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Right and WrongNovember 2007From the Desk of Rabbi CohonHow do we know what is right and wrong? And where do the moral rules we actually follow come from? While we are all familiar with a variety of legal and moral codes, from the Ten Commandments to the Constitution of the United States, the question of how we know what is right to do in a given situation is more subtle and complex than any specific set of laws or rules. It’s easy to say that we inherently—even automatically—ought to know right from wrong, but Jewish scholarship suggests that isn’t the case. Judaism teaches that we human beings are neither innately good nor naturally evil. In fact, we are created with the capacity for both good and evil, and then given the free will to make the choice between them. The traditional understanding says that we have both a yetzer tov and a yetzer hara, a good and bad inclination within us. We can choose to follow either one, as Deuteronomy makes clear: "I set before you this day a blessing a curse, life and death… choose life!" But what, exactly, informs that decision? Darwinian evolutionary biology seems to imply that, through natural selection and survival of the fittest, only the selfish will ultimately flourish. But in turns out that, for animals that live in groups—like human beings—selfishness actually has to be tightly curbed for the group to function at all. A recent book by Jonathan Haidt, psychologist of morals at the University of Virginia, offers an explanation of morality in evolutionary terms. Haidt sees two complementary sources in evolution for our understanding of morality. The first is an emotional response he calls dumbfounding, which is a kind of visceral response to something that disgusts us without our necessarily knowing why. When we see something profoundly horrifying we react before we put it in any moral context. We are, ethically, dumbfounded. To put it simply, our eyes and heart tell us something is wrong before our minds can even decide. This dumbfounded response can be triggered by a photo from the genocide in Darfur, for example, or by a Holocaust image, or a repugnant story about someone we know. Dumbfounding, which is also called moral intuition, may actually be a human evolutionary response that precedes the development of speech. We see or hear, we react strongly and negatively, and only later do we think about the process of our decision or its consequences for our attitude and behavior. See, be shocked, react. But most moral situations require more discernment, and for these Dr. Haidt has identified a process called moral judgment. Moral judgment is an evolutionary development that came about with the use of speech, which is an inherently social phenomenon. After all, speech is not so useful for one person alone, but it becomes indispensable in human communities. Moral judgment is based on understanding what the other individuals in our society—first, our parents; later, our peers; next, our supervisors; finally—sometimes—our children—perceive as acceptable, or even right in a situation. The process of moral judgment is informed by the collective wisdom of our society and our communities. It is shaped by the Torah of our experience, and often by our actual Torah. The key is to learn, and then to implement, the moral teachings of our tradition. "Cease to do evil; learn to do good," the prophet Isaiah tells us. Evolutionary biology, too, teaches us that it is good that will ultimately be rewarded by a society that functions in harmony. Won’t you choose, in your own life, to make the same moral commitment to learn Torah in order to act well—and so, improve the world? L’shalom v’rei’ut, in peace and friendship,Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon
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