Should we clone people? Is there such a thing as a life not worth living? When is it correct to go to war? Is terrorism always wrong? Is there anything wrong with same sex marriages? Can abortion ever be legitimised? The list of 21st century ethical dilemmas is endless. The key issue in this regard is how and on what biases do we answer these ethical dilemmas? Indeed this is a question that concerned the earliest philosophers.
In western philosophy there are generally three views as to the origin of ethics: firstly there is the “Divine Command Theory of Ethics[1]” which contends that ethics originates from God – that which God commands is arbitrarily good and ethical. The counterargument to this maintains that this view leads to the absurdity where God can, in theory, decree adultery to be ethical. If one argues that God cannot do this one is admitting that ethical standards are set by something outside God.
Following on from the “Divine Command Theory” is the “Theory of Forms”, put forward by Plato, which holds that there is an independent form outside of God which is the absolute standard of morality and ethics. The problem here is that this absolute standard was never revealed to a spatio-temporal world therefore one could never be certain that one has attained the absolute standard of ethics. We therefore face the original dilemma: what is ethical?
The third view holds that all knowledge is relative to the individual, in which case there cannot be absolute morality: all ethics are relative to circumstances, people and cultures. This view too is problematic because, taken to its logical conclusion, there is no such thing as ethics at all.[2]
There is an enigmatic verse in the Torah that seems to relate directly to this debate. God tells Moses, “Speak to the entire congregation of the children of Israel, and say to them, You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.[3]” The command “You shall be holy” elicits debate among the commentators. Some hold that it means that one should be particularly careful in matters of sexual morality[4]. Predicating their view on the Talmud, others maintain that it refers to the need to remain self-disciplined even in matters which carry no Torah prohibition. According to this “You shall be holy” implores one always to be abstemious and self-disciplined when it comes to material pleasures[5]. Interestingly this interpretation of the verse is identical to Aristotle’s view on how human ethical conduct is to be determined.
“You shall be holy for I, the Lord, your God, am holy” may seem a rather vague argument for ethical conduct, however it encapsulates a tremendously deep explanation regarding the origins of ethics. God created man “in His image”. According to the Kabbalists this verse indicates that God has attributes. In the Kabbalistic system there are ten Godly attributes, three of which are intellectual and seven emotional. It must be noted however that the Godly attributes are perfect and infinitely different to those of humans. So when the Torah says that the fact that God is ethical (holy) is a reason for humans to be ethical (holy) it means that the origin of morality came from God Himself. The perfect form, the standard bearer for perfect morals – which Plato identified as being outside God – in fact originates from within God Himself. God is revealing that the ethical laws that are written in the Torah are not just relative moral laws or an intellectual analysis of human nature leading to educated guesses regarding what is and what is not ethical[6]. No, the ethical laws found in the Torah are a Godly revelation of that Divine perfect form which is a paradigm for ethical human conduct. Indeed there is no surer way to be certain of what is ethical and what is not than to have the standard bearer of ethical conduct reveal it to us.
So when confronted with the massive ethical dilemmas of the 21st century there is only one place to turn for the answers – to the perfect form which is the origin of ethics as manifested in the Torah.
[1] See regarding this “The Euthyphro Dilemma” found in Plato’s ‘The Last Days of Socrates.’
[2] For an excellent summery of these views in greater detail see, Peter Vardy and Paul Grosch in their ‘The Puzzle of Ethics.’
[3] Leviticus 19:2.
[4] Rashi.
[5] Nachmanadies.
[6] This is known as, “The Natural Law Approach to Morality” put forward by Thomas Aquinas.