Q&A: Morality Without Faith
Morality Without Faith
Question
Hello Rabbi Michi, I imagine this is a worn-out question, but I’ve been struggling with this for a long time: how do people who have no faith think that a moral person is a good person, and that an immoral person is bad? Who said it’s good to help? Who said it’s good to make someone else happy? Who said it’s bad to make someone else sad, etc.? The only answer I give myself is that there is no answer, and that necessarily “faith preceded decency,” and that in every human being in the world who thinks a moral person is a good person, there is nestled somewhere an underlying belief that this created world has a purpose—not necessarily a defined or religious faith, etc.—and whoever interferes with that purpose is bad, while whoever helps it is good. What does the Rabbi think?
Answer
See the fourth notebook, in the third section. In principle I agree with what you’re saying, but not exactly for your reason. In my view, the question is not “who said,” because such a question assumes that good exists, only that there is no one to tell us what good is. But my claim is that the very concept of good does not exist at all unless it has a divine source. See there in that notebook.