruant status. So I corresponded with him a little—he sent it to me—and in the end I also wrote a column about it on my site. I told him that I agree on the principled level; I just think he doesn’t present it correctly. Meaning, it should not be presented as a permit. It should be presented as an option for minimizing sin or minimizing damage. If someone sees that he won’t—in principle it is forbidden. A rabbinic prohibition, but a rabbinic prohibition is still a prohibition. But if someone sees that he is going to fail, he won’t stand up to it over time, then I tell you: listen, it’s still better that you immerse in drawn water, because then at least it will only be a rabbinic prohibition and not a Torah-level prohibition. That is advice for minimizing damage, not a permit. If you present it that way, I think you’re right. If it is a permit, I’m not sure I agree with that permit. And that is basically the meaning of what I said earlier: Rabbi Ilai’s permit is not a halakhic permit but a meta-halakhic permit, like what people say about conscientious objection.

So the claim is basically that Rabbi Ilai’s ruling also reflects irresistible impulse, and irresistible impulse is of course not a permit—it is a claim of exemption. Irresistible impulse does not mean you performed a permitted act; it only means you do not bear responsibility for your act. So that is basically what Rabbi Ilai says to the person: if you feel that you are going to fail in any case, you have no chance, it is above your point of choice—then in such a state I give you advice for minimizing the damage, but it is not a permit. The Rif and the Rosh claim that even this should not be said. Meaning, one should not give advice for minimizing damage. Therefore they say: the Jewish law is not in accordance with Rabbi Ilai. The point of saying that the Jewish law is not in accordance with Rabbi Ilai is not that Rabbi Ilai himself said “this is the law”—that’s not the point. Rabbi Ilai’s “law” is that it is permissible to give such advice, and the Rif and the Rosh say that in practice it is forbidden to give such advice. But even Rabbi Ilai does not say that it is permitted. That is what I argue.

This reminds me of the story—an urban legend of sorts—that someone once came to a rabbi. I heard this from some rabbi who had once been in South America; Rabbi Galinsky, I think, told it. There was some rabbi in South America whom someone came to speak to and said: listen, one of my community members came to me and said: I always eat kosher from the first of Elul until Yom Kippur. Forty days he eats kosher. During the period when Moses neither ate nor drank, then in identification with Moses he eats kosher. So he asks the rabbi whether to begin from the first day of the month or the second day of the month. Yes? So I once had an argument with Aviezer Ravitzky, and Ravitzky said—I would tell him to start from the first day of the month. You gain one more day of eating kosher. And I argued that I don’t answer questions like that. Because I don’t answer questions about halakhic damage control. If you ask me, you should eat kosher all the time. If you ask me how to minimize a prohibition—decide for yourself. I do not give instructions or guidance or advice on how to minimize a prohibition. And the claim was based on that Rif and Rosh regarding Rabbi Ilai, because Rabbi Ilai basically gives some kind of advice for minimizing damage, and the Rif and the Rosh say the law is not in accordance with Rabbi Ilai. And again, even Rabbi Ilai doesn’t say that this is the law; Rabbi Ilai only claims that it is permitted and proper to give such advice, and the Rif and the Rosh argue against him that one should not give such advice. Therefore I think it is not proper for a halakhic authority to give such advice.

But there is room to distinguish here. That’s what I wrote in the column on my site—why in Rabbi Amsalem’s case I did tend to support it. Because that is instruction for the public. If a private individual comes to me and asks me a specific question, I have to tell him: cope; I am forbidden to tell him, listen, do it this way so that at least it will be a lighter prohibition. But if it is a ruling for the public, the assumption is that among the public there will be those who fail, because the public is made up of many shades and many types, and there will also be, on the margins, those who fail. When you give instruction to the public, then yes, it is permissible to give guidance that minimizes halakhic damage. This is the Talmudic expression: “better that they eat slaughtered dying animals,” yes, the Talmud that people always quote in this context. And I think that is the difference: there it is instruction for the public, and for the public I think one can indeed give advice to minimize halakhic damage.

Okay, but returning to our topic—what I basically want to claim is that even in the context of a libertarian picture, there can be actions that are not done out of choice but are done in other ways.

Just to conclude this part of drawing the two pictures side by side: I talked a bit about this last time too, I think. In the sober libertarian picture as I described it here, it’s obviously the case that the libertarian also agrees that education and impulses and environment and genetics all have influence. That’s all true; he does not deny those facts. Those are simple facts. He only claims that the influences—the topographical layout, what I described by the topographical layout around us—those influences are indeed influences, but they are not what determines the result. They influence the result; they do not dictate the result. That is the difference. For the determinist, that is what determines the result. For the libertarian, that is what influences the result. And therefore on the statistical level there won’t be such a big difference between the libertarian and the determinist, because on the statistical level, when I establish some psychological law, both the libertarian and the determinist will accept it. The determinist will accept it as an absolute law, and the libertarian will accept it as a statistical law. But statistically, on average over many people, that really will be the behavior. But that does not mean that each individual person cannot decide to behave differently.

Meaning, if I take a given topographical layout and place a thousand people on it, I assume there will be more people who go in the direction of the valley than those who decide to climb the mountain. So the average picture for the libertarian will be the same picture drawn by the determinist, and therefore in averages, in the broad laws, it will look the same. The difference is in how I relate to the individual person. Is it the case that, given a certain topographical layout, I can determine what his behavior will be in a deterministic way—that is what the determinist says—or not? I can determine the average, but the individual can decide that he will not do that.

It seems to me that I mentioned Maimonides and the Raavad there about the Egyptians in chapter 6 of the Laws of Repentance—though I’m not actually sure. Maimonides asks there: how were the Egyptians punished, after all the Holy One, blessed be He, had already said in the Covenant Between the Pieces: “they will enslave them and oppress them four hundred years.” Meaning, He decreed this upon the Egyptians and hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so in effect the Holy One, blessed be He, caused the whole matter. So the question is: why were they punished? The Raavad says: what do you mean? In chapter 5, the previous chapter, you explained to us that there is no contradiction between God’s prior knowledge and human free choice. So here too it’s the same thing. And more than that—the issue is actually Maimonides’ answer. Maimonides says: so why indeed were the Egyptians punished? Because every individual Egyptian had choice. The Holy One, blessed be He, only decided collectively that Israel would be enslaved, but each Egyptian individually had choice. On this the Raavad asks, besides the previous question: what do you mean? Suppose every Egyptian decides not to enslave Israel, chooses the good—then how will God’s decree that the Egyptians as a whole will enslave Israel be fulfilled? If each individual has choice, then in principle at least there is a possible state where all choose the good. So how can the prophecy given to Abraham—“they will enslave them and oppress them four hundred years”—be fulfilled?

The answer that I think Maimonides senses is exactly this. The Raavad’s first question sends us back to chapter 5 of the Laws of Repentance, on knowledge and choice—that’s precisely what Maimonides says. That is true regarding an individual person. But regarding a large public like all the Egyptians, there the Holy One, blessed be He, can determine that broadly speaking, this will be the behavior. It is true that every individual Egyptian has choice, but the law of large numbers will ultimately cause it so that some percentage of the Egyptians, at least, will enslave Israel. Theoretically, hypothetically, it could be that all the Egyptians choose the good and then indeed it won’t happen. But that doesn’t happen. By the law of large numbers, when you have enough people and each one chooses—like with dice. I throw a die; each throw is uniformly distributed among the six possible outcomes. But if I roll the die a sufficiently large number of times, the result will be one sixth on each face of a fair die, even though each throw’s result is completely free and independent of all the others. By the way, it’s not “despite”; it’s because of that. That is, because the result does not depend on all the other results, therefore the distribution is uniform; therefore all the outcomes will have the same weight. So likewise with the Egyptians: the outcomes on the large scale are determined according to what the Holy One, blessed be He, established. Every individual Egyptian has choice, but the overall picture will, with very, very high probability, turn out to be what the Holy One, blessed be He, determined. True, on an esoteric level there could be a very pathological situation in which this would not happen because all the Egyptians choose the good. Fine, so that could happen—or the Holy One, blessed be He, could remove their choice, or it really might not happen. Could be.

For our purposes, what I want to say is that we should relate in the same way to all the social sciences and human sciences within a libertarian worldview. We should relate to them exactly the way one sees in Maimonides. The libertarian is not supposed to deny the results of the social sciences and the human sciences. Laws in sociology and psychology and social psychology, whatever—all these are laws that one can definitely accept even within a libertarian worldview. But we see them as statistical laws, not deterministic laws. Meaning, they determine what will happen with many human beings; on average that will be the result obtained. But that does not mean that for every particular individual, that is exactly what will happen to him.

And this point is important because I want to clarify well what I do not mean. That is, even the determinist does not see the laws of psychology as absolute laws that are correct for every person in every situation. But from his perspective this is only a question of complexity. Meaning, because we do not have complete psychological information—neither complete psychological science, nor complete information about the psyche of the specific person standing before me, because it is very complex and I don’t have full information about it—therefore I can never predict with certainty what the individual person will do, not only what a group will do. That is how the determinist sees it. But on the principled level, let us say I have finished all the research and I have a device that scans his brain and I know how to decode everything, and I have complete information both about the person and about the laws of psychology—then in principle the determinist claims that in such a state I will be able to know exactly what that person will do until the end of all generations. That is the deterministic conception. True, right now that does not exist, but it doesn’t exist only because I simply don’t have all the information; it’s too complicated. By contrast, the libertarian claims that even if I had all the information, the law would still be a statistical law. The law would be correct, but statistically correct. Why? Because beyond the topographical layout—let’s say I have the complete blueprint of it—there is still always the person’s decision, and a person can decide this way or that. But when the layout is very definite, then statistically I can know how a large group of people, or in a large number of cases involving the same person, how this whole thing will nonetheless behave, because statistics works even in a libertarian picture.

Let me perhaps give you an example. There are some Israeli researchers who published a paper in Nature—and if it’s in Nature, that means it’s a very important paper—about the behavior of bees. They studied bees and saw that their behavior is very similar to the behavior of human beings. They gave them, in some experiment, a choice between two options. One option gave them, in eighty percent of the cases, a level of sweetness—bees like sugar, they like sweet things—a very high sugar level. If they chose the second option, then in one hundred percent of the cases they got a lower sugar level. The question is what they prefer, after some time when they see that this is the characteristic of choosing right and this is the characteristic of choosing left, yes—let’s say these are two jars. In this jar they sometimes put one hundred grams of sugar and sometimes nothing, but in eighty percent of the cases there are one hundred grams of sugar. In contrast, there is the other jar where there are always fifty grams of sugar. Always. Every time you go there you get something, but less sugar. Now the question is: what do you choose? It turns out that the bees prefer the left jar. They want one bird in the hand and not eight in the bush. Meaning, give me a lower sugar level but make sure I get it every time. And in that sense this is like human beings. That is, with human beings too, usually this is how people behave. They prefer something where they always gain but gain less, over something that can give you a very high payoff but not with certainty. Even though the expected value of the high payoff is of course higher—because if the expected value were lower, that wouldn’t be very impressive. Meaning, the expected value of the higher payoff is higher, and still they prefer the lower expected value so long as the gain is certain.

Then some discussion began there about whether bees are human beings and what is similar and what is equal, and my feeling was—I read a report on that article, I didn’t read the article itself—that the report again entered those regions of: what’s the difference between bees and people? You see that it’s all the same thing, all the world is one workshop—bees, human beings, all the same. And once again this is of course the same mistake. Because obviously with human beings there will sometimes be people who choose the other way. I assume with bees too, incidentally, there will be bees that choose the other way. But the law is statistical. On the statistical level, the libertarian too agrees that there are laws, that circumstances dictate what I will do on the statistical level. He only claims that for the individual act, for the individual person, that does not necessarily say what he will do. But if you test this on many people or many bees, you will get the same result even if people are not bees. Even if human beings have free choice and free decision and are not deterministic machines, there is no reason for there to be a statistical difference between human beings and bees, at least in sufficiently large numbers.

And therefore, again, this is the same mistake. Every time someone brings a study about which gene is responsible for what, and all kinds of things like that, they immediately jump to the point that a human being is merely a deterministic gene machine and doesn’t make decisions, and that is again the same mistake. It has nothing to do with it. Because once you speak about something statistical, statistically the libertarian also accepts all the laws of the natural sciences, the human sciences, and the social sciences—he just sees them as statistical laws and not deterministic laws.

Okay. I want to continue. Up to this point I’ve basically finished the first part of this series, which was simply to place the two pictures side by side. Now of course we have to move on, and in the next stages I’ll try to proceed along this path. First, I want to see what the implications are. Meaning: if these are the two pictures, what difference does it make? Where does it touch life? What are the practical, philosophical, moral implications—what does it mean for our lives if we are determinists or libertarians? And of course this is not independent of the next stage, in which I want to look at arguments for and against determinism and libertarianism. Why isn’t it independent? Because obviously the implications for life are connected to the arguments. Meaning, if I show you that there is such-and-such an implication for life, that can be an argument in favor of determinism or against determinism, because I show you what happens in life in light of the expected implications, and from that one can draw a conclusion for or against determinism. Therefore the question of implications and the question of deciding who is right are connected.

In the question of deciding, I also want to discuss attempts—philosophical arguments—to decide, and scientific arguments to decide. These too, in the last generation or two, have come up—starting from the 1980s, I mentioned Libet; it really began mainly there, and a little earlier with split-brain studies. So there are also scientific attempts to decide this question. In fact my whole motivation for entering this topic—I have a book on this that I rely on—the reason I wanted to write the book was the sense I got that somehow over the past few decades a consensus has emerged among brain researchers that the question of determinism can be decided in the laboratory. That is, one can simply test and see whether we really are subject to a deterministic picture or not. And there are all kinds of experiments that are done to show this. My claim is that at least for now—we can’t know what the future will be—but at least for now there is no way to show this, and no one has actually shown it. All the very emphatic talk of brain researchers is simply misunderstanding. And this is a phenomenon that is perhaps disappointing but common: even experts and intelligent people are often—not always, but often—not alert to the philosophical significance of the scientific findings they present. And there mistakes happen. So we’ll still talk about that.

So first of all I want to talk about implications. The implications are usually on two main planes: morality and fatalism. They are connected to one another. The question of fatalism is basically the conception that says that, say, the determinist is supposed to be a fatalist. Yes, a fatalist is—here, I’ll read you a passage that I think represents fatalism very nicely. Yes, this is taken from Somerset Maugham. It’s a play by Somerset Maugham, a very famous passage. There’s a book called Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara, and in the opening to the book he brings this passage from Somerset Maugham. So it says:

“Death Speaks: There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions. After a little while the servant returned, and he was trembling. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘just now in the market square a woman jostled me in the crowd, and when I turned I saw that it was Death. It was she who jostled me there. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture with her arm. Please, master,’”—and thus the servant says to the master—“‘lend me your horse that I may ride away from this city and escape my fate. I will go to Samarra, and there Death will not find me.’” The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, dug his spurs into the horse’s sides, and rode as fast as he could. “Then the master went down to the market square, and saw me”—thus Death tells the story, all of this is told by Death—“The master went down to the market square and saw me standing in the crowd. He came to me and said, ‘Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?’ Why did you threaten my servant this morning? Then Death answered him, ‘It was not a threatening gesture. My arm moved of itself in surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.’”

Meaning, I had arranged to meet him in Samarra, and suddenly I saw him in Baghdad—I was really astonished. So of course the man drew his conclusion and fled to Samarra so the Angel of Death wouldn’t catch him in Baghdad. There are all kinds of stories like this—Oedipus, of course, is basically the same story, and many others in many places. These are fatalistic conceptions saying that what will happen will happen. I think I may have mentioned—I don’t remember already—the story of Osmo. Yes, the story from Richard Taylor’s book called Metaphysics. Richard Taylor was an American philosopher. He has a very nice book called Metaphysics. In one of the chapters he gives a parable explaining what fatalism is. A teacher in some American town enters the town library, his name is Osmo, and he sees on the shelf a book called The Story of Osmo. Naturally that interests him, so he opens the book and starts reading. It says: Osmo was born on such-and-such a day in such-and-such a place—which is exactly his date and place of birth. He starts getting nervous. It says he was born to such-and-such parents and lived there and studied in that kindergarten and that class, and the kindergarten teacher was so-and-so and they did this to him and that happened. Everything matches what happened to him in life. Then the story continues: he finished high school, went to teacher’s college, became a teacher in such-and-such town. Of course at some point it reaches the fact that he came to the library in that town and saw on the shelf a book called The Story of Osmo. And he opened it—all this is written in the book, yes?—and the book says that Osmo could not—he closed the book; he couldn’t continue reading. Because of course on the next page it was expected to describe what would happen to him tomorrow or in the future. But in the end he couldn’t restrain himself and continued reading, and there in the book it was described that on such-and-such a date Osmo would be killed in a plane crash on the way to New York. I don’t remember exactly, but something like that for the example.

Well, Osmo was hysterical. At that time he happened to need to fly—not at all toward New York, but in a completely different direction—so he got on, wanting to get far away, just like Appointment in Samarra. In the middle of the flight a storm begins, and the captain says to the passengers: there’s a storm and I have to change course, and I’m flying toward New York. And Osmo, in terrible hysteria, enters the cockpit—today there are only two pilots there, not four—and starts fighting with the pilot, and of course as a result the plane crashes near New York. Again, this is the same story of fatalism.

What these things express is that if we live in a deterministic worldview, then in any case nothing depends on us. Everything depends on circumstances. And since that’s so, there is no point in doing anything. You can just lie around at home—what is sometimes called the idle man’s argument. There is no need to prepare for a test, no need to go to work, no need to do anything—some kind of Druze outlook like that, yes? Fatalism is this conception that every arrow has an address, every bullet has an address, and if it is supposed to hit me then it will hit me anyway. Nothing depends on my efforts because the world is deterministic.

So that is one implication that people raise in this context, in the context of determinism versus indeterminism or libertarianism. There’s a lot to discuss about this implication. It’s not a simple one, because in the end it’s still obvious that if I don’t go to work I won’t have money, even in a deterministic worldview. In a deterministic worldview, what brings me money is work, and all that too is determined. But even in a deterministic worldview, it can’t be that I won’t go to work and I’ll have money. Money comes by laws of nature—money comes when you go to work and get a salary or an income, okay? Therefore many argue that fatalism does not follow from a deterministic worldview, because in the end you still have to go to work to get the money. And in a certain sense this is Calvin and Luther, yes, the beginnings of Protestantism in the Christian world, and in fact this is the Protestant worldview to this day, at least in theory. It says this is a deterministic worldview in the sense that everything that happens to me is preordained, but it is not fatalistic in the sense that it demands of a person that he be industrious and make maximal effort in order to attain the preordained results. There is some kind of paradoxical statement there, that by striving and succeeding you reveal retroactively that you are among the elect whom the Holy One, blessed be He, loves, and therefore from the start you were destined for success. Now in my opinion this is nonsense—I don’t know—it really is just an oxymoron. I don’t know how they live with this. But this is, for example, an attempt to escape this trap and hold a deterministic worldview without fatalism. And in a certain sense—yes, this is Max Weber’s Protestant thesis. He basically claims that all the Western neuroticism we know, this obsession with achievement, whereby even in psychiatric diagnosis we judge a person by whether he manages to function autonomously or depends on his environment—yes, if he cannot function autonomously, that is one of the important parameters in psychiatric diagnostics—all this is really drawn from Protestant sources. Because Protestantism demands achievement from you. All this Western achievement-orientation, this neuroticism, has its roots in Protestantism. So Protestantism not only does not derive fatalism from its determinism; it derives the opposite—overactivity in order to attain the results. Not “leave it, do whatever, be Druze.” No—overactivity.

So on the level of principle I still think there is a philosophical problem here, but at least on the factual level it is clear that fatalism does not always come with determinism. They are two different things. Incidentally, all the determinists, all the brain scientists, also invest a great deal of work in their research and don’t sit at home saying: okay, the research will come to me anyway even if I don’t do it, I’ll be able to write papers without writing them, I’ll get tenure at the university without publishing articles. It doesn’t work that way. They continue to work very hard. Therefore they too are not fatalistic people, even though they are conscious determinists and intelligent people. I think, by the way, there is a certain philosophical problem in this—it is subtle and maybe we’ll discuss it later—but first of all, factually, it is clear that determinism does not always go together with fatalism.

That is one implication. The second implication is the implication of judgment—moral judgment and legal judgment. A very common claim says that you cannot judge a person if you believe in a deterministic worldview. Because in a deterministic worldview, the person was essentially compelled to do what he did. He is not to blame. He did not make a decision. And since that is so, there is no point in judging him—not in court and not morally. Meaning, you cannot judge him as a bad person because he did not choose what he did. As I said earlier, from the determinist’s standpoint every action is irresistible impulse—not only the particular actions we present as such, but every action is essentially irresistible impulse, and therefore one cannot judge. This is a very common claim that libertarians raise against determinists.

What is the claim here? Well and good—perhaps one cannot judge. So what? Why is that a claim against determinism? The claim against determinism is because the determinist himself generally does judge. Both in the legal world and in the moral world, determinists participate in this activity. They also judge other people, and therefore apparently they are inconsistent, and in so doing they reflect some implicit conception that does believe in human free will. But it’s not so simple. Why not? Exactly—there is already a comment in the chat here. The counterclaim says that of course they have no choice but to judge. Meaning, the judge too is a human being, and just as I am forced to steal, he is forced to judge me for the theft. What do you mean, there is no point in judging? When you say there is no point in judging, you are basically assuming that I have a choice whether to judge or not to judge, and then you ask: why are you judging, after all there is no point—the world is deterministic. But if the world is deterministic, then I also have no choice whether to judge or not to judge. Therefore this whole business is some kind of rigged game, and there is still “point” in judging.

Beyond that—and maybe before going beyond that—the objection to this is a very common objection. Personally I don’t agree with it. I do agree with the basic libertarian claim. Why? Because true, I have no choice. But if I am aware that I am doing this due to lack of choice, then the negative connotation should not accompany it. When I see a mass murderer I become very angry with him. But anger is a psychological matter, fine. It may be that there is some mechanism built into me that causes me to get angry at people of this kind. But I, as a dyed-in-the-wool determinist, as a brain researcher or geneticist, know that this whole business is just mechanisms built into me. Therefore, on the cognitive level, I really should not judge him. What I should do is feel feelings of judgment, but not judge. And I claim that even the greatest and most self-aware determinist still judges people. Judges not in the psychological sense—judges in the cognitive sense. That is, judges in the sense that he sees them, in a considered way, as bad people. Even if he is not angry, even if he is not emotional, he still claims they should be punished and judged and so on. And that really is a significant claim against determinism.

The claim that one has no choice but to judge is a claim about the mechanisms happening in my psyche, the autonomous mechanisms that operate by themselves. But the essential judgment that I make, in which I decide whether the person is wicked or righteous, where there is a cognitive judgment—that is no longer simple to justify in a deterministic world.

But here another claim arises, and I’ll do this briefly because I want to finish this matter today. Another claim says: true, I need to punish this person even though he is not guilty and even though I too have no choice, all true—but I do it in order to correct his path. And this brings us back to the question of fatalism. Why? Because if I do not punish him, the punishment itself will operate in his psyche in such a way as to prevent future sin. That is, punishment is not a sanction for wickedness but rather a means to program the person not to return to that sin ever again—in Maimonides’ language. Meaning, the purpose of punishment is to change the topographical layout within which the sinner acted, in a way that places a high mountain in the direction of the sin and thereby deters him from going in that direction and from sinning. So punishment itself operates deterministically. Once the person knows that if he steals he will go to prison for thirty years, that itself will prevent him, deterministically, from stealing.

This, of course, can justify punishing people, but for different reasons. That is, the libertarian claims that punishment also has the justification of being a sanction imposed on a person who chose evil—he deserves a negative sanction. The determinist says there are no sanctions and no choosing and nothing of the sort, but he will still agree to impose punishment. Why? Because for him punishment is not really “punishment”—let’s call it not educational but conditioning. Yes, he wants to condition the person not to return to the same thing. What does he do? Like conditioning with animals: you get punished, you know that a severe punishment awaits you, and that itself prevents you from sinning.

By the way, there is a practical difference between these two things, and therefore this still is not a sufficient explanation. For example: should one punish someone who has an irresistible impulse? I wrote an article not long ago—my law faculty invited me to write on the issue of free choice, law, and neuroscience. This is already quite a popular subject in the United States; in Israel people hardly deal with it at all, and I think that is very problematic, because neuroscience is beginning to reach the courts, and I think judges do not have the tools to deal with this situation. This is a great shame, because brain researchers also do not have the tools to deal with the implications of what they say, and they often speak in a way that expresses errors in understanding the philosophical significance of what they’re saying.

In any case, in the article there I discussed whether one should punish someone who acted under irresistible impulse. In the deterministic worldview, without doubt the answer is yes. Why should I care if he’s not guilty? So what if it was an irresistible impulse? Punishment is not a sanction for guilt. Punishment is meant to ensure that you won’t return to it in the future. No problem. If the punishment will ensure that such impulses won’t attack you again, then you get punished. What difference does it make whether you have an irresistible impulse or not? That claim is irrelevant. The only relevant claim is whether the punishment will fail to achieve its purpose—as often comes up regarding demolition of houses, when people say that house demolitions, for example, don’t help. People who murder will murder even if you destroy their house—maybe yes, maybe no—but suppose that’s true. What would it mean? It would mean there is no point in punishing. Why no point? Because the assumption is that punishment’s function is to achieve future benefits like deterrence. But if punishment is a sanction for an act that was wrong, then why should I care whether it achieves some future goal? He deserves punishment.

Meaning, conceptions of punishment have implications for practical decisions: what punishment I impose and for what. Therefore, true, the determinist can also explain the mechanism of punishment within his own view, but there will still be consequences. That is, irresistible impulse, from the determinist’s standpoint, is an irrelevant claim. It should be deleted from the law books. Irresistible impulse is not relevant. You can only make claims such as a psychiatrist saying the punishment will not help in future cases—then we won’t punish. But if the psychiatrist says, listen, he’s not guilty; he acted under an impulse he couldn’t deal with—so what? The function of punishment is to ensure that such an impulse won’t arise again. That is the determinist’s position.

For the libertarian, no. Because the libertarian also sees punishment as a sanction for the criminal act you committed, for the criminal decision you made. And here, if it was an irresistible impulse, then you have no criminal responsibility for the matter. You were not obliged to make that decision. Therefore the whole concept of criminal intent—indeed almost all the most basic pillars of criminal law, and not only criminal law by the way, though mainly criminal law—are erased in a deterministic world, and somehow everyone ignores this.

Therefore I think that even though there are answers to many of these arguments against determinists, in the end I do think that many of them are inconsistent. Their conduct in the theory of punishment, and in moral and legal judgment, is not consistent with their deterministic conception. From a deterministic conception there should follow consequences different from those that follow from a libertarian worldview. And this debate also has consequences in the practical world. It is not true, as people think, that it has no practical implications and is just some hypothetical philosophical discussion with no significance.

Okay, I’ll stop here. In the meantime I only spoke about the two pictures. Today I more or less briefly presented the implications—I spoke about fatalism and about moral and legal judgment. In the next stage we’ll enter into the arguments for and against, both a priori philosophical arguments and scientific arguments, and try to see whether this question can be decided, and thereby also the implications—fatalism and morality—by means of those arguments. Okay, now your microphones seem to be under your control, so whoever wants can turn them on.