Theological Conundrum (read at your own risk)

In other words, option three: Hashem, and His ratzon, are inherent.

We would do what’s right because we feel that we should, and feel good doing what’s right. This type of benefit, though is not the ??? referred to in ??? ?? ??? ???? ???.

PAA: You haven’t explained why you should do something because it’s inherently good.

PAA – This more or less boils down to my confusion in your position. Shouldn’t you be using DY’s second point to prove your point? That the only reason why a person would do what’s right is for ones personal benefit. NOT because ???? ???? ???. If you accept that one should, does that answer your original problem?

PAA – I am not sure at which point you are arguing with me. Accepting my premise that there is such a thing as an innate sense of moral Right/Wrong (which is hardwired into our thinking as part of our psyche – the ultimate knowledge and perception of Right/Wrong), would one not be accountable by logical progression for performing an action that is morally categorized as Wrong?

Better yet, tell me what you would say if you where the judge in my story above. How would you answer my murderer?

PAA – There are two distinctly different discussions here: “What a person should do” = his duty, his obligation, what is correct. When you talk about why a person would, you are searching for an incentive which motivates him to perform the action.

Second Paragraph – I’m sorry, until you accept the truth of innate moral sensitivity, you cannot understand this.

And – I was hoping we wouldn’t get to this. Do you honestly believe you would say that the only reason why you have a problem with him killing is because he broke the law? And if he managed to pay a top notch lawyer to find him a legal loophole, then you don’t see any reason for him not to kill?! I’m afraid I don’t believe that.

I honestly can’t explain myself more than what I did already. I’ll try think about it from a different angle and present it again.

Patur Aval Assur,

In your first paragraph, what is the benefit if not the pleasure?

A person may not know what the benefit of his action is.

In your second paragraph, you don’t explain what the benefit of following the command was.

That’s right! There was no apparent benefit to him whatsoever. Hashem had already promised everything to Avraham that he could have possibly wanted, specifically through Yitzchak, but then Hashem requested him (??? ???) to bring Yizchak as an offering. Avraham did it simply because Hashem asked him to, because he believed that if Hashem asked it, there was benefit to it.

My point from the terrorist is that as long as you think you are fulfilling your purpose, you have the same “good feeling” regardless of whether you fulfilled your actual purpose. (This is based on your assumption that the terrorist feels good.)

So, what’s the question?

Patur Aval Assur,

So you are saying that Avraham did it for a benefit. Which means you are agreeing with me.

Not exactly. Avraham Aveinu saw no benefits to the akeida. He was already promised everything he wanted, and Hashem now was asking him to give up the vehicle of that promise. And this wasn’t something like sacrificing Yitzchak to save someone else, or stop an asteroid from hitting the Earth, or even to make a public kiddush Hashem (they were alone on the mountain) or anything else where a benefit could be derived, either for himself or anyone else. All Avraham knew was that Hashem had asked him to do this. Avraham trusted in Hashem – that he wasn’t capricious.

How is that the same as doing something for a benefit?

That even within your system where the ultimate benefit is the good feeling of fulfilling your purpose, a good person is no better off than a terrorist.

I think you do not understand my “system”.

Hashem created a dynamic universe that is affected by action. He created two categories to describe the effects of any action: good and bad. He created human beings who have the power to consciously choose what actions to take. He also created for humans a two-category system that parallels his good and bad categories: truth and falsehood. He created within human beings an innate sense of responsibility to seek the truth and reject falsehood – that is why Adam and Chava were accountable for their choice in the garden. Adam and Chava ate from the tree of knowledge of good and bad, and therefore ingested their own system of good and bad that is fundamentally independent from the system of truth and falsehood and Hashem’s good and bad. This muddied our ability to discern truth and falsehood, because we can confuse it with our own sense of good and bad. So our good feelings have nothing to do with whether an act is beneficial (true) or not. Whether we align our feelings with truth and falsehood is up to us, but it doesn’t change our responsibility.

So why would/should we do what Hashem wants simply because it is the truth? Because that is how we were created. It shouldn’t even be a question, and only is because of the disalignment between our human sense of good and bad and Hashem’s.

Avram in MD – I think you are working along the lines I was trying before I gave it up as a waste of time. We are designed to sense the difference between Good and Bad. Everybody has an innate sense of moral sense, and understands that moral integrity is the ‘right’ thing to do. PAA – you keep asking what Right means, and why we should care about it. Irrelevant. The fact that we have this chemical irregularity inside us distinguishing every action into either a ‘Good’ or ‘Bad’ category, our sense is obligating us not to do it. The guilt one feels is not the ???? but a ???? to something which may not make sense logically, but exists.

It is wrong. So don’t do it.

Actually, the tzivui of the akeidah was against inherent morality, which is one pshat in why it was such a big nisayon.

Patur Aval Assur,

I don’t see how you are answering the question. Do you think that it makes sense to do something for absolutely no benefit whatsoever?

I’ll restate my position as clearly as possible.

1. Every action possible in the universe falls into one of two categories: benefit or harm.

2. This is true whether or not we humans understand the benefit or harm of the action.

3. We were created to know that we are responsible for acting beneficially, not harmfully. This is completely independent of whether we know what benefit or harm there is in an act.

4. Your question restated in this framework is then: why should we refrain from overriding 3? That itself is an action. Therefore, the burden of proof is now on you. Why would you purposefully override your created state?

If yes, then why?

Why not?

Patur Aval Assur,

First he asserts that there is always a benefit (even if unknown) which seems to agree with me,

Yes, though you seem bent on reframing my broader definition of benefit to personal benefit.

but then he says that you need a reason to go against your purpose. However, I never suggested that you SHOULD go against your purpose;

Ok, so why would you go against your purpose? 🙂

only that there is nothing forcing you to follow it,

Correct. That is the definition of free will.

and therefore if for whatever reason you want to do something that is against your purpose, there should be no problem.

How does that follow?

Patur Aval Assur, I guess you understand ??? ????? ??? ??? more literally than I do.

Patur Aval Assur,

I am reframing it because if it is not personal then there is no reason to do it.

Yes indeed, that is the axis of our disagreement.

Any number of reasons. E.g. you like money so you want to steal. Or you are jealous of someone so you want to kill him. Etc. Etc.

I would argue that the vast majority of people who do stuff like that do not A) Discover what their purpose in life is, and B) Consciously reject it.

Note that my point is not so much that there should be nothing stopping you from killing or stealing inasmuch as it is that you shouldn’t think that you’re a good person for giving up the stealing and killing, since you are only giving it up because you are getting something even better.

That’s balderdash (feel free to quote me on your report cards thread – emoticon).

A person who’s anger flares up, but refrains from killing because he thinks it’s wrong through reciprocal “golden rule” reasoning is better than a person who refrains simply because he’s afraid of getting jailed or executed, even though both are refraining in order to “get something better.” Why? Because once the police are removed from the equation, the former person would kill, while the latter would continue to refrain. We could probably derive some circumstance which would remove the inhibition from the latter guy too. The point that our sages are trying to make is that the ideal for us is to elevate our reasoning to the point where nothing can remove the inhibition to sin. With an animal this is impossible, but Judaism posits that this is possible for human beings.

At the end of the day, you are absolutely right in your reasoning … from the point of view of an animal. Animals are motivated purely by their perception of what is beneficial to them. Most humans are too, but we have the potential to elevate ourselves beyond this reasoning, because we were created b’tzelem Elokim, Who created the universe even though there was no “benefit” to Him. But it’s a waste of breath to try and explain this to an animal, because how could you describe colors to someone who was born completely blind? It would make no sense.

Patur Aval Assur,

You are saying either that there is value, or that even though there is no value one should still refrain from killing (I’m not sure which one you are saying).

I’m saying there is value – although there is no guarantee that a human can see or understand that value.

or else carefully delineate what the value is, which I feel you have not done as of yet.

This is an unreasonable constraint, and is why I previously said that your conundrum was artificial.

I agree with you that both human beings and animals would only want to do things that are valuable. The difference between them is that animals are capable of seeing an action as valuable only if they understand what the value is for them (your demand). This is why I keep relating your arguments to the animal perspective. Humans, on the other hand, do not have this constraint. Hashem can tell us that an act has value, and we can believe Him and do it, even if we have no understanding of what the value is.

Patur Aval Assur,

(This is assuming it has value to us. If not then there is no reason to do it.)

Nope, I reject this parenthetical, because it contradicts what you were willing to accept above (that you don’t know what the value is).

So you are agreeing that the reason to do something is that it is valuable, as opposed to simply because it is the ???.

What is the ??? if not the ultimate value of an act?

So do you also agree to the point that follows from that, namely that someone who saves someone is no better than someone who kills someone, since they are both simply pursuing value?

No, because one value can be better or worse than another.