Q&A: The Meaning of Morality in Light of the Argument from Morality
The Meaning of Morality in Light of the Argument from Morality
Question
Hello Rabbi.
Some questions came up for me in light of the argument for God from morality.
In the booklet you argued that the proof assumes that the correct side of the Euthyphro dilemma is that morality is “correct” only because God wants it, and not because it has a value of “truth” that precedes God.
As a result, two questions came up for me:
1) Seemingly, it follows that there is an easy way to solve all problems of “Torah and morality” in an instant.
Does killing an Amalekite seem immoral? Not at all! After all, there is no real “holiness” in the commandment “Do not murder.” The fact that murder is immoral (and therefore the commandment regarding Amalek seems immoral) stems solely from God's having decided that this is what He wants. If so, in light of the Torah’s command regarding Amalek, it follows that God decided He wants two things: 1. Do not murder. 2. Kill Amalek, and in practice He excluded Amalek from His general will.
Since there is no validity at all to a morality that precedes God—that is, there is no validity at all to the command “Do not murder” unless God chose it—then the command regarding Amalek can also be completely moral, exactly like “Do not murder,” since God wants both of them to exist. I would call this “the very mouth that forbade is the mouth that permitted.” Since all the validity of morality is due to God’s choice, He can of course make exceptions within His will, and therefore the moral command “Do not murder” simply does not apply in the case of Amalek, and there is no moral problem here.
By contrast, if we say that morality precedes God, then of course none of this is difficult. God cannot make an exception for Amalek, because He is not the one who determined that murder is immoral. The command “Do not murder” applies in all cases, and therefore excluding Amalek from it is immoral, and rests on the necessary foundation of a moral prohibition against murder (though it is still possible that God wants this command for non-moral reasons, as follows).
2) Since morality receives its validity only from the divine will, I do not understand the distinction the Rabbi often makes between moral values and non-moral values. Granted, if morality were a category that precedes God, the distinction would be called for. Morality would then be a value that arises naturally and not because God commanded it, as opposed to non-moral values (for example, the prohibition of a divorcée to a priestly woman) whose validity derives only from God’s will.
But in light of the fact that every normative obligation derives its validity from the will of God, I do not understand where the line is drawn between the two categories. True, morality consists of obligations between one person and another (not causing harm, and the like), but there is no “natural holiness” in the value of “not harming another,” because the value of “not harming another” derives its validity only from God’s will, and therefore it is exactly like the value of “preserving the sanctity of the priesthood.”
If so, I do not see any difference between a conflict between the Sabbath and laying hands on a sacrifice, and a conflict between the Sabbath and saving a gentile.
One can distinguish between values that concern interpersonal relations and values that do not, but that is a very bland distinction. It is about like distinguishing between commandments that are observed on weekdays and commandments that are observed on festivals and Sabbaths.
Thank you.
Answer
I distinguish between the question of what morality consists of and the question of the source of its validity. My claim is that the source of its validity is the divine command or will, but its content is what we all understand. When the Torah says, “And you shall do what is right and good,” it does not spell out what that means. The assumption is that we all understand, and moral intuition (= conscience) is the correct compass in matters of morality.
Therefore, in my view it cannot be said that every command is moral. Where a Torah command contradicts moral intuition (anti-moral commandments) or is simply neutral with respect to it (non-moral commandments), there I would say that the command probably comes to achieve religious goals rather than moral ones.
The normative duality I advocate is between Jewish law and morality (both of whose validity derives from God), and not between a divine command and something natural-universal.
Discussion on Answer
Indeed. Typo.
I still do not understand the distinction.
God sat before a blank page (with no good and evil) and decided that He wants us to do act x (and thereby act x became moral) and that we should not do act y (and thereby act y became immoral).
He built robots (human beings) and implanted in them an intuition of what He decided He wants them to do.
In addition, He revealed His will through explicit commands as well (to kill Amalek).
What difference is there between intuition (“morality”) and an oral command? After all, morality (according to the Rabbi) is “what God wants us to do,” not what is natural and necessary, and killing Amalek also meets that criterion. Seemingly the difference is only in the way God revealed His will to us. He could just as well have implanted in us the intuition to kill Amalek. There is nothing in morality beyond a command like the Sabbath, for example; it is just that God gave us the ability to arrive on our own at the understanding that one should not kill.
Since morality is what God wants us to do, then killing Amalek is moral (just like “Do not murder”), or at the very least we are in doubt as to what morality (God’s will) says regarding Amalek, because the intuition God implanted in us says one thing, and His command says another.
I would appreciate an explanation.
I already explained, and I will say it again. Good and evil are not the result of some arbitrary will of the Holy One, blessed be He. They have an objective definition. It is their validity and our obligation to do them that depend on His will.
In the booklet you argued that someone who says, “One ought to do what is good,” is mistaken, because good is a loaded fact that motivates action, and therefore the first part of the sentence (“one ought to do”) is superfluous. So I do not understand what it means to say that good and evil have an objective definition (in general, what does definition have to do with it? Perhaps you meant objective existence? Because even if the good is arbitrary, after God commanded it, it has an objective definition) and that they are not an arbitrary will (the prohibition of a divorcée to a priest is also not arbitrary). To say that God is only the source of the validity of doing the good (which is objectively defined even without Him, and therefore God also commanded it) is itself to assume the second side of the Euthyphro dilemma—that the gods commanded the holy because it is beloved—yet in the booklet you explicitly assumed the other side.
So I do not understand the distinction between interpersonal values, which for some reason receive the title “morality,” and the rest of the values, which do not, even though neither is arbitrary.
I really do not understand, sorry for the bother.
If morality is intuitive, then it is not “categorical,” but depends on the character of each person and society and on the culture in which his personality was shaped.
For example: in ancient times it was obvious to all humanity that an enemy had to be uprooted from the root lest his descendants rise up to complete what the previous generation failed to accomplish, until in the Book of Kings the writer notes Amaziah’s distinctive conduct in not putting to death the sons of those who had assassinated his father, as it is written in the Torah of Moses, “Children shall not be put to death for fathers” — and it was the Torah that established a new norm of personal responsibility. And even the seven nations and Amalek are not killed if they accepted upon themselves the seven Noahide commandments and abandoned “the deeds of their fathers.”
Today, after thousands of years of the Bible’s influence on humanity, the morality of the Torah has been imprinted on humanity’s “intuition,” to the point that people rise up against the source of morality with the argument that it is not moral enough 🙂
When the Torah says, “And you shall do what is right and good,” it adds, “in the eyes of the Lord your God.” Without this addition, natural intuition may deteriorate into “each man does what is right in his own eyes.” Best regards, S. Z. Levinger
Hello Y.
God is the source of moral obligation. Once His will has been expressed, when I perceive the idea of morality I understand that this is how one ought to act. Without God there is no such thing as “ought” in acting, and even if I recognize the good there is no obligation to obey it, and therefore there is also no basis for condemning someone who does not obey it.
Clearly, the definition of good and evil is a function of the world, and perhaps it could have been created differently (and therefore the Euthyphro question is actually based on a mistake). But given the world as it is, it is not arbitrary.
The distinction between morality and religious values is not on the plane of arbitrariness. Neither is arbitrary in the sense I described above. Given the world as it is, there are moral values of good and evil, and there are religious values that deal with the manifestation of God in the world (the realm of the divine). The difference between them lies in the goals they are meant to achieve or in their character.
I do not know what else I can explain. I feel we are repeating ourselves.
S. Z. L.,
Your description contains an internal contradiction. You argue that our moral intuitions were shaped by the Torah (I partially agree), and therefore you go on to argue that we have no right to criticize the source of morality. The problem is that if morality did indeed come from the Torah, how did a conflict situation ever arise, meaning one in which it contradicts the Torah?
The argument that without the addition “the Lord your God” behavior may deteriorate is a very problematic argument. You have turned faith into an instrument in the hands of morality, whereas the opposite is true. The argument for why we need God is not consequentialist (to ensure uniform moral behavior), but rather that without Him morality has no validity. That is a theoretical role; that is, I am not claiming that He is an instrument whose purpose is to achieve moral behavior, but to grant validity to morality itself. Whether to act in accordance with it or not is a consequential question, and in my opinion it is not important to the discussion here.
*Between Jewish law and morality (not Torah)