Law and Ethics in Modern Jewish Philosophy: The Case of Moses Mendelssohn Author(s): Marvin Fox Source: Proceedings

of the American Academy for Jewish Research, Vol. 43 (1976), pp. 1-13 Published by: American Academy for Jewish Research Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3622541 . Accessed: 29/06/2011 11:41
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LAW AND ETHICS IN MODERN JEWISH PHILOSOPHY: THE CASE OF MOSES MENDELSSOHN
by MARVINFox

Brandeis University

Students of modern Jewish philosophical thought have rightly noted the special concern which is given to ethics by Jewish philosophers since the eighteenth century. Nathan Rotenstreich expresses the quality of this concern when he says, "What strikes us as new is the insistence on the primacy of ethics in the sphere of faith; traditional religion is divested of its beliefs in transcendence, and pressed into the service of morality."l This insistence on the primacy of ethics, and on the independent status of the ethical, represents a radical departure in Jewish thought. It is a position which is neither in harmony with the Biblical-rabbinic tradition, nor with the main lines of medieval Jewish philosophy. Neither the Bible, nor the Talmud knows of an independent realm of the ethical.2 Law and ethics are one, having a single source, namely, divine commandment. God, the creator and master of the world, has made his law known to man through the Torah of Moses. It is His commandments which obligate us, and his promise of reward and punishment which makes it prudent for us to observe His law. There is no distinction among the commandments either as to source or authenticity, nor are they distinguished by virtue of moral worth. The verse in the Torah which commands us to love our neighbor, supposedly the highest of moral
I Nathan Rotenstreich, Jewish Philosophy in Modern Times (New York,

1968), 6. 2 Those familiar rabbinic passages which are regularly cited as evidence that the rabbis recognized the independenceof the ethical, seem to me to be seriouslymisinterpreted. a discussionof this point, see my "Maimonides For and Aquinas on Natural Law," Dine Israel (Tel-Aviv University),III (1972), vi-ix. 1

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duties,is followedimmediately anotherwhichprohibits by kilayim and shaatnez. The rabbis,similarly, instructus to be equallymeticulous in the observanceof all the commandments, since we do not know whichmeritsa greateror lesserreward.3 It may be thoughtthat the situationis different when we come to the medievalJewish philosophers.As is well known, Saadia introduced into our literature term"rational the commandments", and thereare those who supposethat we have here the beginning of an independent ethic.4Carefulstudy will show, as I have tried to demonstrate that elsewhere,5 we do not have in Saadiaan ethic based on reason alone. This is not the place to argue out the detailsof that claim.It is sufficient take note of the indisputable to fact that Saadiahimself,despiteadmittedambiguities his posiin as tion, consistentlytreats the commandments divine law whose binding force lies in their divine origin. He says explicitlythat God first commandedus and in so doing, obligatedus to His will. It was only afterwards were able to discoverthat some we had of these commandments a basis in reason,6but they do not status. Moreover,among those commandments have independent as whichhe classifies rational,not all, by any means,wouldqualify as "ethical"in the usual modern sense. What is true of Saadia is true of the other medievalJewishphilosophers, despitethe tenof some modernthinkersto invoke the authorityof their dency an medievalpredecessors justifyclaimsthat Judaism to recognizes ethic apartfrom the law.7 independent
3 M. Abot, II, 1. 4 Sefer Emunotve-Deot, III, 1, 2, 3 and passim. 5 Cf. my "On the Rational Commandments Saadia'sPhilosophy: A Rein JewishEthics: TheoryandPractice(Columbus,Ohio Examination,"in Modern State UniversityPress, 1975), M. Fox (ed.), 174-187. 6 Emunotve-Deot, III, 1; cf., IV, 1 (end). 7 A strikingcase is that of HermannCohen who is so concernedto establish the rationality of the commandmentsas a fixed (and correct) doctrine of the medieval Jewish philosophers, that he manages to close his eyes to all the contraryevidence. As Leo Straussnotes in his IntroductoryEssay to the English translation of Cohen's Religion of Reason, Cohen praises Ibn of Daud "who had assigneda very low status to the 'prescriptions obedience'

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In contrast with the classical and medieval position, Jewish thinkerssince the 18th centuryhave been inclinedto treat ethics as an entity independentof the law and divine commandment. Whatever positivevaluethey may assignto divinecommandments as revealedin the Torah,they do not generallyconsiderthem to be a propersourceor foundationfor ethics. Moral principles, in and their view, are known independently are groundedin human of reason.As MoritzLazarus it, "An investigation the essence put and basisof the morallaw revealsthat Judaism everywhere clearly advancesthe thoughtthat not becauseGod has ordainedit is a has law moral,but becauseit is moral,therefore God ordained it. Not by divinecommanddoes the moralbecomelaw, but because its content is moral, and it would necessarily,even without an it becomelaw, therefore is enjoinedby God."8Lazarus ordinance, on to arguethat all ethics is autonomous,and could, theregoes fore, never derive from a heteronomousdivine commandment. What is of special interestis not the fact that a 19th century GermanJewishthinker reflects the deep influence of Kantian ethics, but ratherthat he makes a strong point of insisting that this is the lesson that Judaismhas always taught, and that he reads biblical and rabbinicstatementsso as to make them conformto this interpretation. Thus, he feels no hesitationabout assertingthat, "Moralitywas not createdby the Sinaiticcode; it
as distinguishedfrom 'the rational principles'..., Cohen ignores the fact that Ibn Daud says also - and this he says at the very end of his Emunah Ramah - that the 'prescriptions of obedience' are superior to the rational ones since they call for absolute obedience and submission to the divine will or for faith." In his Philosophieund Gesetz(p. 56), Strauss notes in the work of Julius Guttman the same tendency to argue that the medieval Jewish philosophersidentified Offenbarungswahrheit Vernunftwith wahreit.Both Guttman and Cohen managed to close their eyes to the texts which establish the contrary with respect to ethics. They also ignored the inner logic and the structureof the arguments,all of which make clear that, in the strict sense of the term "rational", there are no rational commandments accordingto the main tradition of medieval Jewish thought. 8 Moritz Lazarus, The Ethics of Judaism(Philadelphia, 1900), v. I, 111112.

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springs from its own and from man's peculiar nature. It could therefore be said, as it was, that 'Abraham observed all moral laws.' Reason was the source of his ethical instruction." We need only note that the text of the Mishnah in question reads that, "Abraham observed the entire Torah before it was given." For Lazarus it is apparently so clear that the moral law is independent that he distorts a totally unambiguous statement to conform to his views by identifying kol ha-Torahkulah with "all moral laws".9 The first great representative of modern Jewish thought was Moses Mendelssohn, and it is to his treatment of the status of ethics that we turn as our model case. Mendelssohn, as we know, was anxious to preserve the position of the law which he himself observed faithfully. At the same time, he was deeply affected by the dominant ideas of the German Enlightenment, among them the belief that all men must be granted equal status as moral agents, a status which should in no way be determined by religious faith. Mendelssohn set himself the task of bringing together classical Judaism and the Aufkldrung, seeking to guarantee the particularity of Judaism without compromising in any way the humanistic universalism which he most admired in the philosophers of his time. To achieve this goal Mendelssohn adopted his famous slogan that Judaism is not revealed religion but revealed legislation. According to him, the metaphysical truths on which Judaism rests are not peculiar to that one faith, nor are they known by way of divine revelation. They are eternal verities, known by way of unaided human reason, and, as such, are equally available to all men, in all times and places. What is, however, peculiar to Judaism is the special legislation which is contained in the commandments of the Torah. We must ask exactly what he believes
9 Ibid., 118. The referenceis to M. Kiddushin, 14. This portion of the IV, mishnah,as we have it in our printedtexts, is actuallynot part of the original text, but is an addition from a beraita,as Albeck points out in the notes to his edition. See also, Albeck's notes for other sources for the same aggadah. Any study of the passage makes it clear beyond any possible dispute that Lazarus' reading is tendentious and forces the text to conform to a preconception which it in no way fits.

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to be the status of ethics, and how he relates moral principles to the law. Since the law, which Mendelssohn believes to be directly revealed, includes all the so-called moral commandments, we might suppose that he would classify ethics as part of the special legislation given to the Jewish people. Obviously, this would be impossible for him since it would entail that morality was not available to us through human reason alone, and that the Jews have access to the saving power of the ethical commandments in a way that is closed to other people. In fact, Mendelssohn argues that reason alone is the ground of our moral obligation and the source of our knowledge of the ethical. This argument takes two forms; one is a systematic philosophic discussion in which the position is set forth and defended, and the other, an appeal to the Noahide laws as evidence from within the Jewish tradition itself that there is a natural moral law. The philosophical discussion occurs in Mendelssohn's prizeessay, "Abhandlungiiber die Evidenz in Metaphysischen Wissenschaften" of 1764. The fourth section of this essay deals with evidence for the fundamental principles of ethics.10 Mendelssohn begins with the confident assertion that, "It is not difficult to show that one can demonstrate the general principles of ethics with geometric rigor and force.'11 He cites as his authority a statement from the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, a statement which, like his own, only asserts that there is a rational natural moral law, but does not prove it. It is clear, as Altmann points out in his superb study of the early Mendelssohn,12 that Mendelssohn is reflectinghere the thought of John Locke among others,
10 Moses Mendelssohn, GesammelteSchriften,Jubilaumsausgabe, Vol. 2, 315-330. For extended discussions of this essay, see Alexander Altmann, Moses MendelssohnsFruhschriften Metaphsik (Tiibingen, 1969), Ch. 5, zur esp. 341-391, which deal with "Evidenz in der Sittenlehre,"and Alexander a Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn, Biographical Study (Philadelphia,1973), 125130. 11 Ibid., 315. 12 Op. cit., 341.

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to and it may be instructive note that though Lockerepeatsseveral he times his claim that morals are mathematically demonstrable, a demonstration. Unlikehis predecessors, neveractuallyofferssuch does attemptto demonstrate claim, or, at least, his Mendelssohn would proceed.The details to show how such a demonstration lie of that demonstration beyond the limits of our present discussion. What we need to know is only that he emergeswith a 'Law of Nature' that reads, "Make your own inner and outer condition, and that of your fellow-man,in proper proportion, as perfect as you can."13He believes himself to have proved that this is a universalmoral law, applying by severalarguments with equal force to all men, and bindingthem by virtue of their rationality. Among his argumentsis one which claims to show that this principleis in full accordwith God's will, but this does not lead to the conclusionthat we are obligatedto observethis law because it is God's command.Rather,it is God's commandbecauseHe, in His very nature,is only capableof willing what is best, and we, who are rationalbeings, are, in turn, bound to seek what is from the best. As Altmannexpresses this argument it, "proceeded that God createdthe worldfor a purpose.Since God assumption could have createdonly from wisdom and goodness, his design could have been none other than the perfectionof his creatures. Hence the 'law of nature'agreedwith the designof God, and we were imitators of God wheneverwe made ourselvesor others more perfect."14 an So far we have in Mendelssohn ethic which is rationaland autonomous.As rational,it is knowableby everyman who takes the trouble to reflect.As autonomous,it is independentof any externalsource of authority,sanction, or command.It accords with God's will, but it is not commandedby God in the sense that it is imposedupon man from without. It is true that Men13 "Mache deinen und deines Nebenmenschen innernund aussernZustand,

in gehorigerProportion, so vollkommen, als du kannst," Gesam.Schr., Jub. A., vol. 2, 317. 14 Altmann, Moses Alendelssohn, 127.

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that delssohn acknowledges individualpracticaldecisions cannot be made with the same geometriccertaintythat he ascribesto the generalprinciple,but this is, at worst, a practicaldifficulty that does not affect his general theoreticalposition. Moreover, he believes that even this practicaldifficultyis largely resolved that our naturalgood sense will lead us to throughthe assurance makecorrectpracticaldecisionsin line with the naturalmorallaw. of Whenwe turn to the internalJewishtreatment this theme in we encountervery seriousdifficulties, and Mendelssohn's thought exwe become awareof the grave problemsin his philosophical position, as well. The Jewish counterpartof the rational moral of law is, in his view, the seven commandments the Noahides. In his correspondence with Lavater,Mendelssohn explicitlyidentified the Noahide laws with the law of nature.15 Presumably, are then, these seven commandments the basic rules of an autonomousrationalethic, the very same ruleswhichhe had asserted with the rigor of a geoin his prize-essay could be demonstrated metricproof. Whoeverobservesthese is one of the hasideiummot ha-olamand is assuredof salvation.Now we must ask, as hardly any commentatorseems to have done, just what sense can be madeout of the claimthat the Noahidelaws arerationally demonstrable. Even if we grant to Mendelssohnhis claimed 'law of nature',namely,that we ought alwaysto seek to make ourselves and othersas perfectas possible,we cannotsee how it wouldlead us to the seven Noahide commandments. What, for example,is the relationship betweenhumanperfectionand not eatinga limb torn from a living animal?Or, how do we move from the principle of seeking human perfectionto the rule that homosexual relationsare forbiddenon pain of death, or that sexualrelations with one's sisterare similarlyforbiddenand on pain of the same penalty?Two things become clear once we raise such questions. First, we now see that we have no idea of what it is that Mendelssohn means by "perfection", and, second, whateverhe does mean we see no way to move from his theory of perfectionto
15 Jub. A., vol. 7, 11.

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the specific commandments addressed to all mankind under the Noahide rubric. In his 'geometric proof' Mendelssohn has given us little more than some verbal sleight of hand. He argues that the only true desire of a rational being can be its own perfection, hence, it is a rule of reason that we must always seek our own perfection. Unless the idea of 'perfection' has some content, the statement is a mere tautology. Yet, if we ask what is its content, we are met either by silence, or by the repetition of moral commonplaces. When we confront the specific case in which Mendelssohn offers us an accurate description of the content of a rational moral life, namely, in the case of the Noahide commandments, we find it impossible to relate these in any necessary way to the idea of human perfection. Mendelssohn was deeply disturbed by the fact that Maimonides had insisted in his Mishneh Torah, that those who observe the Noahide commandments are truly meritorious, i.e. worthy of olam ha-ba, only if they observe them out of the faith that they were commanded by God through Moses.16 Maimonides is saying that, however pre-Sinaitic generations may have known of the seven commandments, after the revelation at Sinai the Torah is the only source through which these commandments are known. Mendelssohn views this as a terrible kind of insularity and lack of tolerance. It seems to make the salvation of all men dependent on a particular revelation and to deprive all those who happen not to know of the revelation at Sinai of any opportunity for final bliss. In his famous letter to Rabbi Jacob Emden,17 Mendelssohn pleads with him to clarify this totally unacceptable ruling of Maimonides. He understands correctly that Maimonides makes this ruling because he holds that moral principles are not subject to any kind of rational demonstration and that, in fact, they have
16 M.T., H. Mekkhim, VIII, 11. For a discussion of this passage, see Steven S. Schwarzschild,"Do Noachites have to Believe in Revelation?" JQR, 57, 4 (April, 1962) and my paper cited in note 2 above. 17 Jub. A., vol. 16, 178f.

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no truth-value. Consequently, unless one can depend on revelation, there is no source for morality except social convention. Mendelssohn's response is that, contra Maimonides, he has "clear and sound demonstrations concerning good and evil, right and wrong, beautiful and ugly, showing that they are all truly rational principles." To our sorrow, neither in this letter, nor elsewhere in his writings, does he set forth for us these demonstrative principles. If the Noahide commandments are examples of what Mendelssohn considers to be rationally demonstrated moral rules, he completely fails to show how he arrives at the conclusion that they are, in fact, rationally demonstrable. Similar problems are present throughout his discussion of these topics in his Jerusalem. On the one hand, he wants to preserve his theory of a natural moral law which is accessible to all men by way of their unaided reason. At the same time, he wants to insure the position of Jewish law as the specially revealed legislation directed to the Israelites. He never addresses himself to the obvious puzzle, namely, that the revealed law also contains ethical prescriptions which he considers, at the same time, to be part of the natural moral law. Why are they, then, even included in the revealed law, and what is their status? Are they specially revealed legislation, or are they natural law? To this there is an implicit reply when Mendelssohn contends that "natural laws are nothing but the expression of the divine will," and that for one who understands this "the moral teachings of reason will be as sacred... as those of religion."18 Surely, in this context "divine will" cannot mean that which has been specially revealed at Sinai. If it does, then we have lost the concept of natural law. If it does not, then there is no significant sense in which the natural law can be spoken of as revealing the divine will. We are back to the empty argument that we noted earlier, namely, that the natural law must coincide with God's will since both direct man to what is best. Yet, based on this kind of argument Mendelssohn goes even
I8 Moses Mendelssohn, Jerusalem and Other Jewish Writings, tr. and ed. by Alfred Jospe (New York, 1969), 34.

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further.He stronglyinsists that withoutthe convictionthat God is the foundationof the moral law there can be no true morality at all. "Without God, Providence,and a future life," he says, "love of man is nothingbut a congenitalweakness,and humanitarianismlittle more than a chimerainto which we try to trick each other so that the simpletonmay get into trouble while the Here, quick-wittedcan enjoy himself at the other's expense."19 in the full depth of the difficulty which Mendelssohn trapped has himselfis exposed,and his rationalindependent ethics seemslost completely.It is true that he claims that God, Providence,and the future life are all principlesof reason whose reality can be demonstrated. however,no man can be virtuousunlesshe has If, first come to know these truths of reason, then mankindas a to whole is in no betterconditionthan if they wererequired know the Noahide laws by way of revelation.What proportionof men can one reasonablyexpectto work out for themselves,or to follow throughthe effortsof others,demonstrations concerningthe existenceand natureof God, the workingsof divine Providence, of and the immortality the soul? Sucha conceptionof the natural moral law solves none of the problemsto which it was directed. to to It is not difficult see whatmovesMendelssohn thesepatently untenablepositions. He cannot allow a naturallaw without God He or he will make all religionsuperfluous. cannotallow revealed naturallaw, or he will betraythe liberalhumanireligionwithout In tarianismto whichhe is committed. bringingthem togetherhe has attemptedto save both ethics and the law. He hopes to provide us with an independent ethic, yet at the same time, show it to be intimatelyconnectedwith divine law. In the narrowsense, this is the divinelaw of the Jewishrevealtion.In the widersense, come to know it is the divinelaw whicheverymancan presumably with his obhis unaidedreason. Though we may sympathize by failed we cannot escapethe conclusionthat Mendelssohn jective, ethicsfrom the law. once he separated Maimonides,the greatestof the Jewishmedievalphilosophers,
I9 Ibid., 38.

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11

is completely clear about these issues. He denies that we can discernanythingat all about God's ultimatepurposein the world, in fact, he even denies that the notion of ultimatedivine cosmic purpose can be made intelligible.He also sees that there is no rationalfoundationfor morality.He concludesthat independent "all that exists was intendedby Him... accordingto His volition. And we shall seek for it no cause or other final end whatever. Just as we do not seek for the end of His existence... so do we not seek for the final end of His volition, accordingto which all that has been and will be producedin time comes into being as it is."20All we can do, then, is recognizethat the commandments, like all existence,have their source in the divine will, and that for this reasonalone, we are bound by them. We can, of course, make effortsto understand them, as Maimonidesdid, from our own human perspective.At best, they may seem reasonableto of us in light of our own understanding man'shighestpossibilities. never be rationallydemonstrated. They can, however, They continue to obligateus, reasonableor not, only becausethey have been commanded God. by Spinoza,whomWolfsonhas aptlycalledthe last of the medievals and the first of the moderns,also denied any notion of divine God purpose,and with it all claims that there is a transcendent who commandsus. There is no room for such a God in a system which providesfor only a single unifiedorder of being and conceivesGod as deussive natura.Strictlyspeaking,for Spinoza whateveris is what ought to be, becausein this purelynatural world one cannot distinguishbetween is and ought, surely not on a cosmic scale. Even on the level of personalhumanexistence there is no moral law as such. "Good"is definedby Spinozaas "that which we certainlyknow to be useful to us" and the evil as that "whichwe certainlyknow to be a hindrance us in the to attainmentof the good."21What emergesis not a conceptionof
20 Maimonides, Guideof the Perplexed,tr. S. Pines (Chicago, 1963), III, 13, 454455. 21 Spinoza, EthicsIV, Defs. 1, 2.

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morality rooted in notions of duty or obligation, but rather a purely naturalistic scheme in which, as one contemporary commentator puts it, "Man is part of Nature, and thereforethe moralist must be a naturalist; ...We cannot be other than what we are, and our whole duty and wisdom is to understand fully our own imperfections, and, having understood, to acquiesce; man's greatest happiness and peace of mind comes only from this full philosophical understanding of himself."22 Mendelssohn, one of the first modern Jewish philosophers, struggles to retain features of both Maimonides' and Spinoza's worlds. Unlike Maimonides, and in a way closer to the Jewish norm, he affilms the notion of divine purpose in creation. Like Maimonides, he holds that God commands us, but unlike him, he believes that these commands come to us not only through revelation, but also through the natural law which expresses the divine purpose, and is addressed to all men. In affirming natural law, he comes close in certain ways to Spinoza whom he ciiticized so severely. However, it is only a closeness in terminology, but not in substance. For even natural law, in Mendelssohn's system, is connected to and derives fiom God's purposes, the very notion of which is inadmissible for Spinoza. In revelation Mendelssohn finds the ground of his Judaism, and in nature the ground of his morality. He brings them together in such a way as to naturalize revelation, at a certain point, and to deify nature, at another. He sacrifices the claiity and internal consistency which both Maimonides and Spinoza achieved, each in his own way. This is the overly high price he pays in order to be able to live in the world of modern thought which Spinoza opened up, while still nurturing his roots in the pre-modern Jewish world which Maimonides typifies. The problematics with which Mendelssohn struggled became the center of concern for much Jewish philosophy since his time. It is a mark of the modern situation that Jewish thinkers feel constrained to come to terms with the conflict between Jewish particularism and Jewish universalism. They do so by addressingthem22 Stuart Hampshire, Spinoza (Pelican Books, 1951), 121.

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13

selves to the problem of the relation of ethics and the law. David Neumark may have been right when he criticized Lazarus sharply, saying that it is wrong to speak about a humanistic ethic from a Jewish perspective, since "according to the view of Judaism there is no place for an ethic that does not derive from divine commandment."23 His criticism of Lazarus can serve as a critique of a whole school of modern Jewish philosophy, beginning with Moses Mendelssohn in the 18th century, and ending with some of our contemporaries.

23 David Neumark, "Mussar ha-Yahadut," Ha-Shiloah, VI (1899), 91.