I really don’t understand this twisting at all. Why assume the case being discussed is one where there is a logical reason to believe it? It makes more sense to assume it is talking about a case where there is no logical reason to believe it (as in most cases, where there is no logical reason to believe slander, since a person is presumed upright), and the novelty is that even so one must be concerned. That is exactly the opposite of what the Rabbi is saying.

Accordingly, yes indeed, if there is a logical reason to believe it, then one should, from a logical standpoint, be concerned about it.

All the Sages were really doing was commanding us not to be seduced by the custom of the masses to accept everything that is said, so there is hardly a more logical statement than that.

Indeed, it is impossible to command something over which there is no choice, but belief does involve choice. There is a difference between belief and knowledge. With knowledge, you really can’t command someone to think differently from what he knows is not so. Or command him, regarding something he does not know, to know that it is so. Knowledge is like sight, and you can’t command it. You can command contemplation and looking, but not their result.

Therefore, if someone told you slander, and the story itself explains many other things that had been unclear, and therefore it seems very plausible, then the prohibition of accepting slander no longer applies. In such a case, not to believe the story—not to accept it—is like not believing your own eyes. And that is choosing madness. And there is what I call “the principle of madness”: the Torah cannot command a person to be crazy, lacking reason. That is even more basic than the principle that common decency precedes Torah. Reason comes before everything.

The prohibition against believing slander means that in the absence of additional evidence, or in a case where the story does not explain other things, then you may not act on the assumption that it is true. You may not assume it is true—that is something subject to choice. As far as you are concerned, the only knowledge you have is that someone said about someone else that he did such-and-such. No more than that. But when it comes to acting, you are allowed to take into account that it might be true—to be concerned about it—and to take safety precautions in case it really is true.

Take the Thirteen Principles of Faith, for example: it would be impossible to command them without some prior basis of knowledge. It makes no sense for God to command belief that there is a God, because from the outset there is no knowledge of the very existence of the commander himself. But it does make sense that God, whose existence you know, would command you (if He said so explicitly) to believe that He will revive the dead. Meaning: that you should conduct your life on the assumption that at some point the dead will live again. Note that there is no command here to know that the dead will live again. That cannot be commanded. Likewise, after the ten trials in the wilderness, it would make sense for the Holy One, blessed be He, to command the children of Israel to believe Him that He will help them in the wars of the Land of Canaan, and to punish them if they do not believe Him in that regard.

I hope I was clear.

And as the Rabbi argued here, it is exactly the same with regard to the commandment “with righteousness shall you judge your fellow” (judging favorably). This is not a commandment to be stupid and irrational, and to try to judge favorably someone where clearly—that is, you know that this is the case—the negative interpretation of his act is the more plausible one. And note that I am not demanding certainty, because there is no such thing as certainty (there isn’t even certainty in what the eyes see); I am only applying the principle of madness. One of the nice examples of this was one of the commenters here on the site who tried to judge favorably some obviously mindless thing that Rabbi Yitzchak Zilberstein of Bnei Brak said. The favorable interpretation was even more ridiculous and irrational (because this was not the first strange thing that rabbi said, and I am not the only one who thinks so) than what the rabbi himself said.

Judging favorably means that in a situation where someone did something and at first glance it looks bad, but it is not clear that this is really what happened (because you do not always know the context, and maybe details are always missing that would change the whole picture), then the commandment is first of all not to react from the gut and judge negatively, like the mob. In addition, as long as we have not clarified all the details as far as possible and exercised judgment, if there is a good interpretation of the act (one that exonerates him) and it is not implausible, then believe it—that is, act on the assumption that it is true. Note that this is not a commandment required by common sense (like “do not murder,” for example). Common sense here does not require assuming any interpretation is correct, but rather checking and judging what really happened, and until we have done so, saying that we do not know. The obligation of the commandment applies within something that belongs to the discretionary realm of common sense. But the commandment also does not contradict common sense—that is, it does not require what common sense rejects.

In short, the principle of madness says that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not command things that run contrary to common sense. He does not command irrationality.

Regarding the connection between judgment and choice that you mentioned in Column 35: I did not understand how choice is expressed in the process of exercising judgment. If my judgment tells me that X is true, how can I choose to think otherwise?

Boaz, there is no difference. Both are included in it.

Oren, judgment itself is a kind of choice. It is not that one chooses whether to go with one’s judgment.

Rabbi Michi, you wrote differently in Column 175. At least that’s how I understood it.

Why don’t biblical critics look at this site?

I do not see where it says otherwise there.

In what sense is judgment itself a kind of choice? Seemingly, I would say that judgment is forced on me.

See the above-mentioned column. Many of our decisions are complex. There are considerations this way and that, and you have to exercise judgment, assign weight to each of them, and decide. That is not a computational act but something choice-like.
For example, the decision whether God exists. There are considerations for and against that everyone knows, and yet people arrive at different conclusions. So either it is forced on us, in which case it is arbitrary (since in practice people reach different results), or there is something choice-like here.
And of course I do not mean to say there is no correct answer, just as in morality there is a correct answer.

How is this different from an eye exam אצל the optometrist, where some people manage to see the smallest numbers and some do not? Here too different people reach different results regarding the numbers. What distinguishes those who are right from those who are not is their visual ability. Likewise, regarding the understanding that God exists, what distinguishes those who are right from those who are not is their power of judgment. Both visual ability and the power of judgment seem to be forced on the person.

You can of course claim that this is a calculation, based on mistaken facts, but in my opinion it is not. We have before us the same data and arguments, and nevertheless the conclusions differ.
By the same token, many people argue that choice in the evaluative sphere is also calculation.

I recall that in the past you addressed the subject of non-deductive logic and argued that theoretically even a computer could use that kind of logic. More sophisticated algorithms would know how to produce more correct conclusions than other algorithms. For example, already today there are autonomous cars made by certain companies that drive better than autonomous cars made by other companies. The input to the cars’ driving algorithm is the same input—the road conditions—and still the output differs from company to company. The reason the output differs is the quality of the algorithm. The same applies to us: even though the data and arguments are identical, the conclusion can differ because of differences in each person’s power of judgment.

Clearly. That is the classic claim of people in artificial intelligence who see all this as computation. But I do not agree that it is computation. If it is mere computation, then the conclusions have no real value—except on the assumption that the computer is reliable and good, which itself is based on computation by that same computer.

Wow! Only now did I grasp what you originally meant in Column 35.
If I understood correctly, you are arguing that the understanding that our thinking is reliable is, by definition, an understanding that cannot be a simple computational understanding, but must be another kind of understanding, with all the intuitions involved. And from there you infer that we probably have a faculty of thought that a computer will never be able to have, and this is what you call volitional thinking. My question is: why connect the issue of choice to this unique faculty of thought? In what sense is it volitional in your view?

The reliability of thinking does not depend only on its quality (= the power of thought), but also on there being something outside it that judges it and decides, by independent means (= judgment and decision between alternatives), about its reliability. That is what I called the volitional dimension of thought. A machine, however reliable it may be, cannot make decisions about its own reliability—and not necessarily because of the halting problem for Turing machines, though that may perhaps be related.

Got it 🙂

It reminds me of the verse in Jeremiah:
(11) And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: “What do you see, Jeremiah?” And I said: “I see a branch of an almond tree.” (12) Then the Lord said to me: “You have seen well, for I am watching over My word to perform it.”

Seemingly, it is difficult: what does it mean to praise Jeremiah for managing to see what God meant? His visual ability is forced on him. Rather, one may say that he employed the unique faculty of thought we are speaking about here—volitional thinking—and with its help he succeeded in seeing what God meant. That faculty is by definition not forced on a person. Therefore it makes sense to praise Jeremiah for it (by the way, this connects to Column 134 and learning from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) 🙂 )

🙂

Another point that is not so clear to me in this context is that with practical choice, it is worthy of appreciation when there is a price that the choosing person pays. For example, someone who chooses to give charity instead of using that money for other needs important to him—there is a sacrifice in that choice that is worthy of appreciation. But with choice on the intellectual plane, what sacrifice is there here? I thought maybe one has to say that the effort involved in study and in exercising thought is the sacrifice that is worthy of appreciation.

Thinking correctly and living correctly are values. But beyond that, I am not sure the intellectual plane also needs to involve a price.