Q&A: The Paradox of Weakness of Will
The Paradox of Weakness of Will
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I seem to remember that in one of the recent lectures you mentioned that when a person sins, he usually chooses his interests over moral considerations. I wanted to ask whether this mechanism somehow resolves the paradox of weakness of will, or whether it too stems from weakness of will. That is, is the reason a person chooses his interests over moral considerations that he is too weak to stick to his moral values? Or, from his perspective, is morality simply not that important to him, so that perhaps this is really a sin of belief or outlook?
Answer
That is exactly the problem of weakness of will. The claim of those who see this as a paradox is that the weighing of interests and impulses against values is a person’s final will, and if he committed a transgression then apparently his desire for the impulse was stronger than his desire for the good / the commandment. Therefore repentance requires him to change his positions themselves, and not merely to strengthen his will. I presented my solution in Column 173.
Discussion on Answer
Yes. If the whole problem were only the positions themselves, then you couldn’t demand that a person repent proactively. If it happened that his positions changed—fine. But if his positions are X, how can you demand that he change them to Y? After all, he holds position X.
From what I understand, there are people who hold positions that they are aware are not okay, and yet choose to keep holding them. For example, a person who takes the position that he prefers enjoying easy money by stealing from and deceiving other people. He is aware that this position is immoral, and still he holds it. Why can’t a person like that be required to change his position proactively? It reminds me a bit of the discussion about “we coerce him until he says, ‘I am willing,'” where the blows are meant to change the attitude of a husband who refuses to give a bill of divorce.
I discussed this at length in Column 172. For our purposes, a position is the whole set of considerations—values and interests alike.
Is there a problem with basing the whole model of free choice on choosing one’s positions rather than on strengthening the will? That is, if we assume there were no such thing as weakness of will, would that change anything in our conception of the process of repentance or the demand for repentance?