Q&A: The Argument from Morality
The Argument from Morality
Question
Hello Rabbi,
This topic has been discussed to death, but it still isn’t entirely clear to me.
I read in your book that the argument from morality is that there is an external objective morality. Then the question is: who validates it? The answer is God.
But one could argue that there is an external spiritual idea, namely our concepts of good and evil, and that is our morality. Of course, one can ask who created it, but that is like asking who created the world.
But why do the very concepts of good and evil themselves require God? At most they require existing spiritual ideas.
Answer
If these are just ideas, then they are merely an object. Why should I behave according to what it dictates?
Discussion on Answer
Who created them is a different question, and it goes back to the question of who created the world.
Why should I listen to them? You could ask the same thing about God: why should I listen to Him? Rather, you understand that it is right to listen to Him. In exactly the same way, it is right to listen to good and evil, just like God.
Without some legislator behind it, there is no way it can obligate me. When there is a legislator, you can ask why listen to him, and there are answers that you may or may not accept. But if there is no legislator, there are no answers and no discussion. The mere fact that something exists somewhere out there does not obligate me in any way. I can of course decide to act in accordance with it, but there is no way to determine that I am obligated.
That itself is the claim: that the answer regarding the obligation to listen to the legislator is some inner intuition that says this is the truth, that one ought to listen to him. Why can’t one say the same thing about an external spiritual idea—that there is an inner intuition that one is obligated to listen to it?
An intuition cannot say that 2+3=12. Ideas do not obligate anything. They are simply there. Therefore no intuition can say that they are obligating. When something is possible, then one can say that I have an intuition that it is true. But here this is nonsense, so if you have such an intuition, throw it out. It is misleading you.
In other words: who created them? And who gave them authority?