[Avodah] Murder a Chok or Logically Compelling

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Sep 08, 2024 at 12:39:30AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote:
> The third party is the Rodef - but we are unable to neutralise that Rodef
> Rava Paskens, since in HKBHs eyes no one Js life is more valuable than
> another
> one may not kill EVEN in order to save their own life
> and KVeChomer no outsider can kill
> [so this is a LOGICAL argument, Lamah Li Kera Sevara Hu, it is NOT a Chok]
> 
> TTBOMKnowledge, this is the Halacha
> And was presented in order to challenge the proposition
> That Halacha, HKBHs commands, CAN runs contrary to common sense

That halakhah doesn't assume a Consequentialist system of ethics.

It does indeed make sense. Once you accept any of the numerous arguments
proof that having the best outcome for the most people is not the best
moral code.

As you put it about third parties... Damage or boon caused by third parties
isn't about you making the right choice, it's about those third parties doing
so. Which presumes a Deontological ethics -- one in which the morality of
a choice depends on the rules of behavior themselves more so than outcomes.

In my first post on this discussion I posed three possible reasons why halakhah
would be deontological. And they are not mutually exclusive. In short:
1- Every moment of human life is of infinite value, and one cannot compare
infinities.
2- People act. But Hashem controls outcomes.
3- Our whole purpose in olam hazeh is to refine souls. And thus the
world is made (see answers 1 or 2) such that our choices matter more
than their outcomes. #3 argues for Virtue Ethics in particular. But then,
so does all the attention paid to Middos.

> I do not understand why or how it is related,

Perhaps google the terms I introduced: Consequentialism, Deontology, and
Virtue Ethics. Clearly my attempts to define them aren't working for you.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Man is capable of changing the world for the
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   better if possible, and of changing himself for
Author: Widen Your Tent      the better if necessary.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF          - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning