Q&A: Jewish Law and the Categorical Imperative
Jewish Law and the Categorical Imperative
Question
I read that some have argued that it should be permitted to teach in medical faculties using body parts of Jews, because this is needed so that lives can be saved, and that one should not argue that they should use those of non-Jews, because Jewish law cannot operate on the basis of that assumption. This is seemingly an argument from the categorical imperative: if everyone refrains from this, then we will be forced to use them.
On the other hand, one could argue that the prohibition on dissection is not a moral prohibition, and therefore there is no problem relying on the fact that other nations do not act this way. And some formulated it this way: it is important that the Jewish people observe this Jewish law in order to emphasize human dignity (because according to the ways of Jewish law, which preserve both the law of the dignity of the dead and saving life), and there is no problem at all if others do donate the body to science (because they do not have the religious prohibition).
What does the Rabbi think?
Answer
The question of whether dissection is not a moral prohibition is not so simple. People want to bury their dead, and so there is an injury here to them. But for the sake of discussion, let us consider a person with no relatives, and who himself also has no interest in being buried. What remains is only the halakhic command to bury the dead.
Assuming that, the categorical imperative would seemingly say that one should not distinguish between a Jew and a non-Jew. The fact that this is not a moral prohibition is not necessarily relevant. In my article on the categorical imperative in Jewish law, I argued that this imperative is relevant to every behavioral norm, moral or halakhic (there I applied it to the sale permit during the Sabbatical year as well, which is also not a moral prohibition).
Beyond that, your claim that it is important that there be a group that preserves human dignity, which you presented only on the assumption that the categorical imperative does not apply here, can in my opinion be accepted even if one does adopt the categorical imperative in this context. The question is what the general law is. One can define a general law according to which most of the world dissects the dead, and there is one group that makes sure to preserve human dignity. That itself is the general law. This is, in fact, a challenge to the Kantian picture in general, since it somewhat drains the idea of a general law of its content. But in my opinion that is not entirely correct.
But if you ask my opinion, such an argument has a place only in a world where there is a problem concerning the dignity of the dead. In such a situation, there is a general interest in having a group that preserves this. But I do not think that is the situation nowadays. In my opinion, today there is an exaggeration regarding the dignity of the dead (for example, the view that there is an obligation to bring soldiers’ bodies to burial, even at a heavy price). Therefore I am not inclined to accept this argument with respect to the issue of the dignity of the dead. Although, as stated, I do accept this logic on the principled level (when it is relevant).