Q&A: A Bit of Nitpicking About Previous Lessons
A Bit of Nitpicking About Previous Lessons
Question
I want to briefly address two points that came up in previous lessons.
A. In the last lesson you brought the sheep parable (Rabbi Yitzhak) in which you tried to show that morality is not a consequential matter, nor is it an inclination ingrained in us. Morality is a chosen response to a moral imperative that obligates us to act / not to act.
After all, no one thinks a sheep is more “good” than a “wolf.” I connect to the analogy, but I wanted to note that usually when we say a sheep is not “good,” what we mean is that it is not aware of the consequences of its actions and is not aiming to do good. It simply responds to its subconscious instincts.
One could say—this is not necessary, but neither is the alternative necessary—that the advantage of the human being over the animal is that he is aware of the act and its consequences, and in his moral behavior he intends to do good / not to harm another. He has compassion, care, love, and so on, and that is the fundamental motive for his moral behavior. On this view, choice is not a necessary condition for determining a person’s character; perhaps the opposite: the more his character is like this, the more inherently compelled he is to act this way. The more consistent he is with himself, the more his behavior expresses his personality.
B. A basic claim you raised against radical empiricism, which argues that what cannot be proven we cannot know with certainty to be true / correct (I hope I phrased that correctly). You argued that this law itself is sweeping, and therefore it too requires proof according to that principle, and since its correctness cannot be proven, we have no way as faithful empiricists to say that what cannot be proven is not certain.
Here I am trying to respond that the empiricist principle is not a positive principle, and therefore it is exempt from certainty. That is, we can decide that it is not necessarily true and still accept it as a guiding principle. We will claim that this principle is not certain, but no other unproven idea is certain either. How do I know? I don’t know, but I also cannot know otherwise. And again we have arrived at the same place: we have no certainty about anything that has not been proven. Lest you say: but I think there are principles that do not need proof. Here we have left the logical world that allows us to examine such a claim, because the claim exempts itself from being put to any test whatsoever. If so, then even without the principle of falsification (let us say for argument’s sake that it too has not been proven), I have no reason to accept it. Either that is how I think, or it isn’t.
B2. How do I know that what my intuition grasps is in fact correct? After all, many intuitions (such as in places where people disagree with me, and not only there) are necessarily incorrect, assuming there is one truth. So how do I know that my intuition is the correct one rather than another, or perhaps none of them. Or in the language of William James: we know with certainty, but we do not know that what we are certain of is indeed so. And this is not only a principled statement, but is also supported by the fact that we do in fact observe mistaken intuitions (and the relative percentage does not matter).
Thank you, and have a pleasant day
Answer
Hello,
Which lesson are you referring to? Are you talking about the philosophy workshop?
A. Here you are repeating exactly what I said. So what is the question? In addition, I did not understand your concluding sentences at all. After you explain why what matters is choice, you move to the claim that choice is not the relevant parameter.
B1. But why adopt a guiding principle that requires certainty? Then I can adopt as a guiding principle too (even if it is not true) that certainty is unnecessary. The fact that we have no certainty about anything that has not been proven is a tautology. Of course that is true. The dispute is not whether there is certainty about something that has not been proven, but whether something that has not been proven (but seems reasonable to me) is acceptable.
B2. As stated, we do not know anything with certainty. When there is a dispute, you are supposed to weigh the other positions and then formulate your own position. That is what you should do. Obviously you do not have certainty, but that is the best you can do. See my columns on PEER DISAGREEMENT on the site. By the way, the number of disputes is not all that great. In many cases the dispute stems from looking at different aspects, and in fact there is no real dispute. That is what we showed in Lewis’s remarks (if you mean the workshop).
Discussion on Answer
A. Awareness is not relevant in any way. If a person has no choice, why does it matter whether he is aware of what he is doing and of the consequences? It is not in his hands.
B. Once I answer that very question, you can go on and ask me: how do you know? So what is the point of dealing with this? Either you have trust or you do not. I have trust. Moreover, our intuition usually does not mislead us. On the contrary, the places where it does mislead us immediately become articles that come to explain them, meaning these are isolated and special cases. I discussed the meaning and reliability of intuition in entire books (Two Carts and Truth and Unstable). Someone who has no trust in intuition cannot have trust in anything. Therefore there cannot be an answer to the question why believe intuition, because that answer itself would be exposed to the same attack.
I’ll start with B. I relate to the understanding that an intuitive perception can be valid even without proof. I tried to show that there is no logical fallacy in the sentence “What has not been proven is not admissible.” That is, the sentence itself does not require proof.
A. This awareness is not serving as an outside observer; it is an active part of the chain. Alongside desire (the emotional one in this narrative), it drives the practical action. On the other hand, it is compelled by prior internal causes (character and the like), or by external ones. Choice means the ability to decide otherwise. One can argue that he could not have chosen otherwise, but still it was “he” who wanted and moved himself into action.
And I answered that. This sentence does require proof. And if you accept it only as a guiding rule, then I can say about every claim of mine that it is only a guiding rule. I do not argue with guiding rules but with claims.
I will repeat once again. If it is driven by causes, then I have no responsibility, because I could not have done otherwise. It is very simple, and I do not understand what the discussion is about. It has no connection whatsoever to the question of awareness. Even if I am aware that I am compelled to think or do something, I am still compelled to do it.
Yes, in the philosophy workshop.
Thank you for the response.
Regarding A. What I am trying to argue is that the analogy to a sheep can illustrate for us that morality requires awareness. What is that awareness? You would argue that it is awareness with choice, whereas I would argue (or at least could argue) that choice is at best extra weight; what matters is the act done מתוך awareness of its outcome. The desire to do good, and not necessarily a response to a moral command that obligates one to do good.
B. Why can I accept something that has not been proven? And as a continuation: intuition often misleads, and therefore one cannot rely on it. I agree that the main error is not in moral intuition itself but in the perception of reality to which it applies, but this skepticism can continue onward to the perception of reality itself. And then we have only switched domains of judgment and have not gotten out of this skeptical circle. Instead of asking who says my intuition is correct, I will ask how I know that I perceive reality correctly.