Q&A: The book “Why Are You Always Right?”
The book "Why Are You Always Right?"
Question
A Hebrew translation of the book ‘Why Are You Always Right?’ by Jonathan Haidt was recently published. Have you read the book and/or do you have any insights about it?
Answer
No
Discussion on Answer
Yossi, broadly speaking, in Haidt’s view there is no morality at all (though he ignores that in a pretty impressive sleight of hand), only impulses. What interested me more was the Rabbi’s opinion on Mr. Haidt’s analysis of the ‘moral receptors’—which of them really deserve to be called morality in the eyes of someone who believes that not every impulse is morality—and how they map onto certain political views. But thank you for the reference.
I didn’t understand him as saying that there is no morality at all. Quite the opposite: the justification for morality is “because that’s how I feel,” and therefore I will behave in a moral and noble way—even though in truth it’s all nonsense and there is nothing real to it. But that is only on the philosophical level, not on the level of the phenomenal world.
And that was also the view of Rabbi Leib Mintzberg. For example, regarding the prohibition of forbidden sexual relations, he strongly disagreed there with the medieval authorities (Rishonim), such as Nachmanides, who argues that it is a biblical decree, a statute without a reason. Rather, any noble and elevated person ought to feel revulsion toward it—that is the reason for the verse. And similarly regarding the commandment against theft, he did not agree with Maimonides that the reason is because of the destruction of society, but rather because of the baseness in a person’s soul, in that his conscience feels that one must not touch what belongs to someone else.
See a review here in Haaretz: https://www.haaretz.co.il/literature/2023-05-10/ty-article-review/.premium/00000187-fbf2-d78f-a5d7-fbf3a5ab0000
And here in Mida: https://mida.org.il/2023/04/07/%D7%91%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%AA-%D7%A1%D7%A4%D7%A8-%D7%9C%D7%9E%D7%94-%D7%90%D7%AA%D7%9D-%D7%AA%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%93-%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%93%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%9D/
According to the book, the source of morality is emotion rather than reason, and that is also the view of Rabbi Leib Mintzberg regarding the reasons for the commandments in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh): https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%99%D7%91_%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%A6%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%92#%D7%A9%D7%99%D7%98%D7%AA%D7%95