Emes Ve-Emunah: Atheists and Morality
Another conversation about ethics and religion.
Rabbi Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer הרב יוסף גבריאל בקהופר
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Monday, October 30, 2006
Divrei Chaim: religion is NOT ethics
Divrei Chaim: religion is NOT ethics
Some conversation between my BIL, my sister, and me.
Very Relevant:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-arguments-god/
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Moral Arguments for the Existence of God
First published Tue 25 May, 2004
Moral arguments for God's existence may be defined as that family of arguments in the history of western philosophical theology having claims about the character of moral thought and experience in their premises and affirmations of the existence of God in their conclusions. Some of these arguments are on all fours with other theistic arguments, such as the design argument. They cite facts that are claimed to be evident to human experience. And they argue that such facts entail or are best explained by the hypothesis that there is a God with the attributes traditionally ascribed to him. Other moral proofs of God's existence take us away from the patterns of argument typical of natural theology. They deal in our ends and motives. These variants on the moral argument for God's existence describe some end that the moral life commits us to (such as the attainment of the perfect good) and contend that this end cannot be attained unless God as traditionally defined exists
1. Arguments from the Normativity of Morality
1.1 Crude Arguments from Moral Normativity
1.2 Sophisticated Arguments from Moral Normativity
2. Arguments from Moral Order
2.1 The Basic Argument and its Exemplification in Kant
2.2 The Secular Problem of Evil
2.3 Moral Order and Moral Skepticism
3. Practical Arguments: Moral Despair and Moral Discouragement
Bibliography
Other Internet Resources
Related Entries
1. Arguments from the Normativity of Morality
Many examples of theoretical arguments for God's existence start from the fact of ethical normativity. Human beings are aware of actions as being right and wrong, obligatory and forbidden. Such awareness carries with it the thought that they are “bound” to do some things and bound to avoid doing others. Moral qualities have a bindingness attached to them shown in the force of the moral “ought” and the moral “must”. If I make a promise, the promise creates (ceteris paribus) an obligation to deliver what is promised. The normative fact is, first, not dependent on my own goals and ends and, second, possessed of a universal force. The fact that I am bound by the normative truth “do what you promised” does not hold because I have ends which I cannot achieve unless I fulfill the promise. The imperative is not what Kant styled a “hypothetical” one. It is rather “categorical”. It binds no matter what my particular goals are (see Kant 1996/1973 67; 4/414). That is linked to its universal dimension. I have an obligation to deliver what I promised, because anyone who makes a promise thereby (ceteris paribus) obligates him- or herself. The obligation created by the promise holds independent of my particular goals because it reflects a universal rule, holding at all times and places and applying to any human being as such.
Now we have a fact from which moral arguments for God's existence can proceed: there appear to be morally normative facts/qualities in the world. Many of these arguments claim that the postulation of God provides the best explanation of this fact. We must use “appear” to record the fact, because there is a venerable line of thought in philosophy contending that moral bindingness is not real. It is a projection on the part of the human mind. It is no more “out there” in the world-minus-us than is (on some accounts) a secondary quality like taste. I say that the whisky tastes sweet, appearing to ascribe a quality to it. But in truth there is no sweetness in this mix of chemicals. I am projecting a reaction which I and others have toward it. So: we can be realists or anti-realists about the existence of moral normativity.
Such projective accounts of moral normativity, of moral qualities and facts, offer one naturalistic explanation of the appearance of normativity. A projective explanation thus avoids the need to posit God as the best explanation of the fact that moral normativity appears to exist. Proponents of theoretical moral arguments will contend that projectionism is false to our experience and gives rise to forms of moral skepticism that are corrosive of moral thought and action. We cannot rule on such issues here. (For a very clear form of moral projectionism see Mackie 1977.)
A template for a moral argument for God's existence can now be given.
Argument I:
It appears to human beings that moral normativity exists.
The best explanation of moral normativity is that it is grounded in God.
Therefore God exists.
This schematic argument incorporates an inference to best explanation. We must now distinguish and set out Crude versus Sophisticated applications of this template.
1.1 Crude Arguments from Moral Normativity
Arguments styled thus depend on drawing a close analogy between moral requirements and human law.
It is tempting to say that the fact that my having made a promise creates an obligation because of the existence and authority of a corresponding moral rule: “Promises are to be kept (ceteris paribus)”. Human law has authority because of two things: promulgation and enforcement by an appropriate authority. Authoritative human law is decided upon and published by something in the community/state possessing sovereignty over the community. But it is not enough that sovereign authority decide upon law and publish what it decides. It must attach sanctions to infringement, and it must have the means of detecting infringement and applying the sanctions.
A crude moral argument can be constructed using the analogy between morality and human law.
Argument II:
Moral normativity is best explained through the existence of authoritative moral rules.
Authoritative moral rules must be promulgated and enforced by an appropriate moral authority.
The only appropriate moral authority is God.
Thus, given that there is moral normativity, there is a God.
Steps in this argument need filling out. A. E. Taylor relies on the analogy between human law and “moral law” when he notes that a law cannot be valid unless there is “an intelligence which recognizes and upholds it”. He goes on to note that it cannot be human intelligence that provides the needed recognition and upholding of moral law, since the moral law holds everywhen and everywhere whereas the human mind is limited in its comprehension and scope (Taylor 1945: 92-3). The appropriate promulgator and enforcer must have authority over all human beings at all times and places, indeed over the whole cosmos (on the assumption that the “moral law” applies to all personal, rational beings as such). Thus the only intelligence and will that can be the source of the moral law is that found in a sovereign God.
The analogy with human law behind the moral argument can proceed further to stress the role of sanction in giving force to law. Breaches of law must attract punishment if law is to have authority. In his Letter concerning Toleration, Locke contends that one of the few religious stances that the commonwealth cannot tolerate is atheism (see Locke 1993, 426) for non-theists have no motive to act upon their promises and oaths. So they cannot be fit participants in civil contracts or be trusted when they appear before courts of law. Minus a belief in God, there is no reason to suppose that ignoring moral norms will not pay. Indeed, there is every reason — given the way the world goes — to assume that it can often pay to take no account of moral norms. Of course, human communities try to attach sanctions to moral wrongdoing through the mechanisms of the human law and of social disapproval. But premise (6) above is true so far as the enforcement aspect of an authoritative source of rules is concerned. Only a God of the traditional kind who adjusts rewards and punishments in the long run can ensure that immoral conduct gets its due sanction. These points about sanction can provide a separate argument for God's existence, albeit it is implicit in Argument II.
Argument III:
Moral norms have authority.
If they have authority, there must be a reliable motive for human beings to be moral.
No such motive could exist, unless there was an omniscient, omnipresent, wholly just agent to attach sanctions to behavior under moral norms.
There is a God.
Criticism of these crude forms of the moral argument is well established in the literature. The work in Argument II is being done by the analogy between human law and moral norms. J.S. Mill famously criticized this analogy at the root. There are two possible aspects to those things we called laws, according to Mill. Law can exist first as deliverance from some person or body of persons. Law can secondly exist as a rule with authority. Many laws exist in the second mode without them being laws in the first mode (Mill 1957, 26). Here are some examples (not Mill's):
If someone affirms both “p” and “p implies q”, he or she cannot deny “q”.
It is wrong to believe both “p” and “not-p” at the same time.
Both the above statements have normative force over our speech and thought. The non-theist will argue that it makes no sense to say that their authority derives from an act of legislation — not even if the legislator is God. This is because the notion of legislation implies choice: in an act of legislation someone or some body decides to promulgate this or that rule. But the “norms of reason” as illustrated above hold in the absence of any coherent alternatives to them. (NB: it is argued by some thinkers that even such “norms of reason” derive their authority from God in some fashion — see Devine 1989, 88-89.)
If we accept Mill's point that the one aspect of law does not entail the second, then premise (5) in Argument II is seen to rest on an assumption that is open to question, viz. “All authoritative norms are based on the acts of a legislator”. Agreeing with Mill means agreeing that what is true of some authoritative norms is not true of all; some can have authority without being promulgated and enforced by a sovereign will. The non-theist will then contend that moral norms are of this kind, thus rejecting premise (5). Independent argument can be offered for the conclusion that moral principles are necessarily true (see Swinburne 1976, 7-9). The non-theist will further contend that Mill's point and the examples of “norms of reason” also entail that Argument III has questionable steps. The so-called Law of Non-Contradiction above has authority, but its authority does not depend on their being a Great Logician in the sky ready to sanction infringements of it. Nor is it coherent to suppose that “norms of reason” are hypothetical, rather than categorical imperatives. The normative force of the Law of Non-Contradiction does not derive from something of the sort “If you want to think logically, you must abide by this rule”. In the sense relevant to this discussion, there is no choice between thinking logically and illogically.
Argument III is open to other, more obvious objections. It identifies motives with self-interested motives. Yet there are many different kinds of motives. Morality itself generates its own motives. Thus there can be motives operative in morality other than those of expediency and self-interest appealed to in Argument III. This can be seen more clearly when we amplify our picture of morality further by bringing in reference to the virtues. As well as morality containing knowledge of rules, it also promotes the virtues. Virtues are broad traits of character, habits of choice, which at once arise out of obeying moral norms and also lie behind such practice. The just person is not one who is merely aware of the norms that delineate justice. He or she is one who has a disposition to act in certain ways. This disposition is a compound of belief, emotion and perception. The emotion element means that one who is just will feel, for example, distaste at the contemplation of unjust acts and states of affairs.
If the acquisition of the virtues is given an important place in the moral life, the point that morality binds regardless of self-interest and expediency gains an extra dimension. Mention of the virtues brings with it the thought that morality is to be seen as the means whereby the human good is attained. The virtues have been thought of as the highest human excellences. To conceive of the virtues as the highest excellences, to be pursued above other human achievements and traits, is another way of making the point that morality binds. Given the notion that the virtues are the human excellences, a strong tradition dating from Greek philosophy has taught that possession of them constitutes the good for human beings. Moral thought and action is unified by a teleology in which the virtues are the constitutive means of attaining a good, perfected life. Morality, via the virtues, constitutively leads to the human good. One who has the virtues thus has a structure of motives that goes beyond mere self-interest and the desire for long-term reward. Such a person loves just (and other right) acts for their own sake. He or she has a conception of what is good for them of which the virtues are a constitutive part. They no longer have to be motivated in conduct by what the non-virtuous characterize as “self-interest” because that which is their self has been modified. They simply will not be happy breaking their promises. Thus the crude opposition between morality and self-interest breaks down.
The crude Argument III should be brought face to face with a final difficulty. The non-theist will claim that it denies one of the main features of moral normativity. Kant's distinction between hypothetical imperatives and the imperatives of morality entails that moral facts are intrinsically normative. Extrinsic normativity attaches to the rule “If you want to take your car on a long journey, fill the tank with petrol”. The normative force of this requirement derives from the desire it is predicated upon. However, the fact that I have promised to do something is intrinsically normative. It provides me with goals. Argument III, and its thought that God must exist to attach a fail-safe system of rewards and punishments to moral rules, is avowing that moral facts are not intrinsically normative. Bindingness does not attach to them per se. It attaches to them only in so far as they engage with my long-term desire to avoid punishment, and thus pain.
1.2 Sophisticated Arguments from Moral Normativity
Discussion of arguments I to III above does not deal with all attempts to show that the normativity of ethics provides grounds for thinking that God must exist. More sophisticated arguments do not (explicitly) trade on the analogies between moral law and human law to which significant objections have been made. Robert Adams provides an example of these more sophisticated arguments (Adams 1987, 144-163). His argument may be summarized as follows.
Argument IV:
Moral facts exist.
Moral facts have the properties of being objective and non-natural.
The best explanation of there being objective and non-natural moral facts is provided by theism.
Therefore the existence of moral facts provides good grounds for thinking theism is true.
Premise (13) refers to the fact that rightness and wrongness attaches to actions. These properties are recognized as objective in the sense that they hold or not regardless of human opinion. They are non-natural in the sense that “they cannot be stated entirely in the language of physics, chemistry, biology, and human or animal psychology” (Adams 1987, 145). Such facts could be accounted for from within non-theistic world views, such as Platonism. However, theism provides a much more intelligible explanation via the notion that rightness is one and the same property as the property of being commanded by God (wrongness consists in being forbidden by God). So the argument in essence states that we must have a metaphysics that accounts for the existence of objective, normative facts and that a theistic metaphysics fits the bill better than any alternative.
Arguments like IV, having eschewed the short cut of the simple analogical arguments considered above, are impossible to expound and appraise in short order. Complex metaphysical debate is needed to show that alternative, non-theistic, metaphysical systems cannot cope with objective normative facts, or if they can, are implausible on other grounds. Arguments like IV do suggest that the price of physicalism (as defined by Adams) is the abandonment of objective normativity. But the question at issue is whether a non-theistic moral realist has to be a physicalist. Proponents and opponents of the moral argument may agree that morality is one of those many phenomena which show that there is more to the real world than meets the physicalist's eye. This sets the non-theist the task of working out a metaphysics for morals (see Korsgaard 1996 and McNaughton 1988 for minimalist attempts to account for the existence of objective normativity).
Direct objections to Argument IV flow from its appeal to a divine command theory of ethics. That God has commanded something is both an objective and non-natural fact and deemed to be creative of normativity. Objections to divine command theories of ethics are numerous. Most of these stem from forms of the Euthyphro dilemma. The debate about divine command theories of ethics cannot be explored here. Yet we should note an important implication of that debate for moral arguments for God's existence. These arguments invite a tu quoque that consists in contending that theism provides no better explanation of the facts of morality than non-theism.
One ready response to divine command theories of ethics is that they would make moral norms arbitrary. If rightness just is what is commanded by God, then whatever God commands is right. If God chose to command murder it would be right. This criticism of divine command theory is related to another, generally accepted, claim about moral, normative facts: as well as being objective and non-natural they are supervenient on other facts. It is because of the nature of acts of murder in relation to their circumstances that they are wrong. What a divine command explanation of the wrongness of murder threatens to do is to cut the wrongness of murder off from its basis in the nature of murder. Hence it is a bad explanation and this form of moral argument cannot succeed.
Adams' moral argument comes with a refinement on the idea of divine commands creating rightness which avoids the immediate force of the above objection. It is the prescriptions and proscriptions of a loving God that create rightness and wrongness. This modified divine command theory has two important aspects to it. First it brings back a kind of supervenience. It is because God sees that certain acts are beneficial or harmful to those affected by them that he commands or forbids them. Second it effectively makes a distinction between the realms of axiology (concerned with the good, the valuable) and deontology (concerned with duty and obligation). There is moral value of a kind independent of God. There is good and bad, there is benefit and harm. But it is the notion that we are obliged or under a duty to realize good through action and avoid bringing about harms that is to be explained through the thought that these deontological properties are created by divine will (see Alston 1989, 253-273). “Right” and “wrong” signify these deontological properties.
Having got thus far into the territory surrounding Argument IV, we can show how a non-theist would respond to it. Premise (14)
The best explanation of there being objective and non-natural moral facts is provided by theism.
will be questioned. Note first that the existence of the “norms of reason” (see above) provides a clear counter-example to this premise. There is a deontological property failing to affirm the consequent in a modus ponens with admitted true premises is wrong whose existence does not appear to the non-theist to be at all well explained via the commands of the God of theism. The non-theist will then ask why, if this is so, moral deontological properties cannot arise minus a divine command. Perhaps deontological properties such as requiredness, being obligatory and oughtness simply supervene on axiological properties of the kind Adams admits exist logically prior to God's commands. Why cannot the existence of axiological properties on their own give us good and often overwhelming reasons for doing this and avoiding the other? Hence obligations and duties arise out of the recognition of value. Goodness gives rise to rightness, badness to wrongness.
Despite the fact that we have moved to sophisticated arguments from normativity to God as the best explanation, we still seem to be stuck with the debate opened up by Mill: how reliable is the analogy with human law some moral arguments for God's existence rely on? Proponents of all forms of the moral argument considered so far appear to hold that there can be no deontological properties without some law making. And the only candidate for the source of that law making is God. Non-theists deny this. They will present the following dilemma. When God sees that some acts are highly beneficial and others highly harmful, is or is he not obliged to legislate for the former and against the latter? Take the first horn and we have an instance of a deontic property (God being bound to command or forbid this act) arising from axiological properties minus God's commands. Take the second horn and the non-theist will object that we are back to the arbitrariness afflicting non-modified divine command theories of ethics.
From the discussion of moral arguments for God's existence and the fact of normativity we can conclude two things: (i) that the merits of such arguments are bound up with the merits of divine command theories of ethics (see Sagi and Statman 1995 for a detailed survey of such theories); and (ii) that if such arguments are to succeed they may need to cast their nets wider. They may need to encompass best explanations for normativity in other areas, such as logic, and for the existence of axiological facts as well as normative facts.
2. Arguments From Moral Order
2.1 The Basic Argument and its Exemplification in Kant
Many forms of moral argument for God's existence are variations on the following format.
Argument V:
Morality is a rational enterprise.
Morality would not be a rational enterprise if there were no moral order in the world.
Only the existence of God traditionally conceived could support the hypothesis that there is a moral order in the world.
Therefore, there is a God.
The rationality of morality cited in (16) refers to the fact that the moral life generates certain ends, specifically the pursuit of the ethical perfection and happiness of moral agents. The moral order cited in (17) refers to the belief that the world is such that these ends can be realized. The most famous version of the argument from moral order is found in the writings of Kant (variously formulated in different texts post 1781). Kant's “moral proof” can be summarized thus.
Argument VI:
It is rationally and morally necessary to attain the perfect good (happiness arising out of complete virtue).
What we are obliged to attain, it must be possible for us to attain.
Attaining the perfect good is only possible if natural order and causality are part of an overarching moral order and causality.
Moral order and causality are only possible if we postulate a God as their source. (See Kant 1996/1962, 240; 5/124-5)
The perfect good in (20) incorporates two alleged central aims of the moral life. We are not merely obliged to perform individual acts of virtue but to become virtuous. For Kant that means becoming such that there will be a complete harmony between the maxims of our actions and the moral law. But human beings as finite rational beings are also “creatures of needs”. They have many non-moral goals and ends. The very respect for the moral law that is at the heart of the moral life bids us set store by the flourishing of these finite rational agents. So the complete good for the human moral agent must be happiness arising out of virtue. (21) tells us that “ought implies can”. It cannot be true that we ought to seek an end if there is no chance of our attaining it. (22) and (23) point to the fact that the world as it appears to us is governed by morally blind causes. These causes give no hope whatsoever that pursuit of moral virtue will lead to happiness. They do not even give hope that we can become morally virtuous. Human agency is beset by weaknesses that make the attainment of virtue — in the absence of external aid — seem impossible. Human agents are in addition subject to contingencies that can cut short attempts to grow to moral maturity and perfection. The being postulated in (23) has omniscience and omnipotence combined with perfect goodness. Thus it will ensure that the pursuit of a virtuous state is possible through external aid (as in grace) and will promise an immortality where the moral journey can be completed. It will also ensure that in the long run happiness will result from virtue. Its existence would mean that there is a perfect moral causality at work in the world.
Kant's argument turns around the contrast between the apparent lack of moral order in the world and the alleged need for a real moral order in the world if the necessary goals of the moral life are attainable. There are many other authors who have arguments from moral order turning around this same contrast and moving to the same conclusion (see Hare 1996, Sorely 1918, Taylor 1930, Zagzebski 1987).
The schematic argument from moral order (Argument V) has as its first premise the claim that morality is a rational enterprise. One way of interpreting Kant's version — Argument VI — is as claiming that human reason faces contradiction (the absurdum practicum — see Wood 1970, 100) unless it believes in the existence of God. Practical reason is committed as a matter of strict duty to realize the goal of moral perfection. It is also committed as a requirement of consistency in agency to seek the maximal satisfaction of its given ends. If there is no moral order in the world then it cannot pursue both of these commitments together.
Premises (16) and (17) in Argument V and (20) in Argument VI present the rationality of morality as dependent on it having the goal of seeking the human good. One line of response to the argument from moral order is to deny that morality does have that goal. The critic can make this point in respect of both parts of the goal: happiness and moral perfection.
Concerning happiness it can be argued that moral agents cannot be convicted of irrationality if they abandon pursuit of their own happiness upon the realization that their duties and obligations get in the way, for they are under no rational necessity to pursue their own happiness. If this point is sound, there is no absurdam practicum because practical reason is not committed to the pursuit of two ends that apparently conflict. Kant's definition of happiness as that “state of a rational being in the world in the whole of whose existence everything goes according to his wish and will” (Kant 1996/1962, 240; 5/124) might seem to clinch the matter. But the definition is ambiguous. Happiness could be the state where all my felt, personal desires are satisfied. Or it could be the state where all my intentions are fulfilled. While it is true that no one acts rationally who does not seek to maximally fulfill his or her intentions, a person may have lots of intentions not directed at fulfilling his or her personal desires. I may consciously forswear satisfaction of my personal desires by, for example, adopting a life of service to others. Kant's other definition of happiness, which he seems to take as equivalent to the first, then comes into play: happiness is a fulfilled, satisfied life (see Kant 1996/1973, 49; 4/393). I may not find such a life of self-sacrifice personally fulfilling, but then I did not adopt it in order to be happy. (For more on this reply to Kant see Byrne 1998, 70ff.)
The critic may thus contend that we are not bound by practical reason itself to have a plan of life bent on pursuit of happiness. In reply, it has been stated that “If we are to endorse wholeheartedly the long-term shape of our lives, we have to see this shape as consistent with our happiness” (Hare 1996, 88). Let us assume that non-theists who realizes that moral demands restrict the pursuit of happiness in a world not under divine governance are unable to endorse wholeheartedly the long-term shape of their lives. On the face of it that does not entail that they act irrationally. Their world is not a perfect world and they might feel sad that it is not, but they will no doubt think that accepting such realism is a lower price to pay than believing in God.
The other half of the absurdum practicum is the duty to become morally perfect. In Kantian terms, moral perfection for finite creatures is a state of complete virtue. Our wills will be irreversibly set on a policy of acting on maxims dictated by the demands of impartial right. The Kantian claim is that as well as having obligations to do this or that act of virtue, we have an overarching obligation to achieve a state of virtue through acting on specific obligations. To those who affirm that we have no such obligation, the response from proponents of the argument from moral order is that this is an unacceptable lowering of the moral demand (see Hare 1996, 29-30). This part of the argument from moral order has separate force from that dealing with the inability of a secular world-view to guarantee happiness for the virtuous. If morality's rationality depends on our being able to fulfill the aim of being virtuous, then — given undeniable facts about the contingency and frailty of the human condition — no naturalistic outlook can establish morality's rationality.
One response to this strand of the Kantian argument consists in stressing the way the human institution of morality can strengthen human character and promote the living of virtuous lives (see Kekes 1990). Another response depends on the distinction between becoming virtuous as an end and becoming virtuous as a duty. A non-theist may argue as follows. There is an overarching end to morality: achieving a state of virtue. We are not under an obligation to achieve that end in itself. We have obligations to do particular acts of virtue. If we fail to do those particular acts, we do fail to meet our obligations. But we do not fail in a further obligation to become virtuous. Becoming virtuous is an asymptotic goal. It is one that arises from more specific goals, and is thus necessary but this does not mean that we are guilty if we fail to meet it. Asymptotic goals can function as goals even though we know full well that they can never be met. They regulate our lives, while they do not create duties to attain them. The non-theist thus draws a distinction between Kantian virtue as a necessary end of the moral life and as a duty.
The above response relates to the famous “ought implies can” principle in step (21) of Argument VI above. Adams suggests that a viable riposte to this part of the moral argument is “In any reasonable morality we will be obligated to promote only the best attainable approximation of the highest good” (Adams 1987, 152). Thus our duty is merely to do our best to be virtuous. There is no question that proponents of the argument from moral order will again categorize this as an unacceptable lowering of the moral demand. Adams' point can, however, be strengthened by the distinction between ends and obligations above. We do not need to give up the goal of being virtuous if we recognize only the obligation to achieve the best available approximation to a state of complete virtue. We can have a regulative end without a corresponding obligation.
2.2 The Secular Problem of Evil
Variants of Argument V in Kant and other sources exemplify the secular problem of evil. The facts that make the realization of the ends of morality impossible are reflections of the underlying truth that our world is beset by evil. Evil is present in the human will and character. It is present in the course of events that distributes happiness and misery without regard to the claims of justice. The core of Argument V is that morality is irrational or pointless given evil unless we posit an agency capable of defeating evil. That agency has to be trans-human because it is one of the facts about evil that it manifests itself in weaknesses which beset the human character and will at root, thus making our agency imperfect.
The argument from moral order hereby throws up a striking paradox. On the one hand, evil in the world serves as the ground for an argument for God's existence. On the other, that same evil serves as a ground for thinking that there is no God. The evil pointed to in the moral argument highlights the evil that is the basis of the more famous problem of evil in arguments for God's non-existence. In particular, the fact of evil provides an interesting tu quoque to any version of Argument V. Such arguments point to evil and state that, on the premise that morality is a rational enterprise, there must be a God whose providence shows that such evil is but a temporary or surface feature of our world. But if there is such a God, why is there this evil in the first place? If there was a God, there would be a moral order and a vital premise of the argument from moral order would be false. The God of theism, if actual, is working now to remedy the defects in the human will and ensure that the course of events supports the goals of virtue. So how can it be that this God appears to be doing no such thing? (See Kekes 1990, 27-8.)
Attempts to rebut this counter to the moral argument would take us too deep into the structure of theodicies (accounts from within theism of how evil exists within a divinely providential world). A good example of how such a rebuttal goes can be found in ch. 18 of W.P. Sorely's Moral Values and the Idea of God. A divine power to support morality's ends is linked to the need to allow human beings freedom in an imperfect-seeming world to confront evil via their own free choices, with the assurance that an omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent agency will bring those choices to fruition.
2.3 Moral Order and Moral Skepticism
The Kantian argument from moral order has been seen to be full of complexities. A simpler version of a moral order argument (see Zagzebski 1987, 299-300) goes thus.
Argument VII:
Morality is a rational enterprise.
Morality would not be a rational enterprise unless good actions increase the amount of good in the world. (Morality has to be efficacious if it is to be rational.)
There is no evidence that the amount of good in the world is increasing through our good acts.
Therefore we must assume that there is extra-human agency on the side of the good.
Argument VII is more negative than positive. It attempts to reduce a naturalistic outlook to absurdity (the absurdity of moral skepticism). Other steps are needed to get to the conclusion that the most plausible non-naturalistic world view is theism.
Argument VII can be strengthened by the following fact. In acting upon obligation I will frequently be giving up the chance to fulfill my personal preferences. This means that some good will be foregone in a typical moral action. If moral action is not efficacious in the production of moral good, then it may decrease the net amount of potential good. Thus it may be irrational (see Zagzebski 1987, 300 and Layman 2002, 304 and passim).
The argument for (26) is empirical: looking around the world there is no evidence that the amount of good is increasing and the amount of evil decreasing. Since it must be on premise (24), there is need to suppose that the world as we see it is not the sum of it as it really is. Good will eventually arise from moral acts but will only be visible when divine agency brings it about in the future.
Let us assume that defenders of a secular, naturalistic world view will not question (26) so far as it concerns the effects of virtuous action. In that case, they must either concede that morality is irrational (part, perhaps, of the absurdity of life in a universe without God) or argue that the good produced by virtuous action is not wholly or mainly in its effects. They may note in this regard important consequences of Aristotle's account of virtuous actions. Virtuous actions are not merely the means to the good, as plugging in the kettle is the means to heating the water. The good for a human being is a kind of living and acting: it is in part constituted by acts we perform and the dispositions behind them. Virtuous, good actions are worthwhile for the sake of the activity involved in doing them. They will have ends beyond themselves. Thus an act of generosity will seek the improvement of another's lot. But such an act also constitutes its own end. It is worthwhile doing it even if it fails in its external end. So, if a naturalist follows Aristotle, she or he can say that right action is a manifestation of the human good and as such the human good will in part exist regardless of the consequences of right action. (See Sherman 1989, 114 ff for these arguments.)
Zagzebski's version of the moral order argument is supplemented by the following proof based on the idea that naturalism entails moral skepticism.
Argument VIII:
Morality is a rational enterprise.
Morality would not be a rational if moral skepticism were true.
There is much too much unresolved moral disagreement for us to suppose that moral skepticism can be avoided if human sources of moral knowledge are all that we have.
Therefore we must assume that there is an extra-human, divine source of moral wisdom. (Zagzebski 1987, 295-299)
The naturalist can do two things with this argument. One is to question (30) and the other is to question whether the remedy in (31) works. As to (30), it is true that we can cite many long-standing moral disagreements in a society at any one time (as witness abortion, capital punishment and the like). But it may be claimed that over most of their daily decisions human beings know what the morally correct thing to do is. A common list of fundamental moral rules (forbidding lying, stealing etc, commanding honesty, the honoring of promises etc) will be acknowledged by most moral agents. The same is true for a common list of higher moral principles (give to each their due, respect persons as ends in themselves etc). It is not, the critic will say, that we cannot act because we are surrounded by so much moral uncertainty. As to (31), how are we to take the idea that a providential God will solve moral skepticism? The theist's God aids us through “moral knowledge in divine revelation and the teachings of the Church” (Zagzebski 1987, 302). But the naturalist will say that theists differ over where revelation is to be found and how to interpret it. They differ over what is the true church and then over how to interpret what their chosen church says. Religious division seems as rife as moral. And we need moral knowledge in order to make cogent judgments as to the location and teaching of the divine word.
3. Practical Arguments: Moral Despair and Moral Discouragement
The various arguments from moral order considered so far have begun from the premise
Morality is a rational enterprise.
The aim of such arguments is to show that if there is no source of moral order morality will collapse. It will cease to be a sustainable enterprise. Kant himself states at one point that if the highest good cannot be attained then the moral law, which bids us to seek it “must be fantastic and directed to imaginary ends and must therefore in itself be false” (Kant 1996/1962, 231; 5/114). This suggests that, if the ends of morality cannot be attained, there would no longer be any obligations and duties (Kant in fact denies this inference in other places: see Kant 2000/1962, 316-317; 5/450-2). But it is possible to frame a moral argument with a more modest conclusion: there is a moral advantage in accepting theism. Adams has a version of this argument.
Argument IX:
It would be demoralizing not to believe there is a moral order to the universe.
Demoralization is morally undesirable.
There is a moral advantage in believing that there is a moral order in the universe.
Theism provides the best theory of the source of moral order.
Therefore there is a moral advantage in accepting theism. (Adams 1987, 151)
Douglas Drabkin has a “moral argument for undertaking theism” which moves along similar lines.
Argument X:
Morality demands that we ought to aspire to become as good as we can be.
If there is no source of moral order in the world, then the project of becoming as good as we can be is fraught with difficulties.
These difficulties would be taken away if we were assured of the truth of theism.
Therefore we have a moral reason for getting ourselves in a state whereby we can come to be believe in the truth of theism. (Drabkin 1994, 169)
Let us assume that a non-theist will accept the general premise that it would be better for human beings if there was a divine source of moral order. Thus the non-theist could accept the premise that it would be to our practical and moral advantage to believe in a divine source of moral order. To some degree or other, atheism is demoralizing.
The above concession allows the airing of a major issue in considering moral proofs of God's existence of the kind that appeal to the need for moral order. They may be charged with arguing from premises about what we need or would like to be true to conclusions about the likelihood of the reality being thus and so. That a truth is demoralizing is no reason to think it is false. That it would be good if a claim is true is no reason to believe that claim. These conclusions follow from the transparency of belief. Believing p is transparent in the first person case. The following three questions are equivalent — that is, a yes or no answer to any one entails the same answer to any of the other two:
p? [Is there a God?]
Do I believe that p? [Do I believe that there is a God?]
Ought I believe that p? [Ought I to believe that there is a God?]
In particular there cannot be reasons for giving a yes answer to (42) that are not reasons for thinking that p, that are not reasons for thinking that there is a God. Now the reasons for thinking that there is a God in Adams' argument do not bear upon the likelihood that there is a God, so cannot be reasons for thinking that I should adopt this belief. That the world would otherwise make some of our goals harder to obtain, would otherwise leave some of our deepest needs unmet, is not a reason for believing that it is not as it appears to be — devoid of moral order.
These versions of moral argument partake of the flavor, and thus of the difficulties, that surround the pragmatic arguments for religious belief found in writers such as Pascal and James. They will meet with the same response: this is wishful thinking dressed up as argument. The non-theist may press this specific point: only if one is convinced prior to these arguments of the premise that
The world is likely to be organized so as to meet our deepest human needs
will one find them cogent. But (44) is just the kind of hypothesis that would be false if there is no God. Arguments such as IX and X thus look circular.
It should be noted that Kant considers and rejects this kind of criticism of arguments from moral order. He admits that argument forms of this type are generally fallacious, while claiming that his argument is different in a relevant respect. He appeals to needs to fuel belief that there is a God but they are “needs of reason”. They are not grounded on “inclination” but on “an objective ground of the will” (Kant 1996/1962, 255n; 5/143n).
Drabkin's argument in fact escapes the above objections. It claims that the moral ills that would afflict us if there were no God give us ground, not for the belief that there is a God, but for undertaking “the project of coming to believe that there is a God” (Drabkin 1994: 171). This involves things like going over one's reasons for rejecting belief in God to see if they hold up and checking most carefully reasons for thinking there is a God.
Perhaps this is a point at which proponents and opponents of moral arguments for God's existence might agree on. Moral considerations give all a reason to examine the proposition that there is a God very seriously. For if there is no God, morality is a more perilous enterprise than if there is.
Bibliography
Adams, R., 1987, The Virtue of Faith, New York: Oxford University Press, 144-163
Alston, W., 1989, Divine Nature and Human Language, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 253-73
Byrne, P., 1998, The Moral Interpretation of Religion, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press
Devine, P., 1989, Relativism, Nihilism and God, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press
Drabkin D., 1994, “A moral argument for undertaking theism”, American Philosophical Quarterly, 31: 169-175
Hare, J., 1996, The Moral Gap, Oxford: Clarendon Press
Kant, I., 1996/1962, Critique of Practical Reason, in Practical Philosophy, Gregor, M. (tr & ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; vol 5, Gesammelte Schriften Berlin: de Gruyter
-----, 1996/1973, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, in Practical Philosophy, Gregor, M. (tr & ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; vol 4. Gesammelte Schriften Berlin: de Gruyter
-----, 2000/1962, Critique of the Power of Judgment, Guyer, P. and Matthews, E. (trs & eds), Cambridge: Cambridge, Cambridge University Press; vol 5, Gesammelte Schriften Berlin: de Gruyter
Kekes J., 1990, Facing Evil, Princeton: Princeton University Press,
Korsgaard, C., 1996, The Sources of Normativity, New York: Cambridge University Press
Layman, S., 2002, “God and the moral order”, Faith and Philosophy, 19: 304-16
Locke, J., 1993, “A letter concerning toleration” in John Locke: Political Writings, Wootton D. (ed), Harmondsworth: Penguin, 390-436
Mackie, J., 1977, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, Harmondsworth: Penguin
McNaughton, D., 1988, Moral Vision, Oxford: Blackwell
Mill, J., 1957, Theism, Bobbs-Merril: Indianapolis,
Sagi A. and Statman D., 1995, Religion and Morality, Amsterdam & Atlanta: Rodopi
Sherman, N., 1989, The Fabric of Character, Oxford: Clarendon Press
Sorely, W., 1918, Moral Values and the Idea of God, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Swinburne R. G., 1976, “The objectivity of morality”, Philosophy, 51: 5-20
Taylor, A., 1930, The Faith of a Moralist, London: Macmillan
-----, 1945, Does God Exist?, London: Macmillan
Wood, A., 1970, Kant's Moral Religion, Ithaca: Cornell University Press
Zagzebski, L., 1987, “Does ethics need God?”, Faith and Philosophy, 4: 294-303
Other Internet Resources
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Moral Arguments for the Existence of God
First published Tue 25 May, 2004
Moral arguments for God's existence may be defined as that family of arguments in the history of western philosophical theology having claims about the character of moral thought and experience in their premises and affirmations of the existence of God in their conclusions. Some of these arguments are on all fours with other theistic arguments, such as the design argument. They cite facts that are claimed to be evident to human experience. And they argue that such facts entail or are best explained by the hypothesis that there is a God with the attributes traditionally ascribed to him. Other moral proofs of God's existence take us away from the patterns of argument typical of natural theology. They deal in our ends and motives. These variants on the moral argument for God's existence describe some end that the moral life commits us to (such as the attainment of the perfect good) and contend that this end cannot be attained unless God as traditionally defined exists
1. Arguments from the Normativity of Morality
1.1 Crude Arguments from Moral Normativity
1.2 Sophisticated Arguments from Moral Normativity
2. Arguments from Moral Order
2.1 The Basic Argument and its Exemplification in Kant
2.2 The Secular Problem of Evil
2.3 Moral Order and Moral Skepticism
3. Practical Arguments: Moral Despair and Moral Discouragement
Bibliography
Other Internet Resources
Related Entries
1. Arguments from the Normativity of Morality
Many examples of theoretical arguments for God's existence start from the fact of ethical normativity. Human beings are aware of actions as being right and wrong, obligatory and forbidden. Such awareness carries with it the thought that they are “bound” to do some things and bound to avoid doing others. Moral qualities have a bindingness attached to them shown in the force of the moral “ought” and the moral “must”. If I make a promise, the promise creates (ceteris paribus) an obligation to deliver what is promised. The normative fact is, first, not dependent on my own goals and ends and, second, possessed of a universal force. The fact that I am bound by the normative truth “do what you promised” does not hold because I have ends which I cannot achieve unless I fulfill the promise. The imperative is not what Kant styled a “hypothetical” one. It is rather “categorical”. It binds no matter what my particular goals are (see Kant 1996/1973 67; 4/414). That is linked to its universal dimension. I have an obligation to deliver what I promised, because anyone who makes a promise thereby (ceteris paribus) obligates him- or herself. The obligation created by the promise holds independent of my particular goals because it reflects a universal rule, holding at all times and places and applying to any human being as such.
Now we have a fact from which moral arguments for God's existence can proceed: there appear to be morally normative facts/qualities in the world. Many of these arguments claim that the postulation of God provides the best explanation of this fact. We must use “appear” to record the fact, because there is a venerable line of thought in philosophy contending that moral bindingness is not real. It is a projection on the part of the human mind. It is no more “out there” in the world-minus-us than is (on some accounts) a secondary quality like taste. I say that the whisky tastes sweet, appearing to ascribe a quality to it. But in truth there is no sweetness in this mix of chemicals. I am projecting a reaction which I and others have toward it. So: we can be realists or anti-realists about the existence of moral normativity.
Such projective accounts of moral normativity, of moral qualities and facts, offer one naturalistic explanation of the appearance of normativity. A projective explanation thus avoids the need to posit God as the best explanation of the fact that moral normativity appears to exist. Proponents of theoretical moral arguments will contend that projectionism is false to our experience and gives rise to forms of moral skepticism that are corrosive of moral thought and action. We cannot rule on such issues here. (For a very clear form of moral projectionism see Mackie 1977.)
A template for a moral argument for God's existence can now be given.
Argument I:
It appears to human beings that moral normativity exists.
The best explanation of moral normativity is that it is grounded in God.
Therefore God exists.
This schematic argument incorporates an inference to best explanation. We must now distinguish and set out Crude versus Sophisticated applications of this template.
1.1 Crude Arguments from Moral Normativity
Arguments styled thus depend on drawing a close analogy between moral requirements and human law.
It is tempting to say that the fact that my having made a promise creates an obligation because of the existence and authority of a corresponding moral rule: “Promises are to be kept (ceteris paribus)”. Human law has authority because of two things: promulgation and enforcement by an appropriate authority. Authoritative human law is decided upon and published by something in the community/state possessing sovereignty over the community. But it is not enough that sovereign authority decide upon law and publish what it decides. It must attach sanctions to infringement, and it must have the means of detecting infringement and applying the sanctions.
A crude moral argument can be constructed using the analogy between morality and human law.
Argument II:
Moral normativity is best explained through the existence of authoritative moral rules.
Authoritative moral rules must be promulgated and enforced by an appropriate moral authority.
The only appropriate moral authority is God.
Thus, given that there is moral normativity, there is a God.
Steps in this argument need filling out. A. E. Taylor relies on the analogy between human law and “moral law” when he notes that a law cannot be valid unless there is “an intelligence which recognizes and upholds it”. He goes on to note that it cannot be human intelligence that provides the needed recognition and upholding of moral law, since the moral law holds everywhen and everywhere whereas the human mind is limited in its comprehension and scope (Taylor 1945: 92-3). The appropriate promulgator and enforcer must have authority over all human beings at all times and places, indeed over the whole cosmos (on the assumption that the “moral law” applies to all personal, rational beings as such). Thus the only intelligence and will that can be the source of the moral law is that found in a sovereign God.
The analogy with human law behind the moral argument can proceed further to stress the role of sanction in giving force to law. Breaches of law must attract punishment if law is to have authority. In his Letter concerning Toleration, Locke contends that one of the few religious stances that the commonwealth cannot tolerate is atheism (see Locke 1993, 426) for non-theists have no motive to act upon their promises and oaths. So they cannot be fit participants in civil contracts or be trusted when they appear before courts of law. Minus a belief in God, there is no reason to suppose that ignoring moral norms will not pay. Indeed, there is every reason — given the way the world goes — to assume that it can often pay to take no account of moral norms. Of course, human communities try to attach sanctions to moral wrongdoing through the mechanisms of the human law and of social disapproval. But premise (6) above is true so far as the enforcement aspect of an authoritative source of rules is concerned. Only a God of the traditional kind who adjusts rewards and punishments in the long run can ensure that immoral conduct gets its due sanction. These points about sanction can provide a separate argument for God's existence, albeit it is implicit in Argument II.
Argument III:
Moral norms have authority.
If they have authority, there must be a reliable motive for human beings to be moral.
No such motive could exist, unless there was an omniscient, omnipresent, wholly just agent to attach sanctions to behavior under moral norms.
There is a God.
Criticism of these crude forms of the moral argument is well established in the literature. The work in Argument II is being done by the analogy between human law and moral norms. J.S. Mill famously criticized this analogy at the root. There are two possible aspects to those things we called laws, according to Mill. Law can exist first as deliverance from some person or body of persons. Law can secondly exist as a rule with authority. Many laws exist in the second mode without them being laws in the first mode (Mill 1957, 26). Here are some examples (not Mill's):
If someone affirms both “p” and “p implies q”, he or she cannot deny “q”.
It is wrong to believe both “p” and “not-p” at the same time.
Both the above statements have normative force over our speech and thought. The non-theist will argue that it makes no sense to say that their authority derives from an act of legislation — not even if the legislator is God. This is because the notion of legislation implies choice: in an act of legislation someone or some body decides to promulgate this or that rule. But the “norms of reason” as illustrated above hold in the absence of any coherent alternatives to them. (NB: it is argued by some thinkers that even such “norms of reason” derive their authority from God in some fashion — see Devine 1989, 88-89.)
If we accept Mill's point that the one aspect of law does not entail the second, then premise (5) in Argument II is seen to rest on an assumption that is open to question, viz. “All authoritative norms are based on the acts of a legislator”. Agreeing with Mill means agreeing that what is true of some authoritative norms is not true of all; some can have authority without being promulgated and enforced by a sovereign will. The non-theist will then contend that moral norms are of this kind, thus rejecting premise (5). Independent argument can be offered for the conclusion that moral principles are necessarily true (see Swinburne 1976, 7-9). The non-theist will further contend that Mill's point and the examples of “norms of reason” also entail that Argument III has questionable steps. The so-called Law of Non-Contradiction above has authority, but its authority does not depend on their being a Great Logician in the sky ready to sanction infringements of it. Nor is it coherent to suppose that “norms of reason” are hypothetical, rather than categorical imperatives. The normative force of the Law of Non-Contradiction does not derive from something of the sort “If you want to think logically, you must abide by this rule”. In the sense relevant to this discussion, there is no choice between thinking logically and illogically.
Argument III is open to other, more obvious objections. It identifies motives with self-interested motives. Yet there are many different kinds of motives. Morality itself generates its own motives. Thus there can be motives operative in morality other than those of expediency and self-interest appealed to in Argument III. This can be seen more clearly when we amplify our picture of morality further by bringing in reference to the virtues. As well as morality containing knowledge of rules, it also promotes the virtues. Virtues are broad traits of character, habits of choice, which at once arise out of obeying moral norms and also lie behind such practice. The just person is not one who is merely aware of the norms that delineate justice. He or she is one who has a disposition to act in certain ways. This disposition is a compound of belief, emotion and perception. The emotion element means that one who is just will feel, for example, distaste at the contemplation of unjust acts and states of affairs.
If the acquisition of the virtues is given an important place in the moral life, the point that morality binds regardless of self-interest and expediency gains an extra dimension. Mention of the virtues brings with it the thought that morality is to be seen as the means whereby the human good is attained. The virtues have been thought of as the highest human excellences. To conceive of the virtues as the highest excellences, to be pursued above other human achievements and traits, is another way of making the point that morality binds. Given the notion that the virtues are the human excellences, a strong tradition dating from Greek philosophy has taught that possession of them constitutes the good for human beings. Moral thought and action is unified by a teleology in which the virtues are the constitutive means of attaining a good, perfected life. Morality, via the virtues, constitutively leads to the human good. One who has the virtues thus has a structure of motives that goes beyond mere self-interest and the desire for long-term reward. Such a person loves just (and other right) acts for their own sake. He or she has a conception of what is good for them of which the virtues are a constitutive part. They no longer have to be motivated in conduct by what the non-virtuous characterize as “self-interest” because that which is their self has been modified. They simply will not be happy breaking their promises. Thus the crude opposition between morality and self-interest breaks down.
The crude Argument III should be brought face to face with a final difficulty. The non-theist will claim that it denies one of the main features of moral normativity. Kant's distinction between hypothetical imperatives and the imperatives of morality entails that moral facts are intrinsically normative. Extrinsic normativity attaches to the rule “If you want to take your car on a long journey, fill the tank with petrol”. The normative force of this requirement derives from the desire it is predicated upon. However, the fact that I have promised to do something is intrinsically normative. It provides me with goals. Argument III, and its thought that God must exist to attach a fail-safe system of rewards and punishments to moral rules, is avowing that moral facts are not intrinsically normative. Bindingness does not attach to them per se. It attaches to them only in so far as they engage with my long-term desire to avoid punishment, and thus pain.
1.2 Sophisticated Arguments from Moral Normativity
Discussion of arguments I to III above does not deal with all attempts to show that the normativity of ethics provides grounds for thinking that God must exist. More sophisticated arguments do not (explicitly) trade on the analogies between moral law and human law to which significant objections have been made. Robert Adams provides an example of these more sophisticated arguments (Adams 1987, 144-163). His argument may be summarized as follows.
Argument IV:
Moral facts exist.
Moral facts have the properties of being objective and non-natural.
The best explanation of there being objective and non-natural moral facts is provided by theism.
Therefore the existence of moral facts provides good grounds for thinking theism is true.
Premise (13) refers to the fact that rightness and wrongness attaches to actions. These properties are recognized as objective in the sense that they hold or not regardless of human opinion. They are non-natural in the sense that “they cannot be stated entirely in the language of physics, chemistry, biology, and human or animal psychology” (Adams 1987, 145). Such facts could be accounted for from within non-theistic world views, such as Platonism. However, theism provides a much more intelligible explanation via the notion that rightness is one and the same property as the property of being commanded by God (wrongness consists in being forbidden by God). So the argument in essence states that we must have a metaphysics that accounts for the existence of objective, normative facts and that a theistic metaphysics fits the bill better than any alternative.
Arguments like IV, having eschewed the short cut of the simple analogical arguments considered above, are impossible to expound and appraise in short order. Complex metaphysical debate is needed to show that alternative, non-theistic, metaphysical systems cannot cope with objective normative facts, or if they can, are implausible on other grounds. Arguments like IV do suggest that the price of physicalism (as defined by Adams) is the abandonment of objective normativity. But the question at issue is whether a non-theistic moral realist has to be a physicalist. Proponents and opponents of the moral argument may agree that morality is one of those many phenomena which show that there is more to the real world than meets the physicalist's eye. This sets the non-theist the task of working out a metaphysics for morals (see Korsgaard 1996 and McNaughton 1988 for minimalist attempts to account for the existence of objective normativity).
Direct objections to Argument IV flow from its appeal to a divine command theory of ethics. That God has commanded something is both an objective and non-natural fact and deemed to be creative of normativity. Objections to divine command theories of ethics are numerous. Most of these stem from forms of the Euthyphro dilemma. The debate about divine command theories of ethics cannot be explored here. Yet we should note an important implication of that debate for moral arguments for God's existence. These arguments invite a tu quoque that consists in contending that theism provides no better explanation of the facts of morality than non-theism.
One ready response to divine command theories of ethics is that they would make moral norms arbitrary. If rightness just is what is commanded by God, then whatever God commands is right. If God chose to command murder it would be right. This criticism of divine command theory is related to another, generally accepted, claim about moral, normative facts: as well as being objective and non-natural they are supervenient on other facts. It is because of the nature of acts of murder in relation to their circumstances that they are wrong. What a divine command explanation of the wrongness of murder threatens to do is to cut the wrongness of murder off from its basis in the nature of murder. Hence it is a bad explanation and this form of moral argument cannot succeed.
Adams' moral argument comes with a refinement on the idea of divine commands creating rightness which avoids the immediate force of the above objection. It is the prescriptions and proscriptions of a loving God that create rightness and wrongness. This modified divine command theory has two important aspects to it. First it brings back a kind of supervenience. It is because God sees that certain acts are beneficial or harmful to those affected by them that he commands or forbids them. Second it effectively makes a distinction between the realms of axiology (concerned with the good, the valuable) and deontology (concerned with duty and obligation). There is moral value of a kind independent of God. There is good and bad, there is benefit and harm. But it is the notion that we are obliged or under a duty to realize good through action and avoid bringing about harms that is to be explained through the thought that these deontological properties are created by divine will (see Alston 1989, 253-273). “Right” and “wrong” signify these deontological properties.
Having got thus far into the territory surrounding Argument IV, we can show how a non-theist would respond to it. Premise (14)
The best explanation of there being objective and non-natural moral facts is provided by theism.
will be questioned. Note first that the existence of the “norms of reason” (see above) provides a clear counter-example to this premise. There is a deontological property failing to affirm the consequent in a modus ponens with admitted true premises is wrong whose existence does not appear to the non-theist to be at all well explained via the commands of the God of theism. The non-theist will then ask why, if this is so, moral deontological properties cannot arise minus a divine command. Perhaps deontological properties such as requiredness, being obligatory and oughtness simply supervene on axiological properties of the kind Adams admits exist logically prior to God's commands. Why cannot the existence of axiological properties on their own give us good and often overwhelming reasons for doing this and avoiding the other? Hence obligations and duties arise out of the recognition of value. Goodness gives rise to rightness, badness to wrongness.
Despite the fact that we have moved to sophisticated arguments from normativity to God as the best explanation, we still seem to be stuck with the debate opened up by Mill: how reliable is the analogy with human law some moral arguments for God's existence rely on? Proponents of all forms of the moral argument considered so far appear to hold that there can be no deontological properties without some law making. And the only candidate for the source of that law making is God. Non-theists deny this. They will present the following dilemma. When God sees that some acts are highly beneficial and others highly harmful, is or is he not obliged to legislate for the former and against the latter? Take the first horn and we have an instance of a deontic property (God being bound to command or forbid this act) arising from axiological properties minus God's commands. Take the second horn and the non-theist will object that we are back to the arbitrariness afflicting non-modified divine command theories of ethics.
From the discussion of moral arguments for God's existence and the fact of normativity we can conclude two things: (i) that the merits of such arguments are bound up with the merits of divine command theories of ethics (see Sagi and Statman 1995 for a detailed survey of such theories); and (ii) that if such arguments are to succeed they may need to cast their nets wider. They may need to encompass best explanations for normativity in other areas, such as logic, and for the existence of axiological facts as well as normative facts.
2. Arguments From Moral Order
2.1 The Basic Argument and its Exemplification in Kant
Many forms of moral argument for God's existence are variations on the following format.
Argument V:
Morality is a rational enterprise.
Morality would not be a rational enterprise if there were no moral order in the world.
Only the existence of God traditionally conceived could support the hypothesis that there is a moral order in the world.
Therefore, there is a God.
The rationality of morality cited in (16) refers to the fact that the moral life generates certain ends, specifically the pursuit of the ethical perfection and happiness of moral agents. The moral order cited in (17) refers to the belief that the world is such that these ends can be realized. The most famous version of the argument from moral order is found in the writings of Kant (variously formulated in different texts post 1781). Kant's “moral proof” can be summarized thus.
Argument VI:
It is rationally and morally necessary to attain the perfect good (happiness arising out of complete virtue).
What we are obliged to attain, it must be possible for us to attain.
Attaining the perfect good is only possible if natural order and causality are part of an overarching moral order and causality.
Moral order and causality are only possible if we postulate a God as their source. (See Kant 1996/1962, 240; 5/124-5)
The perfect good in (20) incorporates two alleged central aims of the moral life. We are not merely obliged to perform individual acts of virtue but to become virtuous. For Kant that means becoming such that there will be a complete harmony between the maxims of our actions and the moral law. But human beings as finite rational beings are also “creatures of needs”. They have many non-moral goals and ends. The very respect for the moral law that is at the heart of the moral life bids us set store by the flourishing of these finite rational agents. So the complete good for the human moral agent must be happiness arising out of virtue. (21) tells us that “ought implies can”. It cannot be true that we ought to seek an end if there is no chance of our attaining it. (22) and (23) point to the fact that the world as it appears to us is governed by morally blind causes. These causes give no hope whatsoever that pursuit of moral virtue will lead to happiness. They do not even give hope that we can become morally virtuous. Human agency is beset by weaknesses that make the attainment of virtue — in the absence of external aid — seem impossible. Human agents are in addition subject to contingencies that can cut short attempts to grow to moral maturity and perfection. The being postulated in (23) has omniscience and omnipotence combined with perfect goodness. Thus it will ensure that the pursuit of a virtuous state is possible through external aid (as in grace) and will promise an immortality where the moral journey can be completed. It will also ensure that in the long run happiness will result from virtue. Its existence would mean that there is a perfect moral causality at work in the world.
Kant's argument turns around the contrast between the apparent lack of moral order in the world and the alleged need for a real moral order in the world if the necessary goals of the moral life are attainable. There are many other authors who have arguments from moral order turning around this same contrast and moving to the same conclusion (see Hare 1996, Sorely 1918, Taylor 1930, Zagzebski 1987).
The schematic argument from moral order (Argument V) has as its first premise the claim that morality is a rational enterprise. One way of interpreting Kant's version — Argument VI — is as claiming that human reason faces contradiction (the absurdum practicum — see Wood 1970, 100) unless it believes in the existence of God. Practical reason is committed as a matter of strict duty to realize the goal of moral perfection. It is also committed as a requirement of consistency in agency to seek the maximal satisfaction of its given ends. If there is no moral order in the world then it cannot pursue both of these commitments together.
Premises (16) and (17) in Argument V and (20) in Argument VI present the rationality of morality as dependent on it having the goal of seeking the human good. One line of response to the argument from moral order is to deny that morality does have that goal. The critic can make this point in respect of both parts of the goal: happiness and moral perfection.
Concerning happiness it can be argued that moral agents cannot be convicted of irrationality if they abandon pursuit of their own happiness upon the realization that their duties and obligations get in the way, for they are under no rational necessity to pursue their own happiness. If this point is sound, there is no absurdam practicum because practical reason is not committed to the pursuit of two ends that apparently conflict. Kant's definition of happiness as that “state of a rational being in the world in the whole of whose existence everything goes according to his wish and will” (Kant 1996/1962, 240; 5/124) might seem to clinch the matter. But the definition is ambiguous. Happiness could be the state where all my felt, personal desires are satisfied. Or it could be the state where all my intentions are fulfilled. While it is true that no one acts rationally who does not seek to maximally fulfill his or her intentions, a person may have lots of intentions not directed at fulfilling his or her personal desires. I may consciously forswear satisfaction of my personal desires by, for example, adopting a life of service to others. Kant's other definition of happiness, which he seems to take as equivalent to the first, then comes into play: happiness is a fulfilled, satisfied life (see Kant 1996/1973, 49; 4/393). I may not find such a life of self-sacrifice personally fulfilling, but then I did not adopt it in order to be happy. (For more on this reply to Kant see Byrne 1998, 70ff.)
The critic may thus contend that we are not bound by practical reason itself to have a plan of life bent on pursuit of happiness. In reply, it has been stated that “If we are to endorse wholeheartedly the long-term shape of our lives, we have to see this shape as consistent with our happiness” (Hare 1996, 88). Let us assume that non-theists who realizes that moral demands restrict the pursuit of happiness in a world not under divine governance are unable to endorse wholeheartedly the long-term shape of their lives. On the face of it that does not entail that they act irrationally. Their world is not a perfect world and they might feel sad that it is not, but they will no doubt think that accepting such realism is a lower price to pay than believing in God.
The other half of the absurdum practicum is the duty to become morally perfect. In Kantian terms, moral perfection for finite creatures is a state of complete virtue. Our wills will be irreversibly set on a policy of acting on maxims dictated by the demands of impartial right. The Kantian claim is that as well as having obligations to do this or that act of virtue, we have an overarching obligation to achieve a state of virtue through acting on specific obligations. To those who affirm that we have no such obligation, the response from proponents of the argument from moral order is that this is an unacceptable lowering of the moral demand (see Hare 1996, 29-30). This part of the argument from moral order has separate force from that dealing with the inability of a secular world-view to guarantee happiness for the virtuous. If morality's rationality depends on our being able to fulfill the aim of being virtuous, then — given undeniable facts about the contingency and frailty of the human condition — no naturalistic outlook can establish morality's rationality.
One response to this strand of the Kantian argument consists in stressing the way the human institution of morality can strengthen human character and promote the living of virtuous lives (see Kekes 1990). Another response depends on the distinction between becoming virtuous as an end and becoming virtuous as a duty. A non-theist may argue as follows. There is an overarching end to morality: achieving a state of virtue. We are not under an obligation to achieve that end in itself. We have obligations to do particular acts of virtue. If we fail to do those particular acts, we do fail to meet our obligations. But we do not fail in a further obligation to become virtuous. Becoming virtuous is an asymptotic goal. It is one that arises from more specific goals, and is thus necessary but this does not mean that we are guilty if we fail to meet it. Asymptotic goals can function as goals even though we know full well that they can never be met. They regulate our lives, while they do not create duties to attain them. The non-theist thus draws a distinction between Kantian virtue as a necessary end of the moral life and as a duty.
The above response relates to the famous “ought implies can” principle in step (21) of Argument VI above. Adams suggests that a viable riposte to this part of the moral argument is “In any reasonable morality we will be obligated to promote only the best attainable approximation of the highest good” (Adams 1987, 152). Thus our duty is merely to do our best to be virtuous. There is no question that proponents of the argument from moral order will again categorize this as an unacceptable lowering of the moral demand. Adams' point can, however, be strengthened by the distinction between ends and obligations above. We do not need to give up the goal of being virtuous if we recognize only the obligation to achieve the best available approximation to a state of complete virtue. We can have a regulative end without a corresponding obligation.
2.2 The Secular Problem of Evil
Variants of Argument V in Kant and other sources exemplify the secular problem of evil. The facts that make the realization of the ends of morality impossible are reflections of the underlying truth that our world is beset by evil. Evil is present in the human will and character. It is present in the course of events that distributes happiness and misery without regard to the claims of justice. The core of Argument V is that morality is irrational or pointless given evil unless we posit an agency capable of defeating evil. That agency has to be trans-human because it is one of the facts about evil that it manifests itself in weaknesses which beset the human character and will at root, thus making our agency imperfect.
The argument from moral order hereby throws up a striking paradox. On the one hand, evil in the world serves as the ground for an argument for God's existence. On the other, that same evil serves as a ground for thinking that there is no God. The evil pointed to in the moral argument highlights the evil that is the basis of the more famous problem of evil in arguments for God's non-existence. In particular, the fact of evil provides an interesting tu quoque to any version of Argument V. Such arguments point to evil and state that, on the premise that morality is a rational enterprise, there must be a God whose providence shows that such evil is but a temporary or surface feature of our world. But if there is such a God, why is there this evil in the first place? If there was a God, there would be a moral order and a vital premise of the argument from moral order would be false. The God of theism, if actual, is working now to remedy the defects in the human will and ensure that the course of events supports the goals of virtue. So how can it be that this God appears to be doing no such thing? (See Kekes 1990, 27-8.)
Attempts to rebut this counter to the moral argument would take us too deep into the structure of theodicies (accounts from within theism of how evil exists within a divinely providential world). A good example of how such a rebuttal goes can be found in ch. 18 of W.P. Sorely's Moral Values and the Idea of God. A divine power to support morality's ends is linked to the need to allow human beings freedom in an imperfect-seeming world to confront evil via their own free choices, with the assurance that an omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent agency will bring those choices to fruition.
2.3 Moral Order and Moral Skepticism
The Kantian argument from moral order has been seen to be full of complexities. A simpler version of a moral order argument (see Zagzebski 1987, 299-300) goes thus.
Argument VII:
Morality is a rational enterprise.
Morality would not be a rational enterprise unless good actions increase the amount of good in the world. (Morality has to be efficacious if it is to be rational.)
There is no evidence that the amount of good in the world is increasing through our good acts.
Therefore we must assume that there is extra-human agency on the side of the good.
Argument VII is more negative than positive. It attempts to reduce a naturalistic outlook to absurdity (the absurdity of moral skepticism). Other steps are needed to get to the conclusion that the most plausible non-naturalistic world view is theism.
Argument VII can be strengthened by the following fact. In acting upon obligation I will frequently be giving up the chance to fulfill my personal preferences. This means that some good will be foregone in a typical moral action. If moral action is not efficacious in the production of moral good, then it may decrease the net amount of potential good. Thus it may be irrational (see Zagzebski 1987, 300 and Layman 2002, 304 and passim).
The argument for (26) is empirical: looking around the world there is no evidence that the amount of good is increasing and the amount of evil decreasing. Since it must be on premise (24), there is need to suppose that the world as we see it is not the sum of it as it really is. Good will eventually arise from moral acts but will only be visible when divine agency brings it about in the future.
Let us assume that defenders of a secular, naturalistic world view will not question (26) so far as it concerns the effects of virtuous action. In that case, they must either concede that morality is irrational (part, perhaps, of the absurdity of life in a universe without God) or argue that the good produced by virtuous action is not wholly or mainly in its effects. They may note in this regard important consequences of Aristotle's account of virtuous actions. Virtuous actions are not merely the means to the good, as plugging in the kettle is the means to heating the water. The good for a human being is a kind of living and acting: it is in part constituted by acts we perform and the dispositions behind them. Virtuous, good actions are worthwhile for the sake of the activity involved in doing them. They will have ends beyond themselves. Thus an act of generosity will seek the improvement of another's lot. But such an act also constitutes its own end. It is worthwhile doing it even if it fails in its external end. So, if a naturalist follows Aristotle, she or he can say that right action is a manifestation of the human good and as such the human good will in part exist regardless of the consequences of right action. (See Sherman 1989, 114 ff for these arguments.)
Zagzebski's version of the moral order argument is supplemented by the following proof based on the idea that naturalism entails moral skepticism.
Argument VIII:
Morality is a rational enterprise.
Morality would not be a rational if moral skepticism were true.
There is much too much unresolved moral disagreement for us to suppose that moral skepticism can be avoided if human sources of moral knowledge are all that we have.
Therefore we must assume that there is an extra-human, divine source of moral wisdom. (Zagzebski 1987, 295-299)
The naturalist can do two things with this argument. One is to question (30) and the other is to question whether the remedy in (31) works. As to (30), it is true that we can cite many long-standing moral disagreements in a society at any one time (as witness abortion, capital punishment and the like). But it may be claimed that over most of their daily decisions human beings know what the morally correct thing to do is. A common list of fundamental moral rules (forbidding lying, stealing etc, commanding honesty, the honoring of promises etc) will be acknowledged by most moral agents. The same is true for a common list of higher moral principles (give to each their due, respect persons as ends in themselves etc). It is not, the critic will say, that we cannot act because we are surrounded by so much moral uncertainty. As to (31), how are we to take the idea that a providential God will solve moral skepticism? The theist's God aids us through “moral knowledge in divine revelation and the teachings of the Church” (Zagzebski 1987, 302). But the naturalist will say that theists differ over where revelation is to be found and how to interpret it. They differ over what is the true church and then over how to interpret what their chosen church says. Religious division seems as rife as moral. And we need moral knowledge in order to make cogent judgments as to the location and teaching of the divine word.
3. Practical Arguments: Moral Despair and Moral Discouragement
The various arguments from moral order considered so far have begun from the premise
Morality is a rational enterprise.
The aim of such arguments is to show that if there is no source of moral order morality will collapse. It will cease to be a sustainable enterprise. Kant himself states at one point that if the highest good cannot be attained then the moral law, which bids us to seek it “must be fantastic and directed to imaginary ends and must therefore in itself be false” (Kant 1996/1962, 231; 5/114). This suggests that, if the ends of morality cannot be attained, there would no longer be any obligations and duties (Kant in fact denies this inference in other places: see Kant 2000/1962, 316-317; 5/450-2). But it is possible to frame a moral argument with a more modest conclusion: there is a moral advantage in accepting theism. Adams has a version of this argument.
Argument IX:
It would be demoralizing not to believe there is a moral order to the universe.
Demoralization is morally undesirable.
There is a moral advantage in believing that there is a moral order in the universe.
Theism provides the best theory of the source of moral order.
Therefore there is a moral advantage in accepting theism. (Adams 1987, 151)
Douglas Drabkin has a “moral argument for undertaking theism” which moves along similar lines.
Argument X:
Morality demands that we ought to aspire to become as good as we can be.
If there is no source of moral order in the world, then the project of becoming as good as we can be is fraught with difficulties.
These difficulties would be taken away if we were assured of the truth of theism.
Therefore we have a moral reason for getting ourselves in a state whereby we can come to be believe in the truth of theism. (Drabkin 1994, 169)
Let us assume that a non-theist will accept the general premise that it would be better for human beings if there was a divine source of moral order. Thus the non-theist could accept the premise that it would be to our practical and moral advantage to believe in a divine source of moral order. To some degree or other, atheism is demoralizing.
The above concession allows the airing of a major issue in considering moral proofs of God's existence of the kind that appeal to the need for moral order. They may be charged with arguing from premises about what we need or would like to be true to conclusions about the likelihood of the reality being thus and so. That a truth is demoralizing is no reason to think it is false. That it would be good if a claim is true is no reason to believe that claim. These conclusions follow from the transparency of belief. Believing p is transparent in the first person case. The following three questions are equivalent — that is, a yes or no answer to any one entails the same answer to any of the other two:
p? [Is there a God?]
Do I believe that p? [Do I believe that there is a God?]
Ought I believe that p? [Ought I to believe that there is a God?]
In particular there cannot be reasons for giving a yes answer to (42) that are not reasons for thinking that p, that are not reasons for thinking that there is a God. Now the reasons for thinking that there is a God in Adams' argument do not bear upon the likelihood that there is a God, so cannot be reasons for thinking that I should adopt this belief. That the world would otherwise make some of our goals harder to obtain, would otherwise leave some of our deepest needs unmet, is not a reason for believing that it is not as it appears to be — devoid of moral order.
These versions of moral argument partake of the flavor, and thus of the difficulties, that surround the pragmatic arguments for religious belief found in writers such as Pascal and James. They will meet with the same response: this is wishful thinking dressed up as argument. The non-theist may press this specific point: only if one is convinced prior to these arguments of the premise that
The world is likely to be organized so as to meet our deepest human needs
will one find them cogent. But (44) is just the kind of hypothesis that would be false if there is no God. Arguments such as IX and X thus look circular.
It should be noted that Kant considers and rejects this kind of criticism of arguments from moral order. He admits that argument forms of this type are generally fallacious, while claiming that his argument is different in a relevant respect. He appeals to needs to fuel belief that there is a God but they are “needs of reason”. They are not grounded on “inclination” but on “an objective ground of the will” (Kant 1996/1962, 255n; 5/143n).
Drabkin's argument in fact escapes the above objections. It claims that the moral ills that would afflict us if there were no God give us ground, not for the belief that there is a God, but for undertaking “the project of coming to believe that there is a God” (Drabkin 1994: 171). This involves things like going over one's reasons for rejecting belief in God to see if they hold up and checking most carefully reasons for thinking there is a God.
Perhaps this is a point at which proponents and opponents of moral arguments for God's existence might agree on. Moral considerations give all a reason to examine the proposition that there is a God very seriously. For if there is no God, morality is a more perilous enterprise than if there is.
Bibliography
Adams, R., 1987, The Virtue of Faith, New York: Oxford University Press, 144-163
Alston, W., 1989, Divine Nature and Human Language, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 253-73
Byrne, P., 1998, The Moral Interpretation of Religion, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press
Devine, P., 1989, Relativism, Nihilism and God, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press
Drabkin D., 1994, “A moral argument for undertaking theism”, American Philosophical Quarterly, 31: 169-175
Hare, J., 1996, The Moral Gap, Oxford: Clarendon Press
Kant, I., 1996/1962, Critique of Practical Reason, in Practical Philosophy, Gregor, M. (tr & ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; vol 5, Gesammelte Schriften Berlin: de Gruyter
-----, 1996/1973, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, in Practical Philosophy, Gregor, M. (tr & ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; vol 4. Gesammelte Schriften Berlin: de Gruyter
-----, 2000/1962, Critique of the Power of Judgment, Guyer, P. and Matthews, E. (trs & eds), Cambridge: Cambridge, Cambridge University Press; vol 5, Gesammelte Schriften Berlin: de Gruyter
Kekes J., 1990, Facing Evil, Princeton: Princeton University Press,
Korsgaard, C., 1996, The Sources of Normativity, New York: Cambridge University Press
Layman, S., 2002, “God and the moral order”, Faith and Philosophy, 19: 304-16
Locke, J., 1993, “A letter concerning toleration” in John Locke: Political Writings, Wootton D. (ed), Harmondsworth: Penguin, 390-436
Mackie, J., 1977, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, Harmondsworth: Penguin
McNaughton, D., 1988, Moral Vision, Oxford: Blackwell
Mill, J., 1957, Theism, Bobbs-Merril: Indianapolis,
Sagi A. and Statman D., 1995, Religion and Morality, Amsterdam & Atlanta: Rodopi
Sherman, N., 1989, The Fabric of Character, Oxford: Clarendon Press
Sorely, W., 1918, Moral Values and the Idea of God, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Swinburne R. G., 1976, “The objectivity of morality”, Philosophy, 51: 5-20
Taylor, A., 1930, The Faith of a Moralist, London: Macmillan
-----, 1945, Does God Exist?, London: Macmillan
Wood, A., 1970, Kant's Moral Religion, Ithaca: Cornell University Press
Zagzebski, L., 1987, “Does ethics need God?”, Faith and Philosophy, 4: 294-303
Other Internet Resources
Philosophy of Religion on the Internet, Guide to articles and papers relating to Philosophy of Religion on the internet, maintained by Andrew P. Mills, Otterbein College.
Related EntriesAristotle ethics: virtue evil, problem of God: concepts of Kant, Immanuel Locke, John metaethics Mill, John Stuart moral realism Plato
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Sunday, October 29, 2006
What We Said in Shiur Today on Mechalia vs. Lo Mechalia Karna (BK 3a), from one of the Talmidim
אידי ואידי אשן, והא דמכליא קרנא, הא דלא מכליא קרנא
The גמרא says that we learn that you are חייב for שן and רגל from the פסוק of "ושלח
את הבעירה ובער בשדה אחר" . We know that ובער refers to שן because of the פסוק in נביא that
says " כאשר יבער הגלל עד תומו ". We know that ושלח refers to רגל because of another פסוק in
נביא that says " ."משלחי רגל השור והחמור
The גמרא then asks why we need the פסוק of משלחי רגל השור והחמור , as we could
have deduced that ושלח refers to רגל by using the process of elimination. קרן was already
written ( כי יגח ), and שן was also already written ( ובער בשדה אחר ), so the only thing that
ושלח could refer to is רגל , so why do we need ?משלחי רגל השור והחמור
The גמרא then goes on to answer that we would have thought that both ושלח and
ובער teach us that you are חייב for שן , and the reason you need both phrases is that one
ובער) ) would teach us that you are חייב for מכליא קרנא (completely destroyed), and the
other phrase ( ושלח ) teaches that you are even חייב for לא מכליא קרנא (when it didn't eat the
קרן ). Thus, we need משלחי רגל השור והחמור to teach us that ושלח teaches us about .רגל
If we learn רגל from ושלח , from where do we learn that one is חייב for שן דמכליא
קרנא ? The גמרא answers that we learn it from רגל . Just like by רגל it makes no difference
whether it was מכליא קרנא , so too by שן it makes no difference if it was .מכליא קרנא
What qualifies ?מכליא קרנא
רש"י defines מכליא קרנא as when the animal eats from a vegetable patch and it will
not grow back, and לא מכליא קרנא is when it will grow back, but not as well as before.
ר' משה פינקל explains that the reason רש"י says that the animal ate from a patch is
that when one eats from an entire patch, the way one evaluates how much he must pay is
by taking the difference between what the a בית סאה of the patch used to be valued and
what its value is now. If the plant will grow back, then the value of the patch is not really
going down – it did not harm the intrinsic value of the land. However, since it did not
grow back quite as well as it did before, and that is the reason that you are חייב to pay
even by לא מכליא קרנא – the plants did not grow back as well so the land lost some value.
According to this explanation, רש"י holds that the קרן is the intrinsic value of the
land and that the פירות are simply the added value to the land because of the produce.
תוס' ask on רש"י that even if the plant grows back, the farmer lost his chance to
harvest that piece of produce, so there is a loss and thus what רש"י defines as לא מכליא
קרנא should really be defined as .מכליא קרנא
תוס' thus define מכליא קרנא differently than רש"י . They say that מכליא קרנא is when
the animal did real damage to a לא מכליא קרנא .פרי is when the animal just made the fruit
dirty, and it is now an inconvenience to clean it up.
We explained in שיעור that ' תוס says that there is a difference between the קרן of
מטלטלין and the פירות of מטלטלין . The קרן of the מטלטלין is the object itself, and to damage
the פירות of מטלטלין you couldn't do damage to the גוף of the פרי but rather must do
something external to the פרי such as making it dirty.
The רשב"א asks a question on תוספות . The גמרא later on says that טינפה פירות is a
תולדה of שן . If so, why do we need to learn לא מכליא קרנא from רגל (see above); shouldn't
we learn it from ?שן
One possible answer hinted to by ' תוס is that we need רגל to teach us that it is even
a תולדה of .שן
However, the רשב"א rejects this answer as later on in the גמרא we learn out a case
of רגל (where he actively sent the animal to do damage) from שן , and that case in רגל is
considered an אב in רגל . If so, shouldn't שן דמכליא קרנא also be an ?אב
תוס' ר' ישעיה says a פשט slightly different from ' תוס that avoids the רשב"א 's
question. He says that מכליא קרנא is when the animal ate it and swallowed it – destroyed
it completely. לא מכליא קרנא is when the animal chewed it up and spit it out. Since
chewing up food and spitting it out is not a תולדה of שן (it is an אב ), it avoids the רשב"א 's
question. The הוה אמינא of the גמרא was that שן must be אכילה ממש to be .חייב
The רשב"א says a פשט that is similar to that of רש"י . He says that when an animal
eats שחת it will grow back even better than before.
The גרסא that is at the end of our version of the רשב"א is: " מ"מ אם בא בעל השחת
להשתלם לפי נזקו ולא כל מה שבהמה מגרעת מן הפירות קרי מכליא קרנא"
The גליון אלפס says that there is a גירסא mistake in the .רשב"א
ר' אליהו לייכטינשטיין (the editor of the מוסד רב קוק edition of the רשב"א ) says that the
correct גירסא in the רשב"א would be: "...ולא כל מה שבהמה מגרעת מן הפירות, והיכא דמשלם כל מה
שבהמה מגרעת מן הפירות קרי מכליא קרנא"
According to this גירסא , if the שחת grew back better, then the מזיק must pay the
difference between what he damaged and it is considered to be לא מכליא קרנא . If the שחת
grew back just as it was before (or worse), then the מזיק pays the amount that he damaged
(and if it didn't grow back as well, the difference between what was there before and what
is there now), and it is considered to be .מכליא קרנא
However, this גירסא is difficult to work with because it says that whether the
damage is מכליא קרנא is determined by the amount you pay, not by the damage you did. It
would make more sense to base מכליא קרנא on the extent of the damage.
It is possible that the correct גירסא is: "...וכל מה שבהמה מגרעת מן הפירות קרי לא מכליא
קרנא ". If so, then it means that whenever the only damage is the loss of the פרי (and not
the loss of intrinsic value of the land), then it is considered to be .לא מכליא קרנא
Whenever there is also a loss in value of the land (i.e. it will not grow back as well), it is
considered to be .מכליא קרנא
Friday, October 27, 2006
On Parashas Noach - from this week's MTA Parasha Publication
http://yuhsb.org/currentyr/gen_info/pubs/skoleinu/noach.pdf
Noach’s Spiritual Illumination
Rabbi Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer
ספורנו עה"ת ספר בראשית פרק ח פסוק כב
עוד כל ימי הארץ זרע וקציר וקור וחום
וקיץ וחורף ויום ולילה לא ישבותו. לא ישבותו
מלהתמיד על אותו האופן בלתי טבעי שהגבלתי
להם אחר המבול. וזה שילך השמש על גלגל
נוטה מקו משוה היום ובנטיתו תהיה סבת
השתנות כל אלה הזמנים כי קודם המבול היה
מהלך השמש תמיד בקו משוה היום ובזה היה
אז תמיד עת האביב ובו היה תקון כללי ליסודות
ולצמחים ולבעלי חיים ולאורך ימיהם. ואמר
שיהיה זה כל ימי הארץ עד אשר יתקן האל
יתברך את הקלקול שנעשה בה במבול כאמרו
הארץ החדשה אשר אני עושה כי אז ישיב מהלך
השמש אל קו משוה היום כמאז ויהיה תקון כללי
ליסודות ולצמחים ולבעלי חיים ולאורך חייהם
כמו שהיה קודם המבול כאמרו כי הנער בן מאה
שנה ימות והחוטא בן מאה שנה יקולל וזה רצה
באמרו מוצאי בקר וערב תרנין.
The Sforno in Parashas Noach (8:22) suggests that prior to the Mabul there were no seasons. Rather, the Sun, relative to the Earth, constantly orbited at the Equator. The Earth was thus in a constant state of Springtime, the optimum condition for both vegetation and animal life to flourish, and for human beings to enjoy longevity. In this pasuk Hashem promises that the current cycle will continue so long as the Earth continues in its post-Mabul state — until the eventual, ultimate redemption, when the position of the Sun relative to the Earth will return to its antideluvian state.
The Sforno's position is evidently contradicted by an explicit Gemara in Avodah Zarah (8a):
תלמוד בבלי מסכת עבודה זרה דף ח עמוד א
אמר רב חנן בר רבא קלנדא ח' ימים אחר
תקופה סטרנורא ח' ימים לפני תקופה וסימנך
אחור וקדם צרתני וגו' תנו רבנן לפי שראה אדם
הראשון יום שמתמעט והולך אמר אוי לי שמא
בשביל שסרחתי עולם חשוך בעדי וחוזר לתוהו
ובוהו וזו היא מיתה שנקנסה עלי מן השמים
עמד וישב ח' ימים בתענית [ובתפלה] כיון שראה
תקופת טבת וראה יום שמאריך והולך אמר
מנהגו של עולם הוא הלך ועשה שמונה ימים
טובים לשנה האחרת עשאן לאלו ולאלו ימים
טובים הוא קבעם לשם שמים והם קבעום לשם
עבודת כוכבים.
The Gemara tells us that the origin of idolatrous holiday of December 25th was a genuine holiday celebrated by Adam. According to opinion that the world was created in Tishrei, Adam sinned at that time — around the time of the Fall Equinox. He subsequently perceived that the days were becoming shorter and shorter. He was concerned that this was taking place on account of his sin, and that as a result of his sin the world was becoming darker and darker, ending in a renewed tohu va'vohu — and that this was the death decreed upon him. However, on
December 25th, shortly after the Winter Solstice, he noticed that the days had begun to become longer again, concluded that the pattern of shorter and longer days was cyclical, and fixed an eight-day celebration, culminating on January 1st.
Clearly, days do not become shorter or longer unless there is a seasonal cycle in place. It is thus evident that the seasons existed already prior to the Mabul.
[There is a Chazal that relates a similar response by Adam to the very first sunset:
אבות דרבי נתן פרק ראשון (וכ"ה גם בילקוט
שמעוני תהלים פרק ס"ט רמז תתב)
כיון שבא אדה"ר לעת ערב ראה אדם
הראשון את העולם כלפי מערב שמחשיך ובא
אמר אוי לי כי בשביל שסרחתי הקב"ה מחשיך
עלי את העולם והוא אינו יודע שכן דרך העולם.
לשחרית כיון שראה העולם שמאיר ובא למזרח
שמח שמחה גדולה עמד ובנה מזבחות והביא
שור שקרניו קודמות לפרסותיו והעלהו עולה
שנאמר (תהלים ס"ט) ותיטב לה' משור פר מקרן
מפריס.
It may be that both phenomena were causes of concern for him in turn.]
The simple implication of Chazal is that Hashem did not reveal to Adam the basic science of the phenomena he was to experience, leaving him to discover the phenomena and analyze them on his own. The Maharal, however, understands differently:
ספר חדושי אגדות חלק רביעי עמוד לב -
מסכת עבודה זרה
לפי שראה וכו'... — ואין הפי' שיהיה
טועה אדם הראשון ולא ידע עליות השמש
ושקיעתו אריכות הימים וקצורם, שדבר זה אינו
כלל. רק סבר היה כיון שהיום שוקע ומאפיל,
נמצא היום יש בו צד שהוא מאפיל, ואם כן יהיה
מאפיל לגמרי בשביל החטא, שהחטא מביא
אבדון לעולם וחושך לעולם. וכן כאשר הימים
מתקצרים והעולם הוא העלול לדבר זה
להתמעט האור, הוא ג"כ עלול לקבל הפסד. ואם
לא יתקלקל שיהיה תהו ובהו, מ"מ יהיה בעולם
קללתו מרובה וזהו בעצמו חורבן העולם:
וכאשר התחילו הימים להאריך, ומזה הצד
יש קיום לאדם, וכמו שהיה יושב בתענית כאשר
התחילו לקצר, כי חטא האדם גורם קלקול והיה
דבר זה מביא קלקול והפסד לעולם, וכאשר
התחילו הימים להאריך מצד האור, העולם מוכן
אל הטוב ולפיכך עשה יום טוב. ומה שעשו אלו
ואלו יום טוב כי יותר מעלת העולם, כאשר יש
כאן בחינה אל ההפסד ועם כל זה [אינו] נמסר
אל ההפסד ולכך עשה הימים שהיו מוכנים אל
ההפסד ג"כ י"ט:
His concern was that just as the days became foreshortened in their natural cycle, they might also become foreshortened as a result of his sin — with far more devastating results! His consolation and subsequent rejoicing came when he saw days being lengthened and realized that just as sin can generate spiritual — and actual — darkness, so too it must be that positive deeds can generate spiritual — and actual — illumination.
Noach’s Spiritual Illumination
Rabbi Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer
ספורנו עה"ת ספר בראשית פרק ח פסוק כב
עוד כל ימי הארץ זרע וקציר וקור וחום
וקיץ וחורף ויום ולילה לא ישבותו. לא ישבותו
מלהתמיד על אותו האופן בלתי טבעי שהגבלתי
להם אחר המבול. וזה שילך השמש על גלגל
נוטה מקו משוה היום ובנטיתו תהיה סבת
השתנות כל אלה הזמנים כי קודם המבול היה
מהלך השמש תמיד בקו משוה היום ובזה היה
אז תמיד עת האביב ובו היה תקון כללי ליסודות
ולצמחים ולבעלי חיים ולאורך ימיהם. ואמר
שיהיה זה כל ימי הארץ עד אשר יתקן האל
יתברך את הקלקול שנעשה בה במבול כאמרו
הארץ החדשה אשר אני עושה כי אז ישיב מהלך
השמש אל קו משוה היום כמאז ויהיה תקון כללי
ליסודות ולצמחים ולבעלי חיים ולאורך חייהם
כמו שהיה קודם המבול כאמרו כי הנער בן מאה
שנה ימות והחוטא בן מאה שנה יקולל וזה רצה
באמרו מוצאי בקר וערב תרנין.
The Sforno in Parashas Noach (8:22) suggests that prior to the Mabul there were no seasons. Rather, the Sun, relative to the Earth, constantly orbited at the Equator. The Earth was thus in a constant state of Springtime, the optimum condition for both vegetation and animal life to flourish, and for human beings to enjoy longevity. In this pasuk Hashem promises that the current cycle will continue so long as the Earth continues in its post-Mabul state — until the eventual, ultimate redemption, when the position of the Sun relative to the Earth will return to its antideluvian state.
The Sforno's position is evidently contradicted by an explicit Gemara in Avodah Zarah (8a):
תלמוד בבלי מסכת עבודה זרה דף ח עמוד א
אמר רב חנן בר רבא קלנדא ח' ימים אחר
תקופה סטרנורא ח' ימים לפני תקופה וסימנך
אחור וקדם צרתני וגו' תנו רבנן לפי שראה אדם
הראשון יום שמתמעט והולך אמר אוי לי שמא
בשביל שסרחתי עולם חשוך בעדי וחוזר לתוהו
ובוהו וזו היא מיתה שנקנסה עלי מן השמים
עמד וישב ח' ימים בתענית [ובתפלה] כיון שראה
תקופת טבת וראה יום שמאריך והולך אמר
מנהגו של עולם הוא הלך ועשה שמונה ימים
טובים לשנה האחרת עשאן לאלו ולאלו ימים
טובים הוא קבעם לשם שמים והם קבעום לשם
עבודת כוכבים.
The Gemara tells us that the origin of idolatrous holiday of December 25th was a genuine holiday celebrated by Adam. According to opinion that the world was created in Tishrei, Adam sinned at that time — around the time of the Fall Equinox. He subsequently perceived that the days were becoming shorter and shorter. He was concerned that this was taking place on account of his sin, and that as a result of his sin the world was becoming darker and darker, ending in a renewed tohu va'vohu — and that this was the death decreed upon him. However, on
December 25th, shortly after the Winter Solstice, he noticed that the days had begun to become longer again, concluded that the pattern of shorter and longer days was cyclical, and fixed an eight-day celebration, culminating on January 1st.
Clearly, days do not become shorter or longer unless there is a seasonal cycle in place. It is thus evident that the seasons existed already prior to the Mabul.
[There is a Chazal that relates a similar response by Adam to the very first sunset:
אבות דרבי נתן פרק ראשון (וכ"ה גם בילקוט
שמעוני תהלים פרק ס"ט רמז תתב)
כיון שבא אדה"ר לעת ערב ראה אדם
הראשון את העולם כלפי מערב שמחשיך ובא
אמר אוי לי כי בשביל שסרחתי הקב"ה מחשיך
עלי את העולם והוא אינו יודע שכן דרך העולם.
לשחרית כיון שראה העולם שמאיר ובא למזרח
שמח שמחה גדולה עמד ובנה מזבחות והביא
שור שקרניו קודמות לפרסותיו והעלהו עולה
שנאמר (תהלים ס"ט) ותיטב לה' משור פר מקרן
מפריס.
It may be that both phenomena were causes of concern for him in turn.]
The simple implication of Chazal is that Hashem did not reveal to Adam the basic science of the phenomena he was to experience, leaving him to discover the phenomena and analyze them on his own. The Maharal, however, understands differently:
ספר חדושי אגדות חלק רביעי עמוד לב -
מסכת עבודה זרה
לפי שראה וכו'... — ואין הפי' שיהיה
טועה אדם הראשון ולא ידע עליות השמש
ושקיעתו אריכות הימים וקצורם, שדבר זה אינו
כלל. רק סבר היה כיון שהיום שוקע ומאפיל,
נמצא היום יש בו צד שהוא מאפיל, ואם כן יהיה
מאפיל לגמרי בשביל החטא, שהחטא מביא
אבדון לעולם וחושך לעולם. וכן כאשר הימים
מתקצרים והעולם הוא העלול לדבר זה
להתמעט האור, הוא ג"כ עלול לקבל הפסד. ואם
לא יתקלקל שיהיה תהו ובהו, מ"מ יהיה בעולם
קללתו מרובה וזהו בעצמו חורבן העולם:
וכאשר התחילו הימים להאריך, ומזה הצד
יש קיום לאדם, וכמו שהיה יושב בתענית כאשר
התחילו לקצר, כי חטא האדם גורם קלקול והיה
דבר זה מביא קלקול והפסד לעולם, וכאשר
התחילו הימים להאריך מצד האור, העולם מוכן
אל הטוב ולפיכך עשה יום טוב. ומה שעשו אלו
ואלו יום טוב כי יותר מעלת העולם, כאשר יש
כאן בחינה אל ההפסד ועם כל זה [אינו] נמסר
אל ההפסד ולכך עשה הימים שהיו מוכנים אל
ההפסד ג"כ י"ט:
His concern was that just as the days became foreshortened in their natural cycle, they might also become foreshortened as a result of his sin — with far more devastating results! His consolation and subsequent rejoicing came when he saw days being lengthened and realized that just as sin can generate spiritual — and actual — darkness, so too it must be that positive deeds can generate spiritual — and actual — illumination.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Hisbonenus
What jarred me recently in my current perusal of Nefesh HaChaim is how much he is in sync with the Besht on tefillah. To the best of my recollection, R' Aryeh Kaplan leaves one with the impression that this is a Chassidishe thing. But its not:
ספר נפש החיים - שער ב - פרק יג
והעצה היעוצה על זה. הוא כמו שאמר המגיד להב"י באזהרה ב' שבריש הספר מגיד מישרים ז"ל. ליזהר מלחשוב בשעת תפלה בשום מחשבה אפילו של תורה ומצות כי אם בתיבות התפלה עצמם. דוק בדבריו שלא אמר לכוון בכוונת התפלה. אין אתנו יודע עד מה. כי גם מה שנתגלה לנו קצת כוונות התפל' מרבותינו הראשונים ז"ל קדישי עליונין. ועד אחרון הרב הקדוש איש אלקים נורא האריז"ל. אשר הפליא הגדיל לעשות כוונות נפלאים. אינם בערך אף כטפה מן הים כלל נגד פנימיות עומק כוונת אנשי כנה"ג מתקני נתפלה. שהיו ק"כ זקנים ומהם כמה נביאים וכל מבין יבין. דלא איתי אנש על יבשתא שיוכל לתקן תקון נפלא ונורא כזה. לכלול ולגנוז במטבע תפלה קבועה וסדורה בנוסח א'. התקונים של כל העולמות עליונים ותחתונים. וסדרי פרקי המרכבה. ושבכל פעם שמתפללין יוגרם תקונים חדשים בסדור העולמות והכחות והמשכת מוחין חדשים אחרים. שמעת שתקנוה עד ביאת הגואל ב"ב לא היה ולא יהיה שום תפלה בפרטות דומה לחברתה שקודם לה ואחריה כלל. דלבושין דלביש בצפרא לא לביש ברמשא ודלביש ברמשא כו' כמ"ש בתקונים תכ"ב. וכן כל יום לחברו שלפניו ואחריו. ולכן ארז"ל (חגיגה ט' ע"ב וברבה במדבר פ"ט) מעוות לא יוכל לתקון זה שביטל ק"ש כו' או תפלה כו'. וכמ"ש באורך בפע"ח פ"ז משער התפלה ע"ש. והוא בלתי אפשר אם לא ע"י הנבואה העליונה ורוח קדשו ית' אשר הופיע עליהם הופעה עצומה בעת תקון נוסח מטבע התפלה והברכות. שם הוא ית"ש בפיהם אלו התיבות ספורות וגנוזות בתוכם כל התקונים. לזאת מי הוא אשר עמד בסוד ה' על עומק כוונתו ית"ש. איזה דרך ישכון אורה של כל תיבה פרטית מהם:
אלא העיקר בעבודת התפלה. שבעת שהאדם מוציא מפיו כל תיבה מהתפלה. יצייר לו אז במחשבתו אותו התיבה באותיותיה כצורתה ולכוין להוסיף על ידה כח הקדושה שיעשה פרי למעלה להרבות קדושתם ואורם. כמש"ל בפ"י שלכן נקראת התפלה דברים העומדים ברומו של עולם שכל תיבה בצורתה ממש היא העולה למעלה מעלה כל אחת למקורכ ושרשה לפעול פעולות ותקוני' נפלאים. והיא סגולה נפלאה בדוק ומנוסה למרגילים עצמם בזה. לבטל ולהסיר מעליו בזה כל מחשבות ההבלים הטורדות ומניעות טהרת המחשבה והכוונה. וכל אשר יוסיף הרגלו בזה. יתוסף לו טהרה במחשבתו בתפלה. והיא כוונה פשטית:
הגהה:
והגם שהלכה פסוקה בש"ס שתפלה נאמרת בכל לשון. היינו לצאת ידי מצות תפלה כמו שנתבאר לעיל סוף ש"א שבכל המצות ואפי' מצות תפלה שנקראת עבודה שבלב. עכ"ז עיקרן לעכובא הוא חלק המעשי שבהן. אמנם למצוה מן המובחר ודאי צריך לצרף גם טוהר המחשב' וכוונה שלימה. ולפי גודל טוהר הכוונה כן תגדל מעשה המצוה ובפרט עבודת הלב שבתפלה. עם כי מי שהתפלל בכל לשון יצא י"ח. אבל אין ערוך למי שמתפלל בלה"ק באלו התיבות דוקא העומדי' ברומו של עול' ומדבק כל כחותיו בהם:
Micha Berger wrote:
The use of visual imagery used to be a central part of many derakhim in
Yahadus. Such meditation was one of the core elements of Chassidus. In
Novarhadok, it was used to shape middos. An emotional experience is
more powerful at changing the self than words; and thus generating one
internally is a useful skill.
From RYGB's talk on "shevisi Hashem..." it seems evident that many (most?)
understood this in terms of actually visualizing the four letters before
you "tamid".
As for today, it's socially stigmatized in the frum world as as "weird"
and not practiced much AFAIK. Breslov perhaps.
Here's one that I find helps my kavanah with berakhos, when the NhC's
kavanah is in tune with my current mood. (As opposed to a Hirschian,
Soloveitchikian, or some other peshat.)
Picture light coming from infinitely far off. While RYGB cited someone
(forgot who) who allowed one to be someich on the Ra'avad that one may
imagine the Source of the light, I don't. It's infinitely far off --
it doesn't enter the mental picture. This light is the Berekhah as
the Cause of my existence. It is personal, the beam is entering me in
particular. Thus I can say "Barukh atah H'", taking sheim havayah as
the causative conjugation of "hayah". Take some time to fully develop
the picture. To feel the "chiyus" coming in with this shefa.
Once there, then realize that in truth, the light does fill -- and in
fact *is* -- everything around you as well. E-lokeinu, Melekh ha'Olam.
In the case of birkhas avos, the one berakhah I am most likely to
say at a pace slow enough to have such kavanos (thanks to R' Aryeh
Kaplan), the progression of the berakhah is from that personal light,
to the light that fills all ("E-lokeinu") to the realization that the
light that fills all fills each item personally. And that a person must
aspire to the madreiga where he doesn't live his life by natural law,
having G-d as E-lokeinu, but by moral law -- E-lokei avoseinu.
How does one do that? By blending the archetypes of Avraham, Yitzchaq
and Ya'aqov...
Another, more mussar-dik example.
Picture a drop of water. You're out in nature, and water drips over a
precipice. It falls onto a rock. Don't just learn about Rabbi Akiva's
experience, spend time imagining the scene exactly. Try not to let any
extraneous thoughts enter, but if they do -- don't actively fight them
or get frustrated, just return to the image. Then, once you can smell
the fresh mountain spring water and feel that rock realize -- you're
the rock, and the water -- Torah. It can make an emotional impression.
Enough impressions, and your emotional, preconscious, relationship to
Torah is changed. And what could be more valuable than being more able
to be shaped by the Torah one learns?
At the most recent Shabbaton, RYGB discussed shitos that understand
"shevisi Hashem..." in terms of visualizing the letters of the sheim
havayah or other sheimos.
Does anyone have first-hand experience in this area that they would like
to share? Anyone have knowledge of the mesorah on this subject? Want
to learn?
Tir'u beTov!
-mi
ספר נפש החיים - שער ב - פרק יג
והעצה היעוצה על זה. הוא כמו שאמר המגיד להב"י באזהרה ב' שבריש הספר מגיד מישרים ז"ל. ליזהר מלחשוב בשעת תפלה בשום מחשבה אפילו של תורה ומצות כי אם בתיבות התפלה עצמם. דוק בדבריו שלא אמר לכוון בכוונת התפלה. אין אתנו יודע עד מה. כי גם מה שנתגלה לנו קצת כוונות התפל' מרבותינו הראשונים ז"ל קדישי עליונין. ועד אחרון הרב הקדוש איש אלקים נורא האריז"ל. אשר הפליא הגדיל לעשות כוונות נפלאים. אינם בערך אף כטפה מן הים כלל נגד פנימיות עומק כוונת אנשי כנה"ג מתקני נתפלה. שהיו ק"כ זקנים ומהם כמה נביאים וכל מבין יבין. דלא איתי אנש על יבשתא שיוכל לתקן תקון נפלא ונורא כזה. לכלול ולגנוז במטבע תפלה קבועה וסדורה בנוסח א'. התקונים של כל העולמות עליונים ותחתונים. וסדרי פרקי המרכבה. ושבכל פעם שמתפללין יוגרם תקונים חדשים בסדור העולמות והכחות והמשכת מוחין חדשים אחרים. שמעת שתקנוה עד ביאת הגואל ב"ב לא היה ולא יהיה שום תפלה בפרטות דומה לחברתה שקודם לה ואחריה כלל. דלבושין דלביש בצפרא לא לביש ברמשא ודלביש ברמשא כו' כמ"ש בתקונים תכ"ב. וכן כל יום לחברו שלפניו ואחריו. ולכן ארז"ל (חגיגה ט' ע"ב וברבה במדבר פ"ט) מעוות לא יוכל לתקון זה שביטל ק"ש כו' או תפלה כו'. וכמ"ש באורך בפע"ח פ"ז משער התפלה ע"ש. והוא בלתי אפשר אם לא ע"י הנבואה העליונה ורוח קדשו ית' אשר הופיע עליהם הופעה עצומה בעת תקון נוסח מטבע התפלה והברכות. שם הוא ית"ש בפיהם אלו התיבות ספורות וגנוזות בתוכם כל התקונים. לזאת מי הוא אשר עמד בסוד ה' על עומק כוונתו ית"ש. איזה דרך ישכון אורה של כל תיבה פרטית מהם:
אלא העיקר בעבודת התפלה. שבעת שהאדם מוציא מפיו כל תיבה מהתפלה. יצייר לו אז במחשבתו אותו התיבה באותיותיה כצורתה ולכוין להוסיף על ידה כח הקדושה שיעשה פרי למעלה להרבות קדושתם ואורם. כמש"ל בפ"י שלכן נקראת התפלה דברים העומדים ברומו של עולם שכל תיבה בצורתה ממש היא העולה למעלה מעלה כל אחת למקורכ ושרשה לפעול פעולות ותקוני' נפלאים. והיא סגולה נפלאה בדוק ומנוסה למרגילים עצמם בזה. לבטל ולהסיר מעליו בזה כל מחשבות ההבלים הטורדות ומניעות טהרת המחשבה והכוונה. וכל אשר יוסיף הרגלו בזה. יתוסף לו טהרה במחשבתו בתפלה. והיא כוונה פשטית:
הגהה:
והגם שהלכה פסוקה בש"ס שתפלה נאמרת בכל לשון. היינו לצאת ידי מצות תפלה כמו שנתבאר לעיל סוף ש"א שבכל המצות ואפי' מצות תפלה שנקראת עבודה שבלב. עכ"ז עיקרן לעכובא הוא חלק המעשי שבהן. אמנם למצוה מן המובחר ודאי צריך לצרף גם טוהר המחשב' וכוונה שלימה. ולפי גודל טוהר הכוונה כן תגדל מעשה המצוה ובפרט עבודת הלב שבתפלה. עם כי מי שהתפלל בכל לשון יצא י"ח. אבל אין ערוך למי שמתפלל בלה"ק באלו התיבות דוקא העומדי' ברומו של עול' ומדבק כל כחותיו בהם:
Micha Berger wrote:
The use of visual imagery used to be a central part of many derakhim in
Yahadus. Such meditation was one of the core elements of Chassidus. In
Novarhadok, it was used to shape middos. An emotional experience is
more powerful at changing the self than words; and thus generating one
internally is a useful skill.
From RYGB's talk on "shevisi Hashem..." it seems evident that many (most?)
understood this in terms of actually visualizing the four letters before
you "tamid".
As for today, it's socially stigmatized in the frum world as as "weird"
and not practiced much AFAIK. Breslov perhaps.
Here's one that I find helps my kavanah with berakhos, when the NhC's
kavanah is in tune with my current mood. (As opposed to a Hirschian,
Soloveitchikian, or some other peshat.)
Picture light coming from infinitely far off. While RYGB cited someone
(forgot who) who allowed one to be someich on the Ra'avad that one may
imagine the Source of the light, I don't. It's infinitely far off --
it doesn't enter the mental picture. This light is the Berekhah as
the Cause of my existence. It is personal, the beam is entering me in
particular. Thus I can say "Barukh atah H'", taking sheim havayah as
the causative conjugation of "hayah". Take some time to fully develop
the picture. To feel the "chiyus" coming in with this shefa.
Once there, then realize that in truth, the light does fill -- and in
fact *is* -- everything around you as well. E-lokeinu, Melekh ha'Olam.
In the case of birkhas avos, the one berakhah I am most likely to
say at a pace slow enough to have such kavanos (thanks to R' Aryeh
Kaplan), the progression of the berakhah is from that personal light,
to the light that fills all ("E-lokeinu") to the realization that the
light that fills all fills each item personally. And that a person must
aspire to the madreiga where he doesn't live his life by natural law,
having G-d as E-lokeinu, but by moral law -- E-lokei avoseinu.
How does one do that? By blending the archetypes of Avraham, Yitzchaq
and Ya'aqov...
Another, more mussar-dik example.
Picture a drop of water. You're out in nature, and water drips over a
precipice. It falls onto a rock. Don't just learn about Rabbi Akiva's
experience, spend time imagining the scene exactly. Try not to let any
extraneous thoughts enter, but if they do -- don't actively fight them
or get frustrated, just return to the image. Then, once you can smell
the fresh mountain spring water and feel that rock realize -- you're
the rock, and the water -- Torah. It can make an emotional impression.
Enough impressions, and your emotional, preconscious, relationship to
Torah is changed. And what could be more valuable than being more able
to be shaped by the Torah one learns?
At the most recent Shabbaton, RYGB discussed shitos that understand
"shevisi Hashem..." in terms of visualizing the letters of the sheim
havayah or other sheimos.
Does anyone have first-hand experience in this area that they would like
to share? Anyone have knowledge of the mesorah on this subject? Want
to learn?
Tir'u beTov!
-mi
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Our Shiur's Take on TOD"H Milsa (B"K 2b), by our talmid Moshe Shulman
בס"ד
מועד לאדם הוי מועד לבהמה, ומועד לבהמה לא הוי מועד לאדם
מועד לאדם הוי מועד לבהמה, ומועד לבהמה לא הוי מועד לאדם
The גמרא states that we learn in passing from the use of both " כי יגח " and “ ”כי יגוף
that an animal that is מועד to attack people is also automatically מועד to attack animals but
an animal that is מועד to attack animals is not automatically מועד to attack people. This is
because killing a human is harder than killing an animal and is therefore more severe.
תוספות ד"ה "ומילתא אגב אורחיה" tries to explain how even רב פפא , who holds that an
ox that is מועד to gore people is not automatically מועד to gore animals, can be in
accordance with our רב פפא .גמרא seems to contradict the גמרא because he seems to say
that killing a human is not more severe than killing an animal
The גליון says simply that this statement in the גמרא does not go like .רב פפא
תוספות רבינו פרץ says that according to מועד לאדם הוי מועד לבהמה" ,רב פפא " means
that if an ox gores 2 animals of different types and 1 man, it is מועד for all בהמות . The
reason that this is true is that even though רב פפא holds that – מועד למין זה אינו מועד למין אחר
that if an ox is מועד to gore one type of animal it is not מועד to gore another type of animal
– he agrees that if an ox gored 3 different types of animals than it is מועד for all animals.
If we take away one מין from the animals that are gored and then put in an אדם , then for
sure it is מועד for all animals because אדם has מזל . (Note: it is not מועד לאדם in that case.)
However, if an ox gores 2 men and 1 animal, then it is not .מועד לאדם
תוספות explains רב פפא ’s opinion in a way that it agrees with the :גמרא
רב פפא holds (a) an ox that gored three people is not automatically מועד to gore animals
(b) however an ox that gored a human, an ox, and a donkey he becomes מועד
for both animals and humans
(c) but an ox that gores an ox, a donkey, and a camel he is only מועד for animals
This shows that רב פפא agrees with the גמרא that killing humans is more severe
than animals.
Part (b) and (c) explain how רב פפא learns our .גמרא
Why do תוספות and תוספות רבינו פרץ disagree over whether an ox is מועד לאדם if it
gored an אדם and two different types of בהמות ? What is the ?נקודת המחלקת
It could depend on what מזל means. רש"י ד"ה אדם אית ליה מזלא and in ד"ה כתיב כי יגח
says two explanations of how an אדם has מזל . The first explanation he gives is that an אדם
knows to protect himself. The second explanation he gives is that a מלאך protects an אדם
from dying.
We know that תוספות רבינו פרץ holds like the second explanation of רש"י . We
know this because there is a גמרא in סנהדרין that asks why we need a very high wall in a
בית סקילה – isn't a ten טפח pit enough to kill someone? תוספות רבינו פרץ here (in our (גמרא
asks why this question is a good question. Doesn't an אדם have מזל ? He answers that
maybe his מזל is bad as he is about to die. From his question, we see that he does not
hold that מזל is simply .דעת לשמור את גופו
Because of this, we can understand why תוספות רבינו פרץ holds that if an ox gores
an אדם and two בהמות then it is not מועד לאדם . Everyone's מלאך is different, so we need an
ox to gore 3 people to determine that it can overcome the מזל of the .אדם
On the other hand, תוספות may hold like the first explanation. If an ox gores one
אדם , we see that the ox has the strength to overcome the fact that an אדם has דעת to protect
himself. Thus, an ox is מועד לאדם if it gored one אדם and two בהמות because we see that it
is strong enough to gore an אדם even though an אדם has .מזל
אדם , we see that the ox has the strength to overcome the fact that an אדם has דעת to protect
himself. Thus, an ox is מועד לאדם if it gored one אדם and two בהמות because we see that it
is strong enough to gore an אדם even though an אדם has .מזל
This is all good according to the opinion that if an ox gores 3 מינים , it is מועד for
all בהמות . However, according to the רמב"ם , who says that if an ox gores 3 מינים it is מועד
only for those 3 מינים , how do you answer the question of ?תוספות
The רמב"ם could say like the גליון , but the מנחת שלמה suggests another answer.
The רמב"ם can hold like the נמוקי יוסף , who says that if an ox gores 2 different types of
animals and an אדם , then the ox is not מועד לאדם . When the גמרא says מועד לאדם הוי מועד
לבהמה , it means that if one gores one man and 2 animals, it is מועד for those 2 animals.
When the גמרא says מועד לבהמה לא הוי מועד לאדם , it means that if an ox gores 2 animals and
1 man, it is not מועד לאדם . [The רמב"ם could also say like ר' מנחם (see below)].
A second answer in תוספות is given by .ר' מנחם
The גמרא is talking about “ חזרה ” from מועד
a) An animal that is מועד for both humans and animals and retracts from goring
animals but remains מועד for people (there is no proof that it retracted from goring
humans) it remains מועד for animals because that is not considered a valid חזרה
b) however if the animal was מועד for both humans and animals and retracts from
goring humans it is not considered מועד for humans anymore because it is a valid חזרה
This answer also shows that killing a human is more severe because it is only a
חזרה if it retracts from goring humans (even if it continues to gore animals), but in the
lesser case of retracting from goring animals (and it doesn’t retract from humans) it is
not a good חזרה and רב פפא is not arguing with the גמרא
A similar example to explain this case is the case of the man that continues to jwalk
but stops holding up banks (a much more severe crime) said by Avigdor in class
The נחלת דוד asks on ר' מנחם : the גמרא on . דף ל"ז says that there is such thing as
חזרה from בהמה . How can ר' מנחם say that there is no such thing as חזרה לבהמה ? The נחלת
דוד answers that in the case on דף ל"ז is when an animal gored a man 3 times and is now
מועד לבהמה (according to רב זביד ). In that case there is חזרה for .בהמה
The מנחת שלמה explains the נחלת דוד in the following way: the reason רב פפא says
that if an ox is מועד to gore one מין it is not necessarily מועד to gore another מין is because
this ox might only gore one מין . On the other hand, רב זביד says that we assume that if this
ox gores one מין , it can gore a different one. However, רב זביד agrees that if we have
reason to believe that this ox will only gore a certain מין , then it is not מועד for another .מין
The fact that this ox is not goring בהמות in the case on דף ל"ז is reason to believe that this
ox was never מועד for בהמות , but only for אדם . However, in our case in תוספות this ox had
gored בהמות , as we are going like רב פפא who says מועד למין זה אינו מועד למין אחר , so there is
no חזרה for .בהמות
In contrast to ר' מנחם stands the ריב"א . The ריב"א says that if you are חוזר from
being מועד לבהמה then you are for sure חוזר from being מועד לאדם as an אדם has מזל and is
harder to gore. However, if you are חוזר from being מועד לאדם , you are not necessarily
חוזר from being מועד לבהמה , as it is easier to gore a .בהמה
The רמב"ם says in הלכות איסורי ביאה, פרק ד' הל' י"ב that a man cannot have relations
with his wife when it is time to be a נדה according to an established pattern. The מגיד
משנה says that this is only a ר' חיים .דרבנן , however, says that it appears from other places
that קביעות וסת – the establishment of a pattern, is an important part of נדה וזבה and should
be דאורייתא . He explains that קביעות וסת is דאורייתא when an event goes according to
pattern, but predictions based on this pattern are not part of וסת . This is why it is only an
איסור דרבנן to have relations with one's wife at the time of her וסת . This applies by a שור
מועד also. If this שור is מועד in certain situations, there is no דין saying that it will gore
again when it is in that situation again, but once it gores it is considered a goring of
.העדאה
The חזון איש , however, asks a question on ר' חיים . If we do not make a projection
that this שור מועד will gore in the situation in which it is מועד , how can you ever have
חזרה ?חזרה is based on the fact that the שור goes against the projection 3 times!
What then does ר' חיים hold that the סברה behind חזרה is? The answer may be in
בבא בתרא דף כח. , where the גמרא tries to learn out חזקת ג' שנים from העדאה (a שור becoming
תוספות .(מועד there calls חזקת ג' שנים a מילתא בלא טעמא . Three years changes the status of
the property. So too three gorings (or not-gorings) can change the status of the .שור
The חזון איש can not hold like the first explanation in רש"י as to what מזל is.
According to the חזון איש , since we guess what the animal will do, there has to be a
difference between how an animal sees an אדם and a בהמה in order to guess that this
animal will not gore an אדם . Thus, the חזון איש must hold like the second explanation in
רש"י , which is that a מלאך is guarding a person. Thus, the first explanation of רש"י (which
is that an אדם can guard himself) must hold like .ר' חיים
Now we can relate the מחלקת between ר' חיים and the חזון איש to the מחלקת between
ר' מנחם and the ריב"א . According to the חזון איש , if the שור was חוזר for בהמה , which had
no מלאך protecting it, then we can project that this שור was also חוזר for אדם , which it is
afraid of א. This is like the .ריב"א
On the other hand, according to ר' חיים , if an animal was חוזר for בהמה there is no
reason to believe that it is also חוזר for אדם . Thus, the animal is still .מועד לאדם
Ordinarily, רב פפא would say that if a שור is מועד לאדם it is not necessarily .מועד לבהמה
However, here we have reason to believe that this שור is capable of goring an animal (see
the נחלת דוד and the מנחת שלמה which were discussed above). Thus, the animal becomes
מועד לבהמה because it is מועד לאדם here.
א There is precedent for an animal being afraid of a מלאך . See במדבר כ"ב:כ"ג and רש"י ד"ה ותרא האתון there.