Thank you very much. I do indeed feel that there is something problematic there, but nevertheless there is also something very right about Kant’s imperative.

There is something else I don’t quite understand in what you wrote in the fourth notebook. Throughout the notebook you keep returning to the point that one cannot infer a norm from factual claims, yet we do feel that there is a general law in this matter. On page (97) you distinguish between descriptive claims and prescriptive claims. These claims are charged with a negative or positive valence. That is, by means of my conscience I can observe the idea of morality and decide whether act x is good or bad.
But even if it is indeed written in the idea of morality that murder is wrong, that is still a factual claim—it’s really written there!
But how can I infer a norm from it—and refrain from committing murder?!

I think I explained it there. The claim is that normative facts are different from physical facts. Physical facts are neutral (descriptive), whereas normative facts are charged (prescriptive). From a normative fact (which is described in a prescriptive sentence) one can derive a norm.

I accept the theoretical distinction, but how can such a reality of normative claims exist? Every reality is a fact and does not cause action. Maybe the Rabbi has an analogy for this?

I thought of the idea of a lawbook of the state, for example. But even that is not a normative claim, only a fact. Indeed, it says there that it is forbidden to cross on red. But that does not move me to act.

I don’t know what examples can be given. There are laws and there are moral principles. If you do not grasp them as charged facts, you will not be obligated by them (to obey the law or morality). So you have two options: either deny what we all understand—that these are binding facts (charged facts)—or accept it. If you accept it, then there you have examples of charged facts.

Sorry if I’m repeating myself in the question, but I still didn’t really understand.

How can such a reality exist? Is a lawbook issued by the ruler an example of this?
That is, there is a text—a fact. And there is a writer (the ruler) who loaded that fact with an action-guiding force?

The existence of the book is a fact, but that is not what I am talking about. This book reflects an act of legislation, and that is the relevant fact. An act of legislation is not a neutral fact but a charged fact, and it is binding. By the very fact that an authorized authority legislates a law, it binds the addressees.

Thank you, but it is still not clear to me how the legislating authority has the power to transform factual speech (say, in its words: “Do not murder”) into a normative command (addressed to me: not to perform an act of murder)?

I didn’t understand the question. Nothing transforms anything out of anything else. Speech in itself is a neutral fact. But the speech/command of an authorized legislator is a normative fact. It is not removed from the category of fact; it is a different kind of fact. And the proof is that people understand that it binds them (just as they understand that an ordinary fact is neutral).

Okay, thanks, I think I understood. Just one more question occurred to me from your remarks: so if there is a supreme being that told us the laws of morality, why should we listen to it and regard its words as binding?

Because it is the authorized authority. If you do not see it as such, then don’t listen to it. The proof in the fourth notebook is “theological.” See the explanation there.