Part l Science and Morality
A psychologist once told me that "psychology is everything." I suspect the main reason for her saying this was to refute supernatural beliefs, specifically those of fundamentalist religions. I am in agreement; as I have made clear in previous blogs, I am convinced that no educated, twenty-first century mind can accept as fact any religious dogma, such as the belief that a man named Jesus literally rose from the dead or that a god that exists beyond human consciousness intervenes in history. Wishful thinking is no substitute for evidence. The psychologist, however, was, I am convinced, implying something in addition. She was using the word "psychology" to denote not only the scientific investigation of the human psyche, but as a synecdoche for science in the broadest sense of that word. In other words, what she really was saying is "science is everything." Since morality is definitely something, she implied that a scientific basis for morality is possible--in fact, science provides the sole possibility for determining the validity of moral norms. This is a widespread belief, one that has been gaining traction. But is this a fact? The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate that this is an unprovable assumption. We all do need a vibrant sense of morality to live meaningful and useful lives; the content of morality, however, has, at best, only a tangential relation to science.
A psychologist once told me that "psychology is everything." I suspect the main reason for her saying this was to refute supernatural beliefs, specifically those of fundamentalist religions. I am in agreement; as I have made clear in previous blogs, I am convinced that no educated, twenty-first century mind can accept as fact any religious dogma, such as the belief that a man named Jesus literally rose from the dead or that a god that exists beyond human consciousness intervenes in history. Wishful thinking is no substitute for evidence. The psychologist, however, was, I am convinced, implying something in addition. She was using the word "psychology" to denote not only the scientific investigation of the human psyche, but as a synecdoche for science in the broadest sense of that word. In other words, what she really was saying is "science is everything." Since morality is definitely something, she implied that a scientific basis for morality is possible--in fact, science provides the sole possibility for determining the validity of moral norms. This is a widespread belief, one that has been gaining traction. But is this a fact? The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate that this is an unprovable assumption. We all do need a vibrant sense of morality to live meaningful and useful lives; the content of morality, however, has, at best, only a tangential relation to science.
The Dual System for Moral Decision Making--Can Morality be Reduced to Neuroscience?
In 2001, neuroscientist Jonathan Cohen discovered that moral decision making apparently involves two areas of the brain. Functional MRIs, (fMRIs,) of the brain revealed that, when subjects were asked to work out a moral dilemma, the amygdala and the medial prefrontal cortex lit up very quickly. This demonstrated two responses. The first was a fast and presumably intuitive response; the second response was slower and involved areas of the brain involved with cognitive processing. The first response was thought to have its evolutionary basis in the need for quick decision making in the face of peril. Since little deliberation is involved, Cohen thought that this response is not to be trusted. The second response, the slow and analytic response, was believed to be the true source of morality. The graduate student involved with this project, Jonathan Greene, asserted that abstract reasoning is more or less impersonal and that personal factors are basically irrelevant when considering the second response. This dual-theory of morality has gained widespread acceptance. The second process supposedly reveals a biological basis for abstract moral concepts, such as universal justice. This, I am convinced, is untrue. Personal factors are always present--One can use analysis to come up with a good plan to act according to a particular value, but that value must be assumed first. For instance, if one's value system asserts that fulfilling personal desires is all that really matters, that person is going to use his analytical abilities in a very different way from a person who asserts that the common good is of primary importance. A good example of demonstrating that morality does not have a neurologic basis is an episode in early American history. The European settlers were convinced that "manifest destiny" meant that it was morally justifiable to displace native populations in order to achieve control over the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean. Rational analysis--today--exposes the dubious assertions underlying the carrying out of that ethnic cleansing--namely, that Europeans were superior and that manifest destiny was God's will--in this case, yesterday's rational analyses had very different assumptions from those of today. It is indeed a fact: science can never demonstrate that even genocide is wrong. If some scientists believe that science and ethnic cleansing are incompatible, it is due to moral axioms assumed at the very beginning, and not due to conclusions based on science.
A less strong scientific theory for the basis of morality has been proposed by evolutionary biologists, specifically, kin selection. Some animals--soldier bees for instance--will sacrifice their own lives for the sake of the group. But is this really altruism? Honeybees give a good indication that this supposed altruism is merely the best way for a worker ant to assure that its genes survive, albeit in their kin. Due to their unique genetic make-up, workers are more genetically related to their sisters than they would be to their own children! So it makes sense--in a gene-based selfish way, for these ants to sacrifice themselves when necessary for the sake of their sisters. Kin selection is, certainly, a type of cooperation. Unconscious altruism is, however, a contradiction in terms. The statement that cooperation is in our genes is, therefore, only partially, and thus only weakly, true.
Positive Psychology and the American Psychological Association
Martin Seligman invented Positive Psychology in 1998. It is based on the dual origin theory of morality already discussed. He believes that depression is a state of "learned helplessness," a negative intuitive response to inner turmoil. This could be overcome by supporting the analytic areas of the brain. With the help of cognitive therapy, one can learn, well, to accentuate the positive and reduce, if not eliminate, the negative. One of his main reasons for advocating this technique was to help people to stop considering themselves victims. Like the learned helplessness of a depressed person, blacks, for instance, supposedly suffer from the learned helplessness of defeatism. It is clear to me, however, that the belief that positive psychology can eliminate defeatism among the poor without any consideration of what brought about and is still causing that defeatism, rests on a very dubious moral assumption. Individual responsibility is emphasized; legislation aimed at helping those in need is not. It is apparent that Seligman's view is basically a conservative view; this does not mean that it is wrong. It does mean, however, that it is a moral view and as such is not based on science.
This is clear from the writing of a prominent member of the Positive Psychology school, Jonathan Haidt. As Tamsin Shaw points out in an excellent article in the February 25, 2016 edition of The New York Review of Books, "The Psychologists Take Power," Haidt gives a very biased prescription to advance much-needed political cooperation in the United States. He asserts that there are six essential pairs of morality: care vs. harm, fairness vs. cheating, loyalty vs. betrayal, authority vs. subversion, sanctity vs degradation and liberty vs. oppression. He asserts that progressives, who are basically interested in care for those in need, have a narrow view, while conservatives, who are interested in all six moral virtues, have a wider moral perspective. Political harmony can be reached if the liberals learn to appreciate the more broad-based perspective of conservatives. Contrary to what Haidt might think, his is not an objective, science-based view of a biological imperative advocating increased cooperation; his conclusions are based on conservative moral assumptions which came before, and thus only seemingly substantiate, his analysis.
Were some members of The American Psychology Association, which actively supported Positive Psychology and the promotion of moral behavior, immune to corruption? Tamsin Shaw's article provides a convincing summary of the American Psychological Association's capitulation--for money, what else?-- to the demands of the CIA and the DOD. Seligman's learned helplessness could be induced, the military was told. "Enhanced interrogation techniques," that is, torture, can induce a state in which the victim is no longer capable of any kind of resistance. It was soon found out, however, that torture didn't provide any useful information. The tortured person eventually said what the torturer wanted him to say. The A.P.A., after the 9/11 attacks, changed its guidelines and gave the green light to involvement with the CIA and DOD. The association received millions of dollars; two notorious psychologist members, Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell were involved with torturing detainee--for which they apparently received 81 million dollars from the United States government! One hapless victim who had nothing to confess, was waterboarded 83 times, in addition to other severe tortures such as being locked in a box full of insects, sexual humiliations, etc. His left eye was destroyed during one of these torture sessions. The Bush administration was told that further torture was of no avail; they were ordered to proceed until they got what they wanted. The victim, Abu Zubaydah, eventually confessed to "knowledge" of a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. This was, of course, a false confession, but just what the Bush regime wanted to help justify its plans for an imminent invasion of Iraq.
The A.P.A. the guardian of the knowledge that a neurology-based system of morality had (supposedly) been found, failed to practice what it preached. Psychology obviously isn't everything. It can not be considered to be the source of morality; its norms are subject to manipulation and corruption.
If not science, however, what is the source of morality?
The Golden Rule
The article by Tamsin Shaw. after coming to the conclusion that science is not the source of morality, concludes as follows:
No psychologist has yet developed a method that can be substituted for moral reflection and reasoning, for employing our own institutions and principles, weighing them against one another and judging as best we can. This is necessary labor for all of us. We cannot delegate it to higher authorities or replace it with handbooks. Humanly created suffering will continue to demand of us not simply new "technologies of behavior" but genuine moral understanding. We will certainly not find it in the recent books claiming the superior wisdom of psychology.
I completely agree with Shaw's conclusion; however, it does not go far enough. What criterion or criteria are we to use to guide us to the best moral judgment in any particular situation? We have determined that abstract reasoning is not disinterested; it can be abused by conscious or unconscious desires that can be quite immoral. (In fact, everyone making a moral decision needs to acknowledge that he or she can be misguided. This is why the First Amendment is of vital importance. One needs to make a decision and stand by it; one must realize however, that other views need to be heard as well. Encountering others' opinions might reveal hidden biases of one's own. We must always admit the possibility that we can be wrong. Self-righteousness is never good; listening to and weighing the opinions of others is an essential virtue in a vibrant democracy.)
We need a criterion to guide us in the right direction and by which we are to judge our decisions and the decisions of others. The Golden Rule, that is, doing unto others what you would like them to do unto you, is one such criterion. Since our moral touchstone cannot be derived from science, it must be accepted as an axiom. I think Shaw might have been hesitant to assert this, since the Golden Rule and its cognate, Love your Neighbor as Yourself, are most often associated with religious faith, with the assumption the source of morality comes from a god outside nature. Such belief is not necessary. The Golden Rule applies to the religious and the secular alike. Even the "love your neighbor" principle can be viewed as a secular criterion for moral judgment.
Every healthy human has access to an inner core that can provide one with a moral compass. There is nothing wrong with deriving this moral guide from intuition alone. We intuit many of the truths we live by. Science, for instance, teaches us that we are material beings. Insight, however, does not permit us from viewing ourselves and our neighbors as mere concatenations of atoms. Reflection on what direction our moral compass should point to always leads in a healthy mind to some form of the Golden Rule.
Part ll Psychologists Respond
As we have discussed, research has determined, on the basis of functional MRIs, (fMRIs,) that contemplation of a moral issue elicits a dual response in the brain. The first, centered in the amygdala, is an immediate "gut" reaction, which is not to be trusted. The second reaction, centered in the prefrontal cortex, involves abstract reasoning. and is considered to be a more reliable guide. This, as we have asserted, is nonsense. If one is convinced, for instance, that X is evil, one's abstract reasoning will readily find justification for this assertion, even though a thinker with a different belief system might be absolutely convinced that X is as innocent and intrinsically good as A. What determines one's response is adherence to a particular belief system--an axiom such as a form of the Golden Rule-- which cannot be derived from science; it must be assumed.
Part 1 was written partially as a basic confirmation of Tasmin Shaw's article, The Psychologists Take Power, which appeared in the February 25, 2016 edition of The New York Review of Books. In that article, Shaw discussed five books by prominent psychologists, who at least seem to assert that experts know better. They don't. Shaw informs us that at least some members of the American Psychological Association were rather easily seduced by the CIA to assist in the torture of detainees in the wake of 9/11. (Most of that assistance dealt with expert advice regarding how to use "enhanced interrogation techniques" effectively. Only a few were involved in actually torturing detainees. Money, of course, was involved, a lot of it.) Supported by centuries of evidence, the assertion that money and power often, quite often, corrupt experts and non-experts alike is undeniable. If science, specifically, if psychological expertise, can't be relied on, what can? We asserted in the first article that a form of the Golden Rule, specifically the "commandment" that one should love one's neighbor as oneself, can be relied on to judge the behavior of all human beings, whether they graduated from Harvard or not. In this section, we will analyze the response of some of the authors Shaw criticized, which appeared, along with Shaw's comments, in the April 7, 2016 edition of The New York Review of Books, Moral Psychology: An Exchange.
The authors of the response, Pinker and Haidt, are angry. They state, "Shaw asserts that psychological and biological facts are 'morally irrelevant' and 'can tell us nothing' about moral propositions. She insinuates that psychologists lack 'a reliable moral compass' that would equip them to oppose torture." They take this fact to be an attack against the discipline of psychology, and, especially, against adherents of Positive Psychology, developed by Martin Seligman, a system which has strongly influenced them. Feeling insulted and besmirched by Shaw's article, they respond with ad hominem insults of their own: "And she prosecutes her case by citation-free attribution, spurious dichotomies, and standards of guilt by association that make Joseph McCarthy look like Sherlock Holmes."
Ouch.
It turns out, however, that they are in basic agreement with Shaw's assertion, namely, that the discipline of psychology cannot be the source of morality. Consulting one of their colleagues, Peter Bloom, they quote him as follows: "'The fact that one cannot derive morality from psychological research is so screamingly obvious that I never thought to explicitly write it down.'" Fair enough. The authors, however, don't leave it at that. They insist that, at the very least, psychological research can help invalidate a faulty moral assertion: "Recent discoveries in moral psychology offer another point of contact. Many ethical convictions are underpinned by strongly felt intuitions that some action is inherently good or bad. Sometimes those intuitions can be justified by philosophical reflection and analysis. But sometimes they can be debunked and shown to be indefensible gut reactions, without moral warrant." (That is, with help from fMRIs.) This is patently false. Psychological research cannot determine whether a gut reaction is morally defensible or not; you need a moral philosophy to do that. Sometimes, like the innate intuitive gut reaction against incest, the more reflexive moral response seems justified indeed. One cannot imply, as the authors obviously do, that fMRIs can help determine the validity of a moral response. As the authors have stated, it is "screamingly obvious" that psychology cannot produce a moral compass, and without one, morally speaking, humans don't know where they are and are thus unable to judge the validity of a specific fMRI response.
The authors, armed with the belief that psychological research can help determine whether a moral view is defensible or not, go even farther astray. They provide historical examples of positions that psychology can help debunk by determining that they are "indefensible gut reactions." These examples include "...outrage over heresy, blasphemy, and lèse-majesté, revulsion against homosexuality and racial mixing, callousness toward slaves and animals and indifference or hatred toward foreigners."
Are these merely gut reactions? Without a moral stance, none of these prejudices can be debunked. A simple thought experiment reveals the absurdity of the authors' claim. If Dr. Pinker had been born in the nineteenth century, the analytical part of his brain would most likely be aglow with the production of many reasons why racial mixing is morally wrong. If Dr. Haidt had been born in the eighteenth century, his prefrontal lobes would almost certainly have come to the conclusion that homosexuality is a crime against nature--perhaps even punishable by death. (One can imagine, with horror, what the analytical part of their brains would have come up with if they had been alive when Leviticus was written, which among other things, prescribes the death penalty for violating Sabbath rules.)
The analytical part of the brain can be, as history has so readily proven, a "factory of idols," which Calvin correctly asserted while conveniently forgetting that his own brain was mass-producing them as well.
A good deal of the animus against Shaw contained in Haidt's and Pinker's response is the assumption that Shaw was singling out psychologists as being particularly prone to corruption. It is indeed undeniable that some members of the A.P.A. were paid enormous sums by the CIA ($81,000,000.00 to be exact) to develop and participate in a program, informed by psychological research, of "enhanced interrogation techniques," the Bush regime's euphemism for torture. Shaw makes a good case that Martin Seligman, a former president of the A.P.A. whose system of Positive Psychology was widely influential, was not innocent regarding this collusion. If some psychologists consider themselves moral experts and thus less easily corrupted by money and power, criticism, of course, is very much warranted. Money and power, however, have a high potential to corrupt us all, rich and poor, the educated and the under-educated alike. That it often takes a larger amount to bribe a professional than it takes to bribe a worker does not relativize the wrongdoings of either class. Even those who are supposed to know better frequently don't. Priests who are sexual predators; cardinals who protect them; members of the clergy who launder money for the Vatican-- these and others are notorious examples of those who preach the Golden Rule and flout it in practice. It is safe to say that psychologists are no worse and no better than the rest of us.
If morality cannot be derived from science, are human beings, who need moral principles in order to live well, lost in the wilderness without a compass? I think not. Pinker and Haidt imply--falsely, I believe--that psychology is superior to philosophy since the former prefers reality over imagination. Shaw correctly counters that "...imagination is the capacity that allows us to take responsibility, insofar as it is ever possible, for the ends for which our work will be used." This is correct as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. Shaw, as a scholar of Nietzschean philosophy, knows that human beings are free to devise moral principles to live by. Nietzsche believed that the morality of Christianity was the morality of slaves; their 'superiors' could and should follow their will to power without being bound to a form of the Golden Rule. This may be true, but the history of the last century readily illustrates where this truth can lead.
I assert that that some form of the Golden Rule must be assumed as an axiom--an axiom, of course, by definition cannot be proved. More than assumed, the validity of "Love Your Neighbor as Yourself" can be intuited. Two roads lead to the highest morality, one paved with the silver of wisdom, the other paved the gold of love. As Aristotle taught in his Nicomachean Ethics, all one needs to do is to follow the examples of those who are intuitively and widely acknowledged to moral leaders. (Al-Ghazali, the great Sufi leader of eleventh century Baghdad, famously put this principle into action.)
No, one can't prove that, say, Leviticus 19:18, is the best moral guide. Similarly, as deconstructionists would have it, one can't prove that Shakespeare is superior to Alice Walker or that Bach is superior to Burt Bacharach. Intuition and experience, however, can convince us that some moral compasses are indeed better guides than others.
Part lll Problems with Leviticus 19:18
We have determined that science cannot provide us with a moral compass. Humankind is the source of morality. We are free to devise the moral code we live by; the best of these systems builds on cooperation, which is, at least to some degree, innate. Some form of the Golden Rule has been viewed as the best guide we have. However, we are free to disregard it, just as one can override the drive to procreate by a religious meme that requires celibacy under certain conditions. If such a meme is enthusiastically accepted or strictly enjoined, it can be successfully adopted by many, although nature will have her way among those who are conflicted or have less will power.
Who is to judge if one moral system is better than another? We are, and we must. I strongly believe that Leviticus 19:18, which commands that we love our neighbors as ourselves, is the best maxim possible. This commandment is our best guide since, as we shall see, it most readily leads to peace and happiness, not only for the individual, but for one's neighbors as well.
I am, of course, not alone in this assertion; there is a danger, however: the commandment can and often has become a cliché. (A great moral axiom becomes a cliché in the mouth of those who praise it with words while flouting it with deeds.) Written centuries ago, Leviticus 19:18 needs a new interpretation; it is the intent of this series to provide it.
1. A Brief History of Leviticus
Leviticus is the third book of the Old Testament and the third book of the Torah as well. It is concerned more with ritual and morality, rather than with belief; God's authority, however explicitly or implicitly, is present on every page. The book as a whole is not easily dated; the text apparently expanded over time. Some of the oldest sections are thought to have been written in the late seventh century, BCE; it did not reach it's final form until about 300 BCE. Chapter 17 through 27 are the so-called "Holiness Code," sections. God wants his people to be holy and outlines the ways in which this can be accomplished. Chapter 19 contains some wise advice, such as one should not steal or cheat. Chapter 20, which deals with punishment of sins, contains a slew of barbaric injunctions, e.g., homosexuals are to be put to death, he who curses his father is to be put to death, in cases of adultery, both the man and woman involved are to be put to death, a spiritual medium must also die, if a man marries a woman and her mother, all must be burnt to death, etc. These primitive punishments have been used as ammunition by atheists, claiming that the Old Testament is rife with barbarity and therefore should be repudiated in toto. This is an unfair criticism. The texts were written centuries before the scientific method was established; they are a reflection of their times. In addition, Christianity asserts that Christ established a New Covenant that obviated many of the laws and customs of the Old Testament. Rabbinical Judaism, which has a tradition of oral Torah as well as the written one, rejected these harsh laws as well. ("What is the Torah," is a question from the Talmud. The answer: "It is the interpretation of the Torah.") Each generation is enjoined to interpret according to the highest moral principles of the time. (The late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who believed that the Constitution, our secular scripture, should be rigidly followed and not interpreted, would have made a lousy Talmudic rabbi.)
How is one to decide whether a given (im)moral stance is to be superseded? By Leviticus 19:18! Whether a view can be burnished and supported by the fire of "Love Thy Neighbor," or whether it goes up in smoke like a paper idol, is the best way we have to judge its validity. As an example, let us consider the injunction against homosexuality. Leviticus 19:18 is merely a tribal prejudice if one doesn't include all human beings as the object of one's love. Yes, love the sinner and hate the sin, but is homosexuality a sin? It is obvious that gay people are capable of love as much as heterosexuals. They are, therefore, morally equivalent; if one doesn't extend Lev 19:18 to those who are different from us (however "us" is defined) but are as good as us, one is worshiping an idol. No one is justified in judging a group the members of which are equally capable of love. A rabbi once told me that eighty-five percent of his congregation supports gay marriage. Why? Because we are enjoined, he told me, to love one's neighbor as oneself. Lev 19:18 thus becomes the criterion by which we judge any moral position, whether that particular view has the support of tradition or not.
2. Lev 19:18 as a Commandment
In a modern translation, the text of Lev 19:18 is as follows: "You shall neither take revenge nor bear a grudge against members of your people; you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord."
It's important to note that commentary needed to improve even this sublime command. Originally, "your neighbor" meant "your fellow Jew." The oral Torah, the Talmud, has long since extended this to mean everyone, including the hapless stranger.
I must make clear my position at this point. I find no evidence for a God that exists beyond human consciousness. For me, God refers to transcendence within. The way I see it, the use of the term is not obligatory; sometimes it's best to remain silent. Supplying a voice to the voiceless is nothing more than ventriloquism. Having written that, I respect those who literally believe that the commandment is of divine origin--What is most important, however, for the secular and the religious alike, is whether one's actions are in accord with the commandment or not.
I also do not believe that Lev 19:18 works very well as a commandment. An absent father--and God is certainly silent--who swoops down and tells humans to be good and then disappears, isn't a very good parent. A human parent who duns Lev. 19:18 into the heads of his children without setting an example of living in accord with it, might as well tell them to be selfish as he is, because that in most cases will be the inevitable result. As Aristotle has written in his Nicomachean Ethics, if you want to do good, follow the example of one who is both wise and loving. Otherwise, Lev19:18 is reduced to a harmful cliché--which, alas! often is the case.
Lev. 19:18 as a commandment can sometimes be quite harmful, It can lead to self-righteousness when one is convinced that one obeys the injunction and that others do not. "Those people disregard the commandment; we obey it. We are therefore good and they are therefore evil." This view has significantly contributed to and is very much still contributing to many of the problems of society. (I will deal with this in my next essay.) The commandment can be just as harmful by inducing guilt in people who feel inferior or who are pathologically self-critical. "I am unable to do what I should; I am therefore no good." I will give an example of this self-destructive tendency with the analysis of a (once?) prominent poet who suffered from this problem which significantly contributed to his death at an early age.
Lev 19:18, therefore, doesn't work as a commandment for two reasons: 1. Many educated people today, (I am one of them,) are quite convinced that morality can not be derived from science or from commandments from a God beyond consciousness, since there is absolutely no proof that the latter exists. 2: It can sometimes make things worse.
Lev. 19:18 needs a revision that neither depends on God or on science. We will provide a new interpretation in Part lV, the last section of this four-part essay. (The other three, including this one, are already posted.) The final part will consist of two sections, in continuation of the sections of part lll: 3. Lev. 19:18 as a declarative sentence, and 4. Lev. 19:18, The Ultimate Win-Win Equation.
Leviticus is the third book of the Old Testament and the third book of the Torah as well. It is concerned more with ritual and morality, rather than with belief; God's authority, however explicitly or implicitly, is present on every page. The book as a whole is not easily dated; the text apparently expanded over time. Some of the oldest sections are thought to have been written in the late seventh century, BCE; it did not reach it's final form until about 300 BCE. Chapter 17 through 27 are the so-called "Holiness Code," sections. God wants his people to be holy and outlines the ways in which this can be accomplished. Chapter 19 contains some wise advice, such as one should not steal or cheat. Chapter 20, which deals with punishment of sins, contains a slew of barbaric injunctions, e.g., homosexuals are to be put to death, he who curses his father is to be put to death, in cases of adultery, both the man and woman involved are to be put to death, a spiritual medium must also die, if a man marries a woman and her mother, all must be burnt to death, etc. These primitive punishments have been used as ammunition by atheists, claiming that the Old Testament is rife with barbarity and therefore should be repudiated in toto. This is an unfair criticism. The texts were written centuries before the scientific method was established; they are a reflection of their times. In addition, Christianity asserts that Christ established a New Covenant that obviated many of the laws and customs of the Old Testament. Rabbinical Judaism, which has a tradition of oral Torah as well as the written one, rejected these harsh laws as well. ("What is the Torah," is a question from the Talmud. The answer: "It is the interpretation of the Torah.") Each generation is enjoined to interpret according to the highest moral principles of the time. (The late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who believed that the Constitution, our secular scripture, should be rigidly followed and not interpreted, would have made a lousy Talmudic rabbi.)
How is one to decide whether a given (im)moral stance is to be superseded? By Leviticus 19:18! Whether a view can be burnished and supported by the fire of "Love Thy Neighbor," or whether it goes up in smoke like a paper idol, is the best way we have to judge its validity. As an example, let us consider the injunction against homosexuality. Leviticus 19:18 is merely a tribal prejudice if one doesn't include all human beings as the object of one's love. Yes, love the sinner and hate the sin, but is homosexuality a sin? It is obvious that gay people are capable of love as much as heterosexuals. They are, therefore, morally equivalent; if one doesn't extend Lev 19:18 to those who are different from us (however "us" is defined) but are as good as us, one is worshiping an idol. No one is justified in judging a group the members of which are equally capable of love. A rabbi once told me that eighty-five percent of his congregation supports gay marriage. Why? Because we are enjoined, he told me, to love one's neighbor as oneself. Lev 19:18 thus becomes the criterion by which we judge any moral position, whether that particular view has the support of tradition or not.
2. Lev 19:18 as a Commandment
In a modern translation, the text of Lev 19:18 is as follows: "You shall neither take revenge nor bear a grudge against members of your people; you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord."
It's important to note that commentary needed to improve even this sublime command. Originally, "your neighbor" meant "your fellow Jew." The oral Torah, the Talmud, has long since extended this to mean everyone, including the hapless stranger.
I must make clear my position at this point. I find no evidence for a God that exists beyond human consciousness. For me, God refers to transcendence within. The way I see it, the use of the term is not obligatory; sometimes it's best to remain silent. Supplying a voice to the voiceless is nothing more than ventriloquism. Having written that, I respect those who literally believe that the commandment is of divine origin--What is most important, however, for the secular and the religious alike, is whether one's actions are in accord with the commandment or not.
I also do not believe that Lev 19:18 works very well as a commandment. An absent father--and God is certainly silent--who swoops down and tells humans to be good and then disappears, isn't a very good parent. A human parent who duns Lev. 19:18 into the heads of his children without setting an example of living in accord with it, might as well tell them to be selfish as he is, because that in most cases will be the inevitable result. As Aristotle has written in his Nicomachean Ethics, if you want to do good, follow the example of one who is both wise and loving. Otherwise, Lev19:18 is reduced to a harmful cliché--which, alas! often is the case.
Lev. 19:18 as a commandment can sometimes be quite harmful, It can lead to self-righteousness when one is convinced that one obeys the injunction and that others do not. "Those people disregard the commandment; we obey it. We are therefore good and they are therefore evil." This view has significantly contributed to and is very much still contributing to many of the problems of society. (I will deal with this in my next essay.) The commandment can be just as harmful by inducing guilt in people who feel inferior or who are pathologically self-critical. "I am unable to do what I should; I am therefore no good." I will give an example of this self-destructive tendency with the analysis of a (once?) prominent poet who suffered from this problem which significantly contributed to his death at an early age.
Lev 19:18, therefore, doesn't work as a commandment for two reasons: 1. Many educated people today, (I am one of them,) are quite convinced that morality can not be derived from science or from commandments from a God beyond consciousness, since there is absolutely no proof that the latter exists. 2: It can sometimes make things worse.
Lev. 19:18 needs a revision that neither depends on God or on science. We will provide a new interpretation in Part lV, the last section of this four-part essay. (The other three, including this one, are already posted.) The final part will consist of two sections, in continuation of the sections of part lll: 3. Lev. 19:18 as a declarative sentence, and 4. Lev. 19:18, The Ultimate Win-Win Equation.
This is the final section of a four-part essay dealing with issues of morality. We have established that humans are free, but not entirely free, to devise their own systems of morality. We have also suggested that the best moral systems emphasize both love and wisdom, which are universally acknowledged to be essential human virtues. Therefore, some form of the Golden Rule is the best moral maxim. Our choice is Lev 19:18, "Thous shall love thy neighbor as thyself," a principle by which all actions, collective or individual, can be adequately judged. In the last section, we have presented a brief history of Lev 19:18, followed by a section which asserts that the commandment need not be viewed as a commandment at all. We will conclude with Lev 19:18 as a declarative sentence and with Lev 19:18 as the ultimate win-win equation.
3. Lev 19:18 as a Declarative Sentence
There is another way to look at Lev 19:18, without reference to a commanding deity. If we change the sentence from imperative to declarative, we have: "You love your neighbor as yourself." The command thus becomes a general truth. It implies no criticism; it simply states a fact. There is much truth to this formulation. Those who love themselves tend to love others and vice versa. Although this is quite obvious, I will provide some examples in order to clear up any misunderstandings from the outset. First of all, loving oneself has nothing to do with selfishness or vanity. Vanity and selfishness are (ultimately) self-defeating ways to gain respect and love; those who resort to these self-defeating defenses lack a center--that is, they don't love themselves. A felicitous combination of environment and genetics results in self-love, the former including a happy childhood, meaningful work, positive relations with friends and family. Those lucky enough to be in this category love others as inevitably as spring follows winter.
The declarative sentence, as we have stated, is neutral; it simply assesses one's state of mind, no matter if one is loving or not. Therefore, if you hate yourself, you tend to hate others. If you love others only a little bit, you don't love yourself much either. If you are indifferent to others, you are indifferent to yourself. To the degree that you are selfish is the degree to which you do not love yourself, etc.
Lev 19:18 as a declarative sentence is nothing more than a psychological truth. But it is a quite useful one, since it not only assesses the degree to which one is living a full life, but also indicates, albeit indirectly, a way to lead a fuller life, no matter what one's initial situation is. It is time in our discussion to make what's implicit explicit: Lev 19:18 as a win-win equation.
4. Lev 19:18, the Ultimate Win-Win Equation
We will now discuss how Lev 19:18 can become a principle to live by, no matter what one's religious affiliation or lack thereof. This form of the command is of great practical significance; it can be put to immediate use no matter what one's psychological state (excluding psychoses) and one's station in life are. Since it is a formulation that must be practiced, there is no way that it can be used by the self-righteous as a means to browbeat alleged wrongdoers.
Lev 19:18 becomes the ultimate win-win equation with a grammatical transformation that preserves the spirit of the original. Here it is:
Loving your neighbors = loving yourself
This requires some explanation.
In Hinduism good behavior is divided into two components. Bhakti (love or selfless devotion) and jnana (wisdom). Wisdom is the realization that everything is interconnected; love entails dedication to others as well as to oneself. These two aspects reinforce and complement each other: through love we learn that everything is connected; through wisdom we learn love. Notice that both wisdom and love severely limit egotism. We do have to give the ego its due--it is a necessary survival tool. Balanced "egotism" is a necessity. Unbalanced egotism --selfishness, spite, lack of empathy, etc. is, of course, another matter. Lev 19:18 is also an excellent way to keep the ego in balance. (I have used "jnana", somewhat arbitrarily, to designate the wisdom side, since loving's oneself necessarily includes perspective and the knowledge that everything is interconnected.)
Many sages of India have asserted that bhakti and jnana are, fundamentally, one and the same thing, just as the electromagnetic, strong and weak forces were equivalent at the outset of the big bang. (Gravity, probably, as well, but this hasn't been demonstrated yet.) This is why there is an equal sign between the two sides of the equation: Loving your neighbors (bhakti) equals love for yourself (jnana) One side leads to the other.
Why is Lev 19:18 a win-win equation? I will explain.
There are, schematically, four types of persons
1, One who likes himself/herself and likes others.
2. One who dislikes himself/herself and likes others.
3. One who likes himself/herself and dislikes others
4. One who dislikes himself/herself and dislikes others.
These are merely personality types. I did not use "love" in the above examples because, at a fundamental level, it is impossible to love oneself and to hate others. (Note: I am using "love" in its deepest meaning.)
Everyone, no matter the age, is at the level of one of these equations. Let's say, one is in the first category. Let's imagine that one is rather lukewarm on both sides of the equation. Let us assign a person, arbitrarily, with a value of one on each side. We have therefore:
1 (bhakti side) equals 1 (jnana side.)
This describes rather a disengaged life. Let's say that this individual wants to improve things, which can be done in many ways. Let's give an example: the person decides to work several hours a week serving food to the poor. Let's assign this, arbitrarily once more, with a value of 5. Now the win-win side of the equation becomes manifest:
The result is not the inequality of one on six side of the equation and one on the other. Unexpectedly, the five appears on the jnana side as well, and the person becomes the equation 6 (bhakti) equals 6 (jnana.) There is nothing supernatural about the emergence of the balancing number. By doing good deeds it is inevitable that one begins to feel good as well. This is rather obvious; it has also been substantiated by research. Love for others diminishes egotism; the resultant decrease in egotism helps one to feel the interconnection of all things, which is wisdom.
Let us now proceed to the second category, namely a person who dislikes herself and likes others. This equation is unbalanced. Let us assign a value of -5 for the dislike, and a value of +1 for the like. Just as we have seen in the first example, doing good for others will increase the positive side and the negative side as well. Since one has started with a larger negative number, it will take some serious work and persistence to reach unity, not to mention increasing the numerical value on each side. It is important to note that one also can work from the RHS (right-hand side) of the equation, the love-yourself side. One can increase one's score here in many ways: performing meaningful work, learning a new skill, meditating, exercising, etc. With hard work, let's say 6 is added to the RHS resulting in 7 on the LHS. Although the equation is still unbalanced, this is not a bad place to be. With more effort, on either side, the equation becomes more and more balanced. It is recommended to work on both sides of the equation simultaneously, that is, helping others interspersed with helping oneself.
The third category is more difficult. Let's assume that a person is at -5 (LHS) and at a +1 on the other side (RHS) Since this person feels superior and condescends, he/she will probably be reluctant to do good in the community. He/she must learn through study, friends, family, contemplation, that he/she is not the center of the universe, but, like everyone and everything else, a part of it. This will change the equation, say, to +1 LHS with a minus +4 RHS,. Much better! The individual is now more likely to work on the left side of the equation.
The fourth category is the most difficult of all. High numbers of dislike on either side indicate severe pathology. The situation reminds me of something the metaphysical poet George Herbert wrote. According to his analysis, sin had caused him to fall into a ditch; he believed he was pulled out of it by the hand of God. Secularizing this, a person might be need to be pulled out by a combination of medical help and support from family and friends. Some, unfortunately, will remain trapped in the ditch.
One, of course, can always make the situation worse by reducing the numbers through selfish actions. Whoever you are, however, the win-win equation describes the moral state of your life. If you don't do anything, the numbers are likely to deteriorate, just as unused muscles become weak.
By the way, Lev 19:18 is not simply a way to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Kindness to another will almost always raise that person's bhakti and jnana scores.
The Lev 19:18 equation is a psychological law. We have no choice but to practice it, either by increasing numbers or by decreasing them. The numerical designations in this essay are arbitrary--What is important to realize is that if you work on one side, the other side increases accordingly. I'm not saying that the other side increases at exactly the same rate; I am saying, however, that's it's impossible to improve the score on one side without the other side increasing reciprocally.
You want to live a good life? Now you know the win-win equation that will help you do just that. Work on your moral math! You are free to choose how to increase your numbers, starting with your present situation. As you work to improve your score, you will become a better person. So will everyone else.
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