Q&A: Commonly Accepted Beliefs and Intelligibles
Commonly Accepted Beliefs and Intelligibles
Question
Rabbi, have a good week,
When Maimonides says in Part I, Chapter 2 of the Guide that good and evil, the shameful and the pleasant, are determined by commonly accepted beliefs and not by intelligibles, does that itself mean that every religious and faith-based determination is only a product of what is commonly accepted?
Like when Pascal says, "There is nothing in the world that is just on rational grounds; accepted custom (like commonly accepted beliefs) determines justice, which has no other basis than that it is agreed upon and accepted. That is the secret of its authority, and the attempt to ground it in its principle destroys it."
And David Hume too seems to me to argue the same thing, because of the irrationality of values; he says their source is "the feelings." The question is what he means by feelings, whether you agree with him about this, and what you think.
Really sorry for the bother, and thank you very much.
Answer
I of course do not agree. In my view, morality consists of objective principles, and only their applications depend on circumstances. In Column 457 I discussed the idea that moral principles are binding even on the Holy One, blessed be He.
As for Maimonides' view, there are contradictions on this, and I don't know how to say anything definitive. I discussed it in Column 177, and see also the talkbacks there.
If the determination is not due to belief in the fact of revelation (in whatever form it may take), then in any case it has no religious value according to the Rabbi. In his view, religion is not bound up with morality.