It’s obvious that if the obligation to obey morality stems from the duty to obey the Holy One, blessed be He, then it cannot be that the duty to obey the Holy One, blessed be He, stems from morality. My claim is that the duty to obey morality does not stem from the duty to obey the Holy One, blessed be He; rather, it is the primary obligation that serves as the basic axiom of the duty to obey, and from it stems the obligation to obey the Holy One, blessed be He (not because of “gratitude,” but because of the assumption that the Holy One, blessed be He, is moral and good, and therefore His commands are surely moral and good). Exactly as, according to your view, the duty to obey the Holy One, blessed be He, is the basic axiom that gives rise to the duty to obey the morality that He legislated.

In other words, according to both of us there is a basic axiom of authority, and the question is what it is: morality or the divine will. My claim is that while I definitely find it sensible to be obligated to morality in a way that does not require some more primary source to generate that obligation, I find it hard to accept this regarding the second possibility — obligation to the divine will — since in that case I do not see any sense in being obligated to it if there is no moral consideration involved.

I brought the example of an evil god in order to illustrate the difference between the two proposals for the primary obligation: if the obligation is to morality, then there is no obligation whatsoever (and indeed there is a prohibition) to obey God’s evil commands; but if the obligation is to the divine will, then one would be obligated to obey even an evil god whose commands are evil and immoral. In my view, the basic intuition supports the position that one should not obey evil commands, even if they come from a divine source, rather than the position that one should obey every divine command even if it is evil.

I’d be glad to hear and understand your position better, and again thank you very much and with great appreciation for all your effort in answering questions.

There is no way to grant validity to morality unless there is something or someone behind it that gives it that validity. Morality is not an object, so it has no validity on its own. And even if you assume there are moral facts as entities (moral realism), such facts have no validity unless someone gives it to them and stands behind them.
And from the other side of the equation, the obligation to serve God also cannot stem from the fact that He is good. Even if He is good — so what? The fact that He is good does not create validity for the principles He believes in. And even if He is good, why does that mean I need to carry out all sorts of instructions of His that have nothing to do with morality?

But by the same token one can ask what gives binding validity to the commands of the Holy One, blessed be He — the Holy One, blessed be He Himself? Then who gave Him the authority for that, and why should I obey Him?

To arrive at a source of authority (assuming there is one), we must ultimately arrive at a primary source that did not receive authority from any other factor, but whose authority is self-evident axiomatically according to common sense, which obligates it without any need for further explanation of why and from where.

You claim, if I understand correctly, that such a source can stem only from an entity (or a personhood) and not from a fact or a value, but I do not understand why. The authority of that personhood too must ultimately stem from some reason — a value that common sense requires us to follow and not violate.

As I see it, the value of doing good things and not doing bad things is self-evident according to common sense, and that is the source of its binding validity. By contrast, I do not see any value in carrying out God’s command if there is no good or moral benefit in it.

So I’ll ask again: does the Rabbi see an obligation to obey even an evil god whose commands are evil solely because they were spoken by God? Likewise, does the Rabbi think that without the existence of God there would be no reason at all to be moral, so that there would be nothing wrong with robbery and murder, for example?

[Also, I’d be glad if you could explain, according to your view, what characteristic of God is what gives Him binding authority — the fact that He is omnipotent, or that He created the world, etc.]

An entity can possess authority that should be obeyed. But obedience is only to an entity. Obedience to facts is a meaningless expression. Put differently: every law requires a legislator.
The fact that you feel a value or an obligation is just a feeling. For it to reflect truth, someone has to be there in the background. How can you make demands of someone who does not feel this within himself?
Obligation to God stems from the fact that He created the world and us.
If He were to command evil things, there would still be an obligation to obey, but perhaps I would refuse. Yet the obligation would remain. But I think this is a contentless question, since God by definition is good. Beyond that, we are talking about a completely different reality, unlike our world, and it is hard to answer such hypothetical questions. You’d have to live there to answer.

Jacob,

It seems to me there is a logical flaw in your question. As I understand it, God is not an entity or figure that established various laws, but the root of the reality and existence of those laws. So if God is an expression of the source of good in the world, then that includes what you call “morality.”

In other words, “obligation to do good” and “obligation to God” are exactly the same thing, just in different words.

Even without God, I think one can absolutely define the laws of morality. For example, as an extreme case, murdering innocent people for no benefit whatsoever is certainly an immoral act, without dispute. Of course, the precise boundaries can be debated, but that is also true when there is God. So I don’t understand why you say that obedience to morality is meaningless without God. Why can’t I say that I obey these laws of morality, which are revealed to me through common sense and conscience?

This is not merely a feeling but a necessary recognition, just like the recognition that gives validity to all axioms in every field, such as the recognition that everything has a cause (except axioms…), where the assumption that it is true is not merely a feeling but a necessary and almost “immediate” recognition stemming from common sense and requiring no further explanation.

In any case, according to your view as well, one must arrive at such an axiom; only according to your view the axiom is not that one should do the good and the moral, but that one should do the divine will. And that too can be challenged exactly as you challenged me: that “it’s just a feeling, and how can you make demands of someone who doesn’t feel that within himself” (like me…).

Regarding an evil god, you said he would still have authority, though you might refuse him. Doesn’t that in practice mean that the obligation is not to the divine will but to morality, and therefore when the two clash you would obey morality and not the divine will? [Or do you mean that you would fail to obey only because of your “weakness” and the “evil inclination” in you (as much as one can call the inclination to do good an “evil inclination”…), but that truly a “righteous” person would obey the evil divine will rather than morality?]

As for the point that an evil god is a hypothetical possibility that cannot exist in reality — I actually agree with that claim (at least assuming that God indeed comprises all the qualities we attribute to Him; regarding an entity that creates a specific person and is not omnipotent, I definitely think there is a theoretical possibility that it would not be good), but in my opinion that does not undermine the inquiry into which component of God is the reason we obey Him. If we obey Him only because He is good and moral, then it turns out that the obligation is to morality and not to the divine will as such, except that in practice the divine will is good and therefore we obey it. By contrast, if the obligation is because He is the Creator of the world or because of His other attributes, then the obligation is not to morality but to God (but I do not understand the logic of such an obligation — why should I obey God’s laws just because the one who legislated them is the Creator of the world, independently of whether they are good or evil?!).

I think these remarks also answer Moses’ comment, because although in practice morality and the divine will coincide, since God is good and moral, this still does not solve the question whether the obligation is to the divine will in itself or to the good and the moral, and therefore also to the divine will insofar as it is good and moral.

The question is not the definition of the laws but what grants the laws validity. See column 457.
There is a widespread approach according to which anything you cannot explain you can just claim is an axiom, and that’s that. Especially if you have an intuition that it is so. But that is a mistake. Even if I have some feeling that something is true, that does not mean it is true or that it is an axiom. If that feeling is not logical, or if it is based on something else, then I will choose to say that it is not true or not an axiom.
There is certainly a feeling of obligation to morality. But in the absence of a factor that gives it validity, this cannot be an axiom (because there is no valid law without a legislator to whom I am obligated). That is exactly my claim in the moral argument in the fourth conversation in The First Existent. This feeling proves to me that I believe in God, because otherwise it would make no sense. Therefore the feeling by itself is not enough to ground a claim.
By contrast, the intuitive feeling that there is an obligation to the Creator of the world involves no logical problem. It sounds entirely reasonable, and therefore from that standpoint it is both true and an axiom. Therefore it can also ground the obligation to morality.

The discussion about an evil god is, as stated, hypothetical, and there is no point in conducting it. In the series of columns that begins today I will discuss the limitations of thinking about a reality unfamiliar and distant from us.

If I understand correctly, the essence of your claim is that there cannot be a valid law without a legislator to whom I am obligated, and therefore the primary obligation can only be to God — as legislator — and not to morality, which is the law itself. That is the logic on which you build the claim that only an obligation to God can serve as an axiom, unlike an obligation to morality, which cannot be such because it contradicts the logic of “no law without a legislator.”

But in my opinion the logic is exactly the opposite. In order to be obligated to something, a reason is required. An entity as such cannot constitute a reason to be obligated to it, unless there is another reason — that is, some value — that requires it. By contrast, obligation to a certain value can stem from the very fact that the value is true and good in a way that cannot be doubted. Only after I am obligated to the value am I obligated to the entity whose laws accord with that value.

This can be illustrated by comparison to the laws of the Knesset. The obligation to the Knesset does not stem from the entity called “the Knesset” as such, but from a certain value (or several) that gives it authority, such as the value of “rule by the people,” the value of “democracy,” or the social agreement of the state’s citizens. Only because obedience to the Knesset realizes these values do I obey it. Without them, the entity “the Knesset” would have no binding authority at all.

I’d be glad to hear your response. Thank you very much.

The obligation to a factor possessing authority is not based on a principle in the same sense as moral principles. It is based on the inherent content of that entity. It does not require justification. Exactly as the obligation to morality is not based on a prior principle that explains why one should commit to morality. I am obligated to it because it obligates. Someone who understands what morality is cannot ask: I understand that this is morality, but why does it obligate? But my claim is that something obligating must be the product of a legislating factor. Otherwise it is not something obligating. This is not a justification but the conferring of validity. Therefore, when someone tells me, “I understand that this is the command of morality,” he indeed needs no further justification to be obligated by it, but in order for something to count as a command it must be the product of a commander. By saying that it is the command of morality, he has said that there is a commander in the background.
I think we are already repeating ourselves.

Jacob,
I didn’t understand your answer.
My claim is that obligation to an absolute value and obligation to God are one and the same, because God is a name for absolute truth and absolute good.

When you say you are obligated to morality and your friend says he is obligated to the divine will, as I understand it you are both saying the same thing in different words. The difference would begin only in a case where morality is not absolute but merely utilitarian (which is the main reason modern morality has been reduced to the prevention of suffering).

I’ll try to explain my position in a different way.

As is well known, in jurisprudence there is a dispute between two approaches: natural law and positive law. The natural law approach argues that legal rules are determined according to moral values that are clear to everyone, and that judgment should be rendered by virtue of and in accordance with them. By contrast, the positive law approach argues that legal rules are determined according to the formal institutions that possess the authority to legislate and determine legal norms, regardless of whether those norms conform to natural moral values.

In my view, there is no room for this dispute regarding the primary source of legal authority, but only regarding its derivatives. That is, it is clear that the primary — foundational — source of legal norms stems from a natural value, and that is what gives validity and authority to judge and enforce a certain law upon citizens and other people. But in practice, in order to realize this authority, there is room to discuss whether the best, most stable, and most effective way to maintain a legal system is one in which judges can rule directly according to natural moral values at their own discretion and are not absolutely bound and subordinate to formal laws when in their opinion those laws do not accord with those values, or whether the better way to maintain a legal system is one that limits judicial discretion such that the determination of whether formal laws accord with natural moral values is not left to their discretion and they are absolutely subject to formal laws even when in their opinion those laws contradict those values. But even the decision on this question must ultimately be determined on moral grounds — what is the most moral and best way to run a legal system — and that is the source of its validity, so it turns out that in any case, even according to the positive-law approach, the primary basis of the source of obligation is determined according to a moral value.

If we do not say this, but instead say that the primary source of legal authority is the formal body possessing legislative authority, then we are immediately forced to ask who gave that body its authority. As in the example I gave in my previous comment regarding the Knesset, one must ask who gave it the authority to legislate. Of course it will not be enough to point to another entity with formal authority that gave that body its authority (such as the “People’s Council” or the “Declaration of Independence”), because we will still remain with the question of who gave that entity its authority. The primary source of authority cannot be an entity; it must be a value that does not require justification in order to be binding, but whose very truth and worth, once recognized by human beings, obligates. In the context of the Knesset, as I noted in my previous comment, that value could be, for example: the value of rule by the people, the value of democracy, or the value of maintaining the social agreement. Without these values, why should I commit myself to obeying the laws of the Knesset?!

I believe that this principle also applies regarding the authority of the Torah given by the Holy One, blessed be He. The Holy One, blessed be He, as such — as an entity — cannot serve as the primary source of authority, because one must ask where He gets this authority and why I should obey Him. If there is a value-based reason for it, then obedience does not stem from the entity itself but from the value that obligates obedience to Him. In other words, I obey the value. In my opinion, obedience to the Holy One, blessed be He, indeed stems from the value of doing the good and the moral, which is a value that stands on its own — even without the Holy One, blessed be He — and must be obeyed because of the human recognition that one should do the good and the moral, without needing justification from an external source (an axiom). But because of the assumption that the Holy One, blessed be He, is good and moral, so that His commands too are good and moral, it follows that from the obligation to obey the value of morality there also derives an obligation to obey the Holy One, blessed be He, since in doing so one is in fact obeying morality.

[For Moses —
If when one says that there is an obligation to obey God, the meaning is that the obligation stems from the assumption that we have an obligation to obey morality and do only what is good and moral, and from that we derive that there is also an obligation to obey God because He is good and moral (and only because of this fact) — that is indeed my position, and according to it morality stands at the top of the pyramid of obligation, and as its offspring — on a second level — stands the obligation to obey the Holy One, blessed be He. But Rabbi Michael’s position is not like that. In his opinion there is an obligation to obey the Holy One, blessed be He, by virtue of the simple fact that He is the entity that created the world and me, and not because in doing so we are doing the good and the moral. On the contrary: according to his view, the obligation to do the good and the moral is derived from the intrinsic obligation to obey God, because He wants and expects me to behave morally, as revealed by the fact that He implanted a conscience in me, so that the reason I am obligated to morality is because that is the divine will and not because of the moral value in itself.]

I’ll clarify and sharpen my position regarding the core of our disagreement as I see it (apologies in advance for the length).

We both agree that the laws of morality exist as a factual matter, meaning that there are good actions and bad actions. For that, no legislator is needed, just as the laws of logic exist as a factual matter even without a legislator (not even God, as I understand is agreed by you). The question is whether, without God, the laws of morality exist as normative laws — that is, whether there is an obligation to behave morally, to do good and avoid evil.

According to your view, normative validity is not itself a factual matter but requires an authority who commands it, and only by virtue of his command — his legislation — is there a normative obligation to act accordingly.

I have seen several times that you distinguish between two kinds of authority: “formal authority,” which must be obeyed and whose commands one must follow regardless of whether those commands are based on facts that are correct and justified on the factual level, and “substantive authority,” whose commands have no binding normative validity, and which one should obey only because one estimates that it is correct on the factual level — but if it is not correct, there is no obligation whatsoever to obey it (like a doctor who instructs one to take a certain medicine).

As I understand it, your claim is that a fact or value as such has no binding normative validity, because such validity can be given only by an entity possessing formal authority to give such validity. Therefore the value of morality in itself is not binding so long as it has not been given validity by God, who has formal authority to legislate normative laws (I admit I still have not succeeded in understanding why and from where an entity that created the world and me has such formal authority).

But I disagree, and in my opinion there is never any original “formal authority”; rather, every “formal authority” is grounded in “substantive authority,” that is, in a reason or value by virtue of which it is determined that this entity has authority. The difference between an entity with formal authority and an entity with substantive authority is that with an entity possessing formal authority, it is determined on the basis of a substantive reason or value that one should obey it formally — that is, one should not examine the entity’s laws on their own merits and obey them only if they are justified and based on correct facts, but should obey them even if they are based on error. Yet even this determination is based on a “substantive” value, and only because of that do we obey the formal authority, so that the basic obligation is not to the formal entity but to the substantive value, as I will illustrate.

I am intentionally comparing this to the legal system, because there too we have an entity with formal authority to legislate normative laws, and since it is an entity that is not “divine,” it seems to me easier to understand through it that there is no formal authority that stands on its own; rather, it too ultimately stems from “substance.”

To that end I will cite the words of Moshe Sternberg in the name of Hans Kelsen. I will preface that every legal system is based on a “basic norm” from which the validity of all the additional norms, lower in the normative hierarchy, is derived. But one must ask where the validity of the basic norm itself comes from. On this Sternberg writes (quoted from the High Court of Justice decision on limiting the reasonableness doctrine, paragraph 140 of Justice Solberg’s ruling):

“From where do these basic norms derive their legal validity? To this question Kelsen replies what Austin replied with respect to the sovereign: we have reached the end of our domain and must ask no more. The domain of law ends with the basic norm. In this respect law resembles religion. Both are dynamic normative systems. In both we reach a line beyond which one cannot go without trespassing. Just as the final answer to the religious command is ‘because God so willed’ or ‘thus His wisdom decreed,’ so the final answer to the validity of the legal rule is: thus it was determined by the basic norm. If you ask from where God’s commands derive their validity — you have left the domain of religion; if you ask from where the basic norm derives its validity — you have left the domain of law.”

That is, he answers that this question lies outside the domain of law, because the legal system operates within the basic norm and not outside it. He adds and compares this to religion, where too there are commandments (“norms”) whose validity is given by God, but the question of where God gets His authority lies outside the domain of religion.

But it is clear that in the domain of law, the question why one should obey the basic norm cannot be left unanswered such that the answer would simply be that this is an axiom that cannot be questioned, because this norm has not existed forever but was created and established by human beings, and one must ask why there is an obligation to obey it specifically rather than something else. For example, in Sternberg’s view the parliament constitutes the basic norm of a democratic state, but clearly the obligation to obey its laws was not created ex nihilo; rather, it stems from some value that obligates it.

As I understand it, what Sternberg means by this (and even if this is not his intention, in my opinion this is the truth) is that indeed an answer must be given to this question — where the basic norm derives its validity from — but this is not a legal question but a meta-legal one. Law is a formal domain, such that its rules are binding regardless of whether they were determined according to good values and correct facts, but this question has no formal answer; rather, it is the question that gives validity to the formal authority of the legal system as a whole. The answer to this question lies in the values themselves, such as rule by the people and democracy, and not in formal legal norms. From these values the basic norm draws its validity, and from it all the other norms draw theirs.

[Incidentally, this is what Justice Solberg relied on in arguing that the question of what the basic norm of the Israeli legal system is cannot be decided by the court, because if such a determination by the court had formal validity, it would turn out that the basic norm is in fact the word of the court. In other words, the question of what the basic norm is is a factual question and not a legal one, and therefore the court’s ruling on the matter has no significance, because if it is mistaken its ruling has no formal validity at all (since formal validity does not change facts but norms), given that the court’s own formal authority derives from the basic norm.]

And as quoted, Sternberg compares this to the religious system, in which the basic authority is the will of God, and the question of where the binding validity of God’s will comes from stands outside the religious domain. In my understanding, the explanation there too is similar. Admittedly this is not a religious-halakhic question, because Jewish law too is a formal system, but that does not mean there is no answer to it. Its answer lies outside religion, on the meta-religious plane, and therefore religion itself cannot decide it in a way that obligates obedience to its own ruling; rather, this answer is precisely what gives religion its validity. That is, the formal authority of God’s will stems from a certain value that reason requires us to fulfill. Only because of the basic obligation to that value are we also obligated to obey God, because in doing so that value is realized. In my understanding, the value in question is morality, which is clear to a person that it must be fulfilled, and since by obeying God’s will one realizes moral conduct — for God is good and moral — one should obey Him. But the basic obligation is to morality, and obedience to the laws of the divine entity, the possessor of formal authority, is derived from it.