Q&A: Leibowitz and Values
Leibowitz and Values
Question
With God's help,
Hello Rabbi,
If I understand correctly, Leibowitz held that values are fairly relative, and that a person himself imposes them. On the other hand, as I understand it, he was quite opposed to things that appeared to him immoral, and not in the sense that everyone has his own truth.
Likewise, because of the naturalistic fallacy, values cannot be reduced except to norms, so there are two possibilities: either this is something relative, or it comes from some external idea, like the Good, or something God implanted within us, etc.
As I understand it, you strongly hold the second approach, whereas he held the first. What bothered him so much about accepting the existence of values?
I'm not sure, but I think the same applies to what the Rabbi calls the more synthetic area of thought: he held that he was compelled to think that way, and not because it necessarily corresponded to truth out there. (Though here it is admittedly less relative than values, where a person himself chooses what to want, but still.)
Answer
Leibowitz was a positivist, and therefore he himself was not prepared to admit that he had beliefs that could not be justified. I once wrote an article about this (which, I suspect, was not published because of the evil eye of Leibowitz's students who were critics there).
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%99%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%9F-%D7%91%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%A0%D7%AA%D7%95-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%91%D7%95%D7%91%D7%99%D7%A5-%D7%A4%D7%95%D7%96
Discussion on Answer
It's possible that that's exactly what he means, and more likely that from his (conscious) point of view, anything that cannot be grounded in something else is arbitrary. That's what the positivists held. It sounds stupid, but to someone living inside that framework it seems simple.
Didn't the article eventually get published in Mortal Man Is Like Grass?
I think it got in there in some form.
Thanks, I read it; I didn't understand a single word there, but I hope I understood every sentence.
So if that's the case, one could say that he's basically like your approach, except that he isn't willing to talk about the sources of his basic assumptions because he is a positivist.
But I still don't understand why, in practice, one should be that way. Or conversely, why aren't you that way? It's enough to point out that first assumptions can never be reduced to something prior, but that doesn't mean they are arbitrary. Why is it so hard to say that?
And if I understand correctly, if someone were to ask why you don't think they are arbitrary, then you'd simply say, "That's just how it is"—and saying that they are arbitrary is itself an assumption..