Sago Boulevard

The latest philosophy carnival is up at The Uncredible Hallq.

There’s a common and particularly annoying view often taken in defense of pluralism that sounds like this: There is no one “correct” answer and therefore many legitimate approaches, but here’s what I believe and why I believe it.

Daniel Sieradski of Radical Torah takes a similar position in describing the purpose of his blog.

The challenge of Radical Torah will be to demonstrate that a Left-wing religious Judaism is possible and legitimate as well. There is not one “correct” Judaism. Rather, there are several legitimate Judaisms from which to choose.

The problem is that Sieradski goes on to argue for what he considers to be left-wing religious Judaism. He’s then in the awkward position of supporting one view while conceding that there is no correct view. If there’s no correct view, then clearly his position isn’t correct either. And if it isn’t correct, why in the world is he arguing for it?

A common reply is to note the quotation marks around “correct”. He doesn’t actually mean that there’s no right answer, he might argue. It’s just that there no single “correct” or objectively true answer out there. Instead, there are various legitimate positions for us to choose from. But what criteria should use to decide? If we’re not trying to figure out an objective truth, then what are we doing? Sieradski says he’s choosing the “halakhic framework [that] resonates most strongly with [him].” If I criticize his position, though, I assume he would hold his ground and argue for why he believes it. by doing so, he effectively concedes that he believes his view has some advantage over mine.

He may respond that even granting me this point, he still doesn’t have to maintain that his view is absolutely correct. But that is besides the point. When he says that his view has an advantage over mine, he implies that it is therefore closer to the truth. And the only way for him to argue for his position is to make this kind of claim.

In the halakhic context, Sieradski might throw back at me what he says earlier in the same paragraph:

Between the 12 tribes of Israel and “70 faces of Torah,” there are indeed many “Judaisms.”

That is to say that Judaism itself recognizes some form of pluralism. I think that’s true but not in the way Sieradski means it. Judaism’s celebration of diversity and disagreement among the rabbis doesn’t mean that particular questions of law and ideology have no right answer. Rather, the disagreement itself - the act of deciphering God’s will - has a religious dimension. As long as this motive is present the disagreement is considered leshem shamayim (for the sake of heaven).

Plenty has been written about Pat Robertson’s suggestion that “Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s stroke was divine retribution for the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.” Rabbi Hillel Goldberg, guest posting at Cross-Currents, suggests that while Robertson’s comment was “foolish and off base”, it may have a kernal of truth.

In Robertson’s case… it is only his presumptuousness that I find shocking. He pretends to know what G-d is thinking. Prophecy, he forgot, ended with Zechariah some 2,500 years ago.

In another way, though, Robertson utters a simple truth, which his crude logic makes easy to ignore. This truth is a basic one. It is the foundation of the Hebrew Bible and indeed of Judaism: G-d cares about humanity and intervenes in human affairs, of both the individual and the community.

I understand what’s bothering Rabbi Goldberg. He’s right that we assume God is always in charge, and thus the suggestion that our current hardships are the result of our sins is merely presumptuous but not beyong the pale. That said, there may be something additional wrong with such a comment. Consider Zechariah 3:1-4:

He showed me Yehoshua, the High Priest, standing before the angel of God, and Satan standing on his right side, to accuse him. God said to Satan: “God rebukes you, Satan; God – Who has chosen Jerusalem – rebukes you. Is this [man] not a brand plucked from the fire?” Yehoshua was clothed in filthy garments, and he stood before the angel. He answered and said to those standing before him, saying: “Remove the filthy garments from upon him.” And he said to him: “See, I have removed your sin from upon you, and I shall clothe you in festive garments.”

R. Aharon Lichtenstein elaborates:

God silences Satan not because Satan’s claims are untrue - the “garments” are indeed “filthy.” Rather, God tells Satan: Without any connection to the correctness of the actions or to the truth of your words, it is forbidden for you, Satan, to voice this accusation!

Why does God not let Satan voice his accusation? Because the man is question is a “brand plucked from the fire.” A brand plucked from the fire – even if his garments are filthy – must be treated differently. At this moment, although he presents truthful accusations and substantial claims, Satan must keep silent.
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All too often, we hear people claiming, “Why was there a Holocaust? Because their garments were filthy” – i.e., the generation was sinful. These people should be told that it is none of our business to determine the degree of “filth” on the garments. To them we say unequivocally: “God rebukes you, Satan; God – Who chooses Jerusalem – rebukes you!” Such talk is forbidden!

It is forbidden not because it is inconceivable, but because such explanations are in the realm of prophets, and perhaps Chazal – but we? Who gave us the right to speak in such terms?

Every Jew today – and the State of Israel and Jewish People as whole – is, to some extent, a “brand plucked from the fire,” and the Holy One rebukes those who bring accusations against him.

Krum as a bagel has a good post on one of R. Soloveitchik’s most important essays, “Catharsis” (Tradition, Spring 1978). Krum’s particular interest is the implication it has for apparent discrepancies between Torah and science. The Rav writes:

Judaism insisted upon the redeeming of the logos and maintained that there is an unredeemed cognitive gesture, just as there is an unredeemed carnal drive… I do not refer to mythical thinking… but to the most modern system of scientific inquiry. The latter may be considered unredeemed if the scientist does not subject his cognitive act to an extraneous catharsis… I do not mean to suggest that the scientist should conduct his inquiry without thoroughness or inconclusively. On the contrary every scholar is guided intuitively by an ethical norm, which tells him to search the truth assiduously and not to rest until he has it within his reach. Cognitive withdrawal is related, not to the scientific inquiry as a logical operation, but rather to the axiological experience of scientific work. Knowing is not an impersonal performance which can be computerized, emptied of its rich, colorful, experiential content. It is, instead, an integral part of the knower as a living person… Next to the religious experience, knowledge is perhaps the most vibrant and resonant personal experience. It sweeps the whole of the personality, sometimes like a gentle wave infusing the knower with a sense of tranquillity and serenity; at other times like a mighty onrushing tide, arousing the soul to its depth and raising it to a pitch of ecstasy.

This touches on an important recurring theme in R. Soloveitchik’s writings, in particular as it relates to Torah study: the experience of knowledge. In the Rav’s understanding, our encounter with the world has two elements, the quantitative and the qualitative. Much of the Rav’s writing deals with the relationship between these two approaches to knowledge. R. Zeigler elaborates on this point in his notes on “Catharsis“:

In the scientific realm, cognitive catharsis implies recognizing the ultimate mystery of being… [O]nce a certain phenomenon has been assigned a scientific explanation, this does not imply that there is nothing more to be said about it. According to a theory of science subscribed to by the Rav, modern science merely creates an abstract mathematical world which parallels the functioning of nature. This quantitative correlate is useful as far as technology is concerned, but it operates on a wholly different plane than the qualitative world experienced by us. We experience not a world of abstract quantities, but rather one of living qualities, of impressions and sensations. An equation describing the flight of a bird or the wavelength of a red flower cannot elucidate the great mystery of qualitative being, in which we live our lives and to which we react with awe and wonder.

Attention fellow hockey fans: James Mirtle has compiled a complete listing of hockey blogs (via Ranger Pundit).

I had assumed that Likud Party leader Bibi Netanyahu was avoiding the spotlight so as not to seem eager to replace Sharon. He seems to be resurfacing now, laying out positions on key issues at a conference in Herzliya (via Nephtuli).

Speaking at the Herzliya Conference, the former prime minister also said he favors immediate steps to reduce friction with the Palestinian population, including decreasing the number of checkpoints and increasing freedom of movement along roads.

Netanyahu aides called it a defining speech that sets out the Likud’s updated platform and positions it on the center-right side of the political map.
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Netanyahu said: “I say once again: obviously peace negotiations will involve concessions by both sides, that is also by the Israeli side. Before any peace agreement involving concessions, there will be a referendum to allow the Israeli public to decide directly on territorial determinations.”

With Netanyahu trying to appeal to Israel’s center, he’s not sounding that different from Sharon (although what he’d actually do in office is another story). The only explicit difference in policy seems to be opposition to unilateral withdrawals.

Your Blogging Type is Confident and Insightful

You’ve got a ton of brain power, and you leverage it into brilliant blog. Both creative and logical, you come up with amazing ideas and insights. A total perfectionist, you find yourself revising and rewriting posts a lot of the time. You blog for yourself - and you don’t care how popular (or unpopular) your blog is!

To my regular readers, how accurate do you think this is?

Yet another scientist misunderstands religious epistemology. Harvard biology professor emeritus Edward O. Wilson says about intelligent design (via Ektopos):

Unfortunately, no positive evidence exists for such a claim. No scientific theory has been proffered or even imagined to explain the transcription from a supernatural force to organic reality. This absence of the elementary requirements of science is why intelligent design is better taught as religion or science fiction.

But religion doesn’t need “postive evidence” in the way Wilson uses the term. In attacking intelligent design as unscientific, he assumes that so-called scientific evidence ought to have a privileged place in our thinking. He’s right about one thing. Intelligent design isn’t science and thus doesn’t belong in a science class. But Wilson’s claim goes further:

Religious conservatives risk a loss in credibility by signing on to intelligent design in the absence of a testable theory or positive evidence. Research biologists are in the business of uncovering steps for the autonomous origin of complex systems, and they have become very good at it. As the number of unsolved systems dwindles, so will the idea that a supernatural force intervenes in evolution.

Science is a legitimate and fruitful path to knowledge about the world. But it simply isn’t the only one. All Wilson points to is lack of scientific evidence.

The religious personality need not reject anything in science. What religion demands is the recognition that the prophetic encounter with God is also a legitimate and fruitful path to knowledge. This is what I think it means to think religiously or to have faith. I’m willing to debate this point on philosophical grounds but simply noting “the absence of a testable theory or positive evidence” misses the point completely.

This week’s question for The Ethicist:

I am a subspecialty physician without primary responsibility for patients. I consulted on the care of the C.E.O. of a major company, the seriousness of whose illness was not being fully disclosed to shareholders. I own stock in this company. Once I complete my consultation, may I ethically sell my shares, motivated by the information I gained as a doctor?

The Ethicist answers:

Medical ethics do not forbid this trade, but investor ethics - a curious phrase, given recent headlines - do, so you may not make this sale.
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“The physician runs a very serious risk that his stock trade could be deemed illegal insider trading under what we call the ‘misappropriation’ theory,”… That is, material gained in a confidential relationship like that between a doctor and patient may not be used to trade stock.

Now I understand that insider trading gives an unfair advantage. But in this case, the doctor came across the information entirely by accident. If you work for a public corporation, you tacitly consent to the limit on your ability to freely buy and sell stocks. The doctor didn’t. What if somebody is on the hospital bed next to the CEO when such a conversation takes place. Is he also now bound by insider-trading regulations?

This also may not be a case of “material gained in a confidential relationship”. The doctor-patient relationship certainly is, but what if the information in question came out of an informal aside? I don’t mean to split hairs here but I think Cohen is doing exactly that.

The ethical claim against selling the stock seem dubious. Of course, if in fact it’s illegal, that’s a different story.

From the Gemara in Berakhot 4b:

The master said: “One should read Keri’at Shema and then pray [the Amida].” This supports Rabbi Yochanan, as Rabbi Yochanan said: “Who will merit the World to Come (Olam Ha-ba)? One who juxtaposes redemption [the blessing of Ga’al Yisra’el] with the evening prayer.”

My rebbe, R. Yitzchak Blau cites the interpretation of the students of Rabbeinu Yonah:

We link redemption and prayer because prayer, often referred to as avoda she-balev (service of the heart), exemplifies service of Hashem. This illustrates the fact that we do not view the exodus from Egypt as a self-sufficient act. No one can deny the joys of freedom, but the question remains what a person will accomplish with such freedom. Therefore, the Exodus from Egypt (Yetzi’at Mitzrayim) was only complete when the Jewish people accepted the Torah at Sinai (Matan Torah). We convey this point each day by following up our prayers about the Exodus with the quintessential avodat Hashem.
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Ultimately, freedom is not meaningful without a vision of how to live a noble existence. Jewish history is significant not because we became free, but because we accepted the divine laws of the Torah.

Freedom, though a noble political value seems slightly out of place in a religious context. In this vein, a professor of mine used to offer the analogy of an orchestra. If musicians in a symphony play whatever please, each according to his own rhythm, that may be freedom. But freedom, in this sense, isn’t the appropriate value for an orchestra, whose function is to create beautiful music. The players should be free but must use that freedom to obey the notes on the page.

Similarly, the Gemara teaches that the freedom granted to Israel in leaving Egypt is of a specific type. The beautiful music is created when that freedom is used to worship God.

Professor Volokh writes about his article Deterring Speech: When Is It “McCarthyism”? When Is It Proper? dealing with when economic retaliation against unpopular speech is justified. When the Dixie Chicks announced they were ashamed that President Bush is from Texas some music stations stopped playing their music. MCI stopped using Danny Glover in its commercials apparently because he opposed the Iraq war and defended Fidel Castro. Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, and Sean Penn all experieced backlashes for similar unpopluar positions.

While I think it’s inappropriate (and possibly illegal) in general for employers to discriminate on a political basis, entertainment warrants an exception. As Volokh explains:

Entertainers are valued speakers because people like them. Danny Glover makes a good pitchman for MCI because people feel good about him: If MCI simply wanted someone who could act well in its commercials, it could have hired a nameless actor for much less. Susan Sarandon was invited to speak to the United Way because people want to hear the well-liked movie star Susan Sarandon, not because Sarandon is a national expert on women in volunteerism. People go to movies largely because they like the stars’ work, but also because they like the stars or at least like the image that the stars project; the same is true for musicians. That’s a big part of why entertainers have publicists.

When people stop liking you, whether because they think that you’re rude, vulgar, or foolish, your value as a speaker or pitchman falls. People are less likely to want to hear you or buy products that you promote. Those who hire you, invite you, or play your music might understandably switch to someone who alienates fewer audience members. What you gain from your sex appeal, coolness, or association with worthy causes, you lose from what people see as your rudeness, folly, hostility to projects they support, or association with causes they dislike. Tolerance demands that people neither beat you up for your views nor throw you in jail for them. But it doesn’t demand that people continue to like you—and if they don’t like you, then you won’t be as effective a promoter.

Leo Strauss in “Jerusalem and Athens”:

The concept of culture is an outgrowth of nineteenth-century Western culture; its application to “cultures” of other ages and climates is an act stemming from the spiritual imperialism of that particular culture. There is then a glaring contradiction between the claimed objectivity of the science of culture and the radical subjectivity of that science… [O]ne cannot behold, i.e., truly understand, any culture unless one is firmly rooted in one’s own culture… But if the universality of the beholding of all cultures is to be preserved, the culture to which the beholder of all cultures belongs must be the universal culture; the universality of beholding presupposes, if only by anticipating it, the universal culture which is no longer one culture among many. The variety of cultures that have hitherto emerged contradicts the oneness of truth.

I’m going away for the week. Blogging will resume after Thursday.

Rad Geek, guest-blogging at Philosophy, et cetera, offers a careful and thorough analysis of some arguments for and against ethical vegetarianism (via Philosophers’ Carnival #24). He does a good job getting at the important subtleties in some of the key arguments. I think his discussion of “aristotelian categoricals” may shed light on other issues in ethical theory, specifically the possibily of virtue ethics.

Philosophers’ Carnival #24 is up at Rad Geek People’s Daily.

Leibniz on Intelligent Design (via Kenny Pearce):

We know that while there have been, on the one hand, able philosophers who recognized nothing except what is material in the universe, there are, on the other hand, learned and zealous theologians who, shocked at the corpuscular philosophy and not content with checking it’s misuse, have felt obliged to maintain that there are phenomena in nature which cannot be explained by mechanical principles; as for example, light, weight, and elastic force. But since they do not reason with exactness in this matter, and it is easy for the corpuscular philosophers to reply to them, they injure religion in trying to render it service, for they merely confirm those in their error who recognize only material principles. The true middle term for satisfying both truth and piety is this: all natural phenomena could be explained mechanically if we understood them well enough, but the principles of mechanics themselves cannot be explained geometrically, since they depend on more sublime principles which show the wisdom of the Author in the order and perfection of his work.

Madeleine Bunting picks up on what I think is the most serious problem of Richard Dawkins’ brand of secular humanism. (via Mr. Grouchypants) It simpy “hasn’t generated a compelling popular narrative and ethic of what it is to be human and our place in the cosmos.” The misguided alliance of atheism and science further obfuscates the key issues. Science will never tell us why we are here and what our role is in relationship to the world that we perceive around us.

To be fair, many claims made by religious institutions may be and have been debunked by scientific discovery. But religion per se, humanity’s search for God and its subsequent relationship with Him, remains completely unscathed. When pushed against the wall, the secular humanist merely plays the skeptic’s card, seeming not to realize that it cuts both ways.

I’m still waiting for a positive atheistic-humanistic worldview that can hold its own with the great religious traditions of the ages, in both scope and depth, while maintaining the strict logical rigor that critics demand of theologians.

Here’s a new one. A Black police bodyguard for British royalty sues Scotland Yard for “over-promoting” him in the name of political correctness. (hat tip: Dean)

His representatives argued he landed the prestigious job as Camilla’s bodyguard only because he was black.

It was claimed that as a result of being over-promoted and not receiving proper training and support, Sgt Turner made mistakes which led to him being re-assigned.

Turner was awarded $70,000 in compensation.

T. E. Lawrence (”Lawrence of Arabia”) in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom:

All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.

Amid a harsh critique of ailing Israeli PM Ariel Sharon, Richard Silverstein takes a swipe at Israeli democracy:

Israel is what I’d call a hybrid democracy. It is certainly not a true democracy in the sense that other western countries can claim to be.

Before we examine Silverstein’s poor argument for his thesis, let’s be perfectly clear about what democracy is. It is the self-government of a population. Check as many dictionaries and encyclopedias as you wish and you will find at least one common demoninator. Democracy entails that people have a right to determine the law that binds them.

Silverstein’s argument that Israel is merely a “hybrid democracy” is a veil for his criticism of Israeli institutions of which he doesn’t approve.

It has no constitution or bill of rights. It has no co-equal judiciary capable of engaging in effective checks and balances. The role of the military in Israeli life is much more prominent and intrusive than in other democracies. The security services are given far broader leeway to violate civil rights than in countries like our own. It is as if Israelis adapted, and watered down western democracy for the cold hard world of the Middle East.

Israel has an fiercely activist court that continues to fight for the civil rights of all citizens, both Jewish and Arab. Whether or not it is “capable of engaging in effective checks and balances” is a function of the institution, not of the democracy that establishes it. Even if we assume, falsely, that Israel’s high court is corrupt and entirely inept, it would say nothing of the quality of its democracy.

It is unfair to compare the military presence in Israel with that of any other western democracy. Israel is at war with its closest neighbors, many of whom travel freely throughout the country. Considering the urgency with which Israel must constantly respond to terror alerts, I would argue it maintains a remarkable record regarding civil rights.

All of this is besides the point, though. Israel is ruled by its people. Unpopular political leaders are regularly voted out of power and new parties freely arise to give a voice to another segment of Israeli society. That’s what democracy is.

The critical condition of Israeli PM Ariel Sharon has a faint silver lining. From Haaretz:

Israeli democracy deserves a high grade for the way in which it has dealt with the transfer of authority from an ailing prime minister, Ariel Sharon, to Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Despite the sudden change of circumstances, Sharon’s strong personal status and the political crisis that has enveloped Israel in the last few months, the support system for the political leadership has been functioning properly.
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Israel is considered to have strategic capabilities that only a few countries in the world possess. It is in a state of war with the Palestinians, Syria and Hezbollah, and the president of Iran wants to destroy it. Nonetheless, the shakeup in the Israeli leadership has not given rise to extraordinary public anxiety or to fears on the part of the international community.

Professor Bill Vallicella puts it well:

Wilfrid Sellars once likened the philosopher’s touch to that of King Midas. Whatever the king touched, turned into gold; whatever the philosopher touches turns into a puzzle. The trouble with this comparison is that it suggests that philosophers create their difficulties. Not so: they discover them. The problems are in a certain sense ‘out there’ independent of our linguistic and conceptual operations. Pace Wittgenstein, they are not engendered by a “bewtchment of our understanding by language”… Pace Rorty, they do not arise as artifacts of arbitrarily adopted ways of talking.

Those who quip that philosophy has little, if any, relationship to the so-called “real world”, do not have to look very far to be disabused of that notion. But to do philosophy is in fact quite difficult. It requires that you put everything you believe up for scrutiny with no guarantee that, at the end of the day, things will make sense again.

Clayton has an interesting discussion on Plantinga’s argument against the plausibility of evolutionary naturalism (how exactly you define the theory has philosophical implications that I want to avoid for now).

Plantinga’s argument reminds me of the one suggested by Bill Vallicella and cited by me here. I hope to post some thoughts on it after mulling it over for a little while. (I know I promised that already but it’s a tough issue and I’ve been applying to law school).

Stay tuned and, in the meantime, let me know what you think.

From Haaretz:

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a “significant” stroke with “massive bleeding” in his brain late Wednesday night, according to a Hadassah University Hospital official, and Sharon’s authority has been transferred to Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

In a brief statement outside the Jerusalem hospital, Dr. Shlomo Mor-Yosef said Sharon had suffered “a significant stroke,” adding that he was “under anesthetic and receiving breathing assistance.”

A few minutes later, Mor-Yosef emerged to say that initial tests showed Sharon had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, or bleeding inside his brain. Addressing reporters in English, Mor-Yosef said Sharon had “massive bleeding and was being transferred to an operating theater.”

An Arab couple is petitioning an Israeli court, claiming that the government policy of giving greater mortgage benefits to veterans of the military is discriminatory. (Via David Bernstein )

First, it should be pointed out that the couple, “based on the number of children and siblings they have,” is entitled to a NIS 207,000 mortgage by law. Had they served in the military, however, they would receive a mortgage of NIS 255,000. This discrepancy, according to the couple, is discriminatory.

But discriminatory against whom? Arab citizens are permitted to volunteer in the Israeli military, even if not many do. But that is besides the point. Veterans are awarded benefits because of their national service. They give up 3 years of their youth, delay education and career aspirations, and risk their lives. That Israeli Jews are drafted while Israeli Arabs may volunteer doesn’t strike me as a relevant difference.

I’d go a step further and argue that even if Arabs were not permitted to serve, it would still not justify this claim. In such a situation, I would be sympathetic to a law suit demanding that the Israeli military allow Arabs to serve, but not one demanding financial benefits as though they had served.

Consider the following analogy. If I am wrongly discriminated against in seeking employment in, say, the NYPD, it’s reasonable for me demand accountability and perhaps even compensation. But, when I turn 65, is it reasonable for me to demand that NYPD pay me a pension and award me other benefits on grounds that they discriminated against me? Of course not. The pension is payment for a life of service and only those who serve receive it. Similarly, the benefits Israel affords its veterans should be limited to, well, veterans.

I still getting comfortable with the WordPress interface so it will take a little while for me to get the things looking right. It’s a bit of a hassle to import my blogger archives so I may just do some favorite old posts manually.

That’s it for now. Change your bookmarks and blogrolls and come back soon.

I’ve been thinking about a distinction between “‘al pi din’ [according to the law] and ‘metzius’ [physical reality]” cited and partially endorsed by Godol Hador in a post last week. GH already noted the similarities with Brisker study and R. Soloveitchik’s refrain about “halakhic reality”.

While flipping through an old issue of The Torah u-Madda Journal, I reread an article by Mark Steiner, “Philosophizing in Yiddish: Rabbi Reuven Agushewitz on Freedom of the Will”. In it, he describes how R. Soloveitchik used the techniques of contemporary philosophy in articulating the hashfakah for which he is famous. As scientific discovery continues to wreck havoc in the batei midrash of Orthodox Judaism, I believe we will find ourselves, in one way or another, turning to the Rav for support.

[R. Soloveitchik] puts forward the idea that halakhic Judaism involves intrinsically an alternative description of the world to that of natural science.
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By reading the works of R. Soloveitchik, one gets an intuitive insight into the meaning of concepts like “freedom” as applied to halakhic man.

At the end of day, we may not need to work out a consistent understanding of Genesis and the natural sciences. The Torah describes creation in our language but from God’s perspective. As R. Soloveitchik himself writes:

There is a Bereishit-logic which reflects the wisdom of God embedded in nature.