[Avodah] Categorical imperative

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 08:26:56AM -0400, David Riceman wrote:
: Yitzhak Grossman wrote:
: >I do not consider the fact that he attributes a doctrine that he
: >considers fundamentally wrong to Talmudic sages equivalent to
: >"expounding" that theory.

: It's not that he attributes it; it's that he explains it.  Webster's 
: (2nd edition): "expound : 2. to explain".  In none of the definitions of 
: expound is there any implication that expounding implies accepting.

Things are getting a little sad when it boils down to diyuq halashon in
my Avodah post.

What I was trying to say is that there are rishonim who consider Divine
Command Theory (DCT) compatible enough with Yahadus to be worth invoking
and explaining. "Expounded" as RDR wrote.

But actually, historically speaking, it's hard to find a rishon who
actually promoted DCT. This need for rationality is something that
distinguishes us from our daughter religions, and I think that shows up
here too. I don't think even Rashi holds of DCT, despite his explanation
of this shitah in the gemara that al kan tzippor is because the din is
gezeiras hakasuv.

I actually think there are three relevent maamarei chazal.

1- The one already raised, condemning the Shatz who attributes shiluach
haQen to Hashem's Rachamim. Megillah 25a

2- The rhetorical question of why HQBH should care whether we slaughter
a beheimah from the front or the back of the neck. Bereishis Rabba 44:1

Interestly, both divorce the taam hamitzvah from tzaar baalei chaim.
This might be significant.

The Rambam uses these gemaros to show that while mitzvos in the large have
reasons, the details are often arbitrary. We needed a rite to elevate
how we kill animals, that's more significant than what the rite is. If
HQBH said that we should shecht from the back of the neck we could
ask why not the front? Or had he told us to take a pepper on Sukkos,
we could ask why not an esrog?

I think there is a leshitaso there with the Rambam's position on
hashgachah. Nature is hashgachah minis, not on each individual. Halakhah
too is a set of rules, and therefore is also addressing the big picture
and not the details. In both cases the Rambam takes it for granted that
a set of global

The Ramban argues that it's a gezeirah on us because shiluach haQen is
about developing /our/ rachamim, not an expression of HQBH's. This is
reading the BR, which explicitly says the difference is for the sake of
our middos, back into the gemara in Megillah. I would say the Ramban is
also leshitaso. His whole concept of qadeish es atzmekha bema shemutar
lakh means that there is a definition of qedushah that goes beyond that
which was specifically commanded.

If someone has the time to explain the Maharal's discussion in Tif'eres
Yisrael pereq 6, I would be thrilled. (I'm a bit spread thin right now,
behind schedule in other learning.) He discusses this machloqes and
presents his own shitah.

3- The third maamar's connection is less obvious. Histaqeil beOraisa
ubarei alma. Zohar Ber' 134a

It allows a solution to the Euthypro Dilemma, in which Plato has Socrates
ask young Eythyphro:
    Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious
    because it is loved by the gods?
Or, in a Jewish rephrase:
    Did Hashem command this particular mitzvah because it is morally
    right, or is it morally right because God made it a mitzvah?

If we assume the reisha, then were are limiting Omnipotence, we're saying
that there is this thing called morality that even HQBH is dubject to.

If we assume the seifa, which is DCT, we have the problem that it
makes HQBH's decision of what is good arbitrary. This second horn of
the dilemma is obten asked without reference to Plato: Had HQBH said
"tirtzach", without the "lo", would murder have been moral?

The only reason why we consider murder inherently immoral is because of
how people and the olamos were made. HQBH could have created a system
in which dying is a major tovah to the person.

IOW, one can very well use this maamar to say that murder is immoral
because the Torah said so. But unlike straight DCT we would add: ... and
therefore the world was created so that "lo sirtzakh" is what the souls
in it prefer as well.

In chasing the link to <http://www.iep.utm.edu/d/divine-c.htm> I learned
that this resolution is pretty much that proposed by Clark and Pootenga
(2003) based on Equinas. Except that while they say the two fit together,
they place the universe as logically prior to the Divine Command, rather
than the other way around.

Which is pretty much into the resolution I gave in earlier
Avodah discussions of the Euthyphros, eventually blogged at
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2007/05/hashem-and-morality.shtml>:
    I would argue that HQBH created the world with a tachlis, a purpose,
    He placed each of us in it with a tachlis, and what is righteous
    is righteous because it is in accordance with furthering that
    tachlis. This fits Rav Hirsch's etymology for "ra", being related
    to /reish-ayin-ayin/, to shatter. It also explains why the word
    "tov" means both good in the moral sense (not evil) as well as
    in the functional sense (not ineffective, as in "a good toothpaste
    prevents cavities"). To prepare the menorah's lamps is called "hatavas
    haneiros -- causing the functional usability of the lamps." Moral
    tov derives from the functional tov. Hashem chose "Do not steal"
    over "Take whatever makes you happy" because that's what makes us
    better receptacles. We might have remained with two definitions of
    tov (and of "good") -- functional and moral. According to this line
    of reasoning, "good at its job" is the underlying meaning of tov in
    the moral sense of the word as well.

    So yes, HQBH did choose good vs evil without being subject to
    external constraint, and yet still the choice was not arbitrary.
    Socrates gave Euthyphro a false dichotomy -- there was a third
    choice. Hashem has a reason, but that reason wasn't conforming to
    a preexisting morality....

If one says that the Torah is "The Human Soul: A User's Manual", my
blogged answer would be just like the "histaqeil beOraisa" version,
except that HQBH created the soul to fit the manual, rather than the
other way around.

I suggest reading the whole discussion there, but one point intrigued me.

Robert Adams (1987) noted that if we phrase DCT in the negative, we can
avoid the Euthyphro Dilemma. IOW, "Any action is ethically wrong if and
only if it is contrary to the commands of a loving God" (pg 132). It
allows one to have a morality that includes everything HQBH requires as
being moral by definition and yet has room for qedushah bemah shemutar
lakh. AND it has an incredible resonance with "mah desani lakh", also
defining duty in the negative.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

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