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The Autonomy of Reason, Revealed Morality and Jewish Law
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
Extract
I have found that religious philosophers sometimes commit what might be called the fallacy of misplaced argumentation. Permit me to explain.
Any fully developed system of thought contains many assertions about the world. Yet this proliferation of assertions can be traced back to several underlying propositions which are their logical forebears. This is because large-scale theories generally grow out of fundamental intuitions or conceptual stances. These fundamental intuitions become formulated into theory-embedded, second-order propositions. Understanding the centrality of second-order propositions is essential to understanding the theory which they generate, with its numerous first-order assertions about the world.
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page 424 note 1 Emil Fackenheim's views on the matter have appeared in numerous places, but his basic thesis remains the same. See his ‘The Revealed Morality of Judaism and Modern Thought’, reprinted in his Quest for Past and Future: Essays in Jewish Theology (Boston: Beacon Press, 1970), which first appeared in Rediscovering Judaism, ed. Wolf, Arnold (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1965).Google Scholar See also his Encounters Between Judaism and Modern Philosophy. (New York: Basic Books, 1972)Google Scholar, for a slightly revised version of the same thesis. Norbert Samuelson has discussed this problem in his ‘Revealed Morality and Modern Thought’, CCAR Journal, 06, 1969.Google Scholar Fackenheim's position is discussed at some length from the existentialist perspective by Ellenson, David in his ‘Emil Fackenheim and the Revealed Morality of Judaism’, Judaism, XXV (1976), 402–13.Google Scholar
page 424 note 2 RW, trans. Greene, T. and Hudson, H. (New York: 1960), Harper Torchbooks, p. 116.Google Scholar
page 424 note 3 Ibid. For a discussion of Kant's other arguments see, among others, Jewish Identity in an Age of Ideologies (New York: Jacob Agus, 1978), pp. 38–81.Google Scholar
page 425 note 1 In the first section of Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals he argues that ‘nothing in the world…can possibly be conceived which could be called good without qualification except a good will’ (Ak. 393). To have moral worth, Kant argues, an action must be done from a submission of the will to duty, regardless of the worth of the purpose to be achieved from the action (Ak. 399). For references, see footnote 6.
page 426 note 1 See A Rabbinic Anthology, Montefiore and Loewe, Chapter x for numerous additional sources in Rabbinic literature which emphasize the importance of the will.
page 426 note 2 Kant is a notoriously difficult philosopher to understand, because of his style, the complexity of his views, their interrelationship with other aspects of his overall philosophical system, as well as the sometimes maddening opacity in his key points. I do not claim to have avoided all (or even most) interpretive pitfalls in my discussion of his views. I shall, however, acknowledge my indebtedness to Wolff, R. P., The Autonomy of Reason: A Commentary on Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (New York: Harper, 1973).Google Scholar I shall focus here on Kant's discussion of the Principle of Autonomy in the Groundwork. All quotations are from the Lewis White Beck translation; pages refer to the Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenchaft (Ak.) edition (Berlin, 1902–1938).Google Scholar
page 427 note 1 I have taken the beginnings of a stand on a matter of some difficulty in Kant: why ought Ito choose to obligate myself to act morally if only my choice does the obligating?
page 427 note 2 Whether or not ritual laws satisfy the universality condition is (fortunately) not important for our concerns here.
page 428 note 1 Rediscovering Judaism, op. cit. p. 67.
page 428 note 2 Samuelson (loc. cit.) raises several other problems, none of which find very troubling. See too the article by Ellenson (loc. cit.).
page 428 note 3 Samuelson, cited above, adopts this approach, but for a different reason.
page 431 note 1 Berakot 33b.
page 432 note 1 See Frankenas', William article ‘Is Morality Logically Dependent Upon Religion?’ in Religion and Morality, ed. Outka, G. and Reeder, J. P. Jr, (Anchor Press, 1973).Google Scholar
page 433 note 1 Midrash Tanhuma, Ki Savo, aleph; Buber edition, 3:46. Translation mine.
page 434 note 1 See Wolff, R. P., In Defense of Anarchism (New York: Harper, 1971).Google Scholar
page 435 note 1 See Ross, J. F., Philosophical Theology (Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill, 1969).Google Scholar
page 436 note 1 See Wolff, R. P., Autonomy of Reason, pp. 180–1.Google Scholar For a limited discussion of this argument, see Wolff, , In Defense of Anarchism, pp. 12–15.Google Scholar
page 437 note 1 This is connected with Kant's distinction between the noumenal and phenomenal selves, and his solution to the problem of determinism. Unfortunately I cannot go into these difficult matters here.