Q&A: A Question About the Column and the Last Lecture
A Question About the Column and the Last Lecture
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I listened to the last lecture in the faith series, and afterward I also read the column on the topic. You referred to my question only by hint, and I’d be glad for an answer so I can be sure I understood you correctly: is your insight, that the motivation for observing the commandments is made up also of an aspect that is not “truth because it is truth,” not actually a retreat from your approach regarding ethical facts? After all, that is exactly the core claim of the theory: that there are facts of a certain kind that carry a charge that is supposed to lead to behavior in accordance with them simply by virtue of their existence. From the Rabbi’s words it sounds as though, one way or another, that charge is in fact not sufficient, and therefore the ethical fact, in the Rabbi’s sharp formulation, does not really exist; and the motivation for its realization is generally bound up with some psychological status of one kind or another (and all this, of course, under the distinction that the Rabbi repeated several times between human motivation and the religious value of the act, which is not grounded in emotions, etc.).
Thank you very much in advance, and have a kosher and joyful holiday!
Answer
It would have been better to place such a question as a talkback comment after the column (559).
The reason (philosophically) to observe commandments is because they are true. Human beings need a psychological rabbinic supplement (not a philosophical one) in order to do the truth and to invest effort in reaching the conclusion that this is indeed the truth. That is why I wrote about those benefits. Ethical facts too would not spur people to act if they did not see the benefit that comes from them (that the other person feels better). Even the categorical imperative, which is the pinnacle of deontological morality, in the final analysis leads to benefit (see column 122). Beyond that, sometimes the fact that there is a good result strengthens the claim that something has intrinsic value (as Rabbi Kook wrote in Musar Avikha regarding fences and decrees).
It is like when you educate a child to do a good deed (morally or halakhically): you begin with rewards and utilitarian explanations. The hope is that afterward he will no longer need that. But even if he will always need it, it is still possible that the reason for the observance is the truth in it, but I would not have resorted to it were it not for the benefit.