Q&A: And Here Is a Moral Request:
And Here Is a Moral Request:
Question
Hello and blessings,
How are you?
I’ve just finished reading Moshe Rat’s new book, Truth and Obligation: Religion, Morality, and What Lies Between Them.
Rat’s book is light and pleasant, but also fairly superficial and somewhat shallow. Beyond that, it seems to me that he errs in quite a few central arguments, and some of the discussions there are really not precise. He over-relies on intuition, and in his anger at empty logic he sometimes throws out the baby as well—something that recurs in his other books too. At the same time, your influence on him is noticeable. That influence comes through in some of the arguments, in the method, and even in the various examples he uses (this influence is evident even more so in his book Simply to Believe). But again: regarding other issues in the book, you would certainly disagree with him, and it also lacks precision there as well (again, like in his other books), as mentioned.
I’m writing this because while reading his book, a thought resurfaced that has been with me for quite a long time—do you intend, in the near or distant future, to write a book about morality, religion, and the relationship between the two?
As I said, reading the book sharpened for me the sense that you, specifically, having contributed so much on these topics, are the one who ought to write a systematic book on the matter—one that would weave together the columns and posts that dealt with morality, religion, intuition, conflicts, into a coherent and complete picture.
Here are a few topics you’ve addressed in this context. There are certainly more, and these are simply the ones that come to mind right now:
- Jewish law and morality: 541, 542, 73, 16
- God and morality: 456
- Moral realism: 456.
- The Torah as a guarantor of morality and proper conduct: 356
- Moral dilemmas: 538
- The Euthyphro dilemma: 547
- Moral judgment of a person: 372, 244
- The Binding of Isaac and its meaning: 333
- Two moral axes and multiple circles: 188, 266
- On the moral saint: 240
- Ontological translation of moral ideas: 168
- Aesthetic values: 154
- Morality in the gut or in the head: 86
- The naturalistic fallacy: 25, 26, 16, 73, 146.
- A sovereign person or a rabbinic one: 126, 128.
- Altruism and the categorical imperative: 122
- The moral and religious motive: 71, 120
- Incommensurability of values: 28
- Moral numbness: 51.
I imagine there are more topics. And now I recall that you elaborated on some of this in your book Walking Among the Standing, but it still seems that a more comprehensive book is needed.
In general, there are almost no books dealing with morality and religion. Rat notes that he found only two books, both by Sagi, and they are full of errors. In short, there is a lack of something systematic and intellectually straight—something along the lines of your book The Science of Freedom.
In any case, there isn’t really a question here. Just a request and a little push…
What do you say?
Thanks for everything, and Sabbath peace!
Answer
Hello. Indeed, he studied with me in the past, and we spoke a great deal. My feelings about things I’ve read from him are similar to what you described.
I think my doctrine regarding religion and morality is fairly well laid out at the beginning of Walking Among the Standing. When I look at the list of columns you brought up, I see that there really are additional aspects, but almost all of them do not deal with the relationship between religion and morality, but with morality itself (and not by accident, because religious morality, in my view, is exactly the same as general morality). In any case, I’ll think about it, although I’m rather skeptical about publishing books in this internet age.
Discussion on Answer
Every word! And there are also psychological effects from the very fact of reading from a screen, and another “post” with all the connotations of a quick, light text. In general, a person forms positions through serious books. Through them he thinks and then thinks again. He reads patiently. He gets a broad picture, etc. etc.
Could be. I think my posts are no less serious than a book, just shorter and focused on one topic. The intertextuality of the internet (the ability to refer via links to places where I elaborated and presented something that I need here) makes it far more efficient than a book, which by nature is built in a linear way.
In any case, it’s clear that there are people who will get more benefit from a book. The question is how many such people there are and whether it’s worth investing in publishing a book for them.
It’s definitely worth it! Someone who wants an orderly doctrine from foundation to rooftop on a subject will have a hard time with the blog medium, even if in practice many of the things have already been written there.
You yourself open columns by saying that “although I’ve already written about this, perhaps the subject still requires another, more systematic presentation.”
[Rabbi Michi. It seems to me that a common view today (and it also seems right to me) is that people do indeed read fewer books, but for ideas to trickle through it’s enough that a small number of people actually read the raw material, and they will already pass on the central ideas in conversation and writing (and not always consciously tracing them back to the source) to a wider audience, and from them it gets thinned out further and reaches an even wider audience. And some of that wider audience will see the landing page (an incidental comment in a Twitter discussion, for example) and then want to get to the source, the book. In that respect, the internet phenomenon—that is, the refinement and efficiency of the marketplace of ideas—seems to allow successful books to have an impact with a force and speed even greater than before. And the necessity of distilling and focusing ideas sometimes improves them too. Though in such a process of ideas trickling down through the layers of the pyramid, where only a few were exposed to the original book, it does not receive the full credit it deserves (unlike citations in academic articles).
I also think (from my personal feeling—I don’t know whether it’s a common feeling or what explains it) that a thoughtful book takes the reader through a certain process that does not always happen when reading an isolated argument or a column or a conversation. A kind of rhetorical effect, or a more inviting space for a bit more intellectual openness, or somehow, in a strange way (and not always a desirable one—a vague feeling of being led along), friction with the author’s thought even in more peripheral wings of the argument, or in things disconnected from it entirely, or simply a longer contact over time, gives greater readiness and a better understanding of what he is saying. Would you be willing to write a bit about your opinion and impression on this subject.]