Okay, so greeting is again. Thank you again for this opportunity to learn some Torah together. And what I'd like to do with your permission is explore the subject of moral knowledge. How do we know what's right and wrong? And I'd like to show you that there's some surprising angles to this, which I think should be particularly meaningful to South Africans, I hope, and some of it quite surprising, I think. So, the question is, how do we know what's right and wrong? Not only an academic subject, also in terms of teaching children. What is it that kids need to get in touch with in terms of their conscience and ability to solve moral dilemmas and to chart a course through life that is truly moral, truly religious, if you like, in the deeper sense? Is that okay? Can we do that now? I'm going to try a little experiment here and see if I can walk around and if you can still hear me. So, let's do it like this. In 1967, a very interesting lady philosopher in England called Philippa Foot published an article in a

philosophy journal about the curstyn happened to be a question of abortion. You probably remember at the time that was a very vexed time in terms of women's rights, rights to their body. The abortion law has been changed in many countries, particularly the United States, and so she wrote an article about the morality of abortion in terms of the fetus's life, the mother's life, and in the course of that article. Just gonna wait a second till they close the doors. Okay, thanks for that drumroll. Amazing. Okay, in the course of that article, she [Music] suggested a vignette or a moral dilemma situation which has become a classic in this field. Very, very interesting. Very amazing. And I'll tell you what she said. She said, Imagine that you are standing at the side of a train track. Actually, a trolley line is what she said. So can hear me? Is that good? Okay, so here's what she hears. They just to make it graphic. I'm gonna ask the camera to pick up what I'm doing. Okay.

she said, Imagine you are standing next to a trolley line. I don't know if you know that I'm an extremely accomplished artist. Did you know that? Yeah, okay, here is your trolley [Applause]. Okay, Choi's coming down the line, and there are unfortunately five people here on the track. Okay, and the trolley's coming down the line, and it's gonna kill five people. You are standing here at the side of the track. Actually, in the original article, you she had you as the driver of the train, but you'll see that that actually causes added complications. And so other thinkers and since that dates to now have suggested modifications of this drawing. In fact, the one that's commonly used now is this picture set up by a lady Jewish philosopher at MIT by the name of Judith Thompson. Judith Chavez Thompson. So I'm giving you a slightly modified version of the scenario, but that's the situation. You're not driving the train. You're standing next to the train track. You're a completely uninvolved bystander.

you see these fat people about to get killed. It just so happens that there's a side track which looks like this, and there's a set of points here which you can activate. If you pull a lever, you divert the train, and it will, or the trolley, and will move onto the side track. Unfortunately, there's one person here on the side track, okay? And that's your problem. Your problem is, do you do nothing and watch five people die? Are you completely uninvolved? You've got no responsibility here. This got nothing to do with you, the situation, but you see what's going on. You can do nothing and watch five people die. You can pull the points, divert the train, and have one person die. Are we clear about the problem? Okay, if you would divert the train, please raise your hand. Okay, I think that's about 90% or more, probably right. Okay, so you're in very good company because about 95% of people tested or surveyed would divert the train. In fact, if you go online, you can see that Harvard University has a

website called moral choices where tens of thousands of people have actually made these choices and ninety forty nine ninety five percent of Westerners make that choice culture makes a difference Asian people tend to value community of individual Americans tend to value individual over community there are cultural differences but despite that about 95 percent of Westerners will divert the Train okay so you're in good company how about this what's that great picture huh okay here's a train line trolley line by the way in modern philosophy that's now known as trolley ology trolley ology here's your trolley coming down the line okay there's five people on the track okay and the Train is gonna go down this line and wipe out five people standing on the bridge is a large man okay there's a great book about this it's called would you kill the fat man by philosophically edmonds this fellow standing on the bridge you're a scrawny individual you're jumping on the track will do nothing this fellow's big enough

that if you just push him over the edge, you'll fall on the track, is gonna get smooshed, but it's gonna stop the train. He'll get killed, but five people will be saved. All you need to do is push him off. If you push him off the bridge, raise your hand. No dude, only did you say you'd do it, you'd also do okay to people in this whole hole, would push the man off the bridge. Listen carefully, what's the moral difference between the situations in this case? You all agreed in this case, you agreed that you would kill one man to save five. In this case, except for you two strange individuals, you said that you would not kill one to save five. What's the difference? So you would hear, you would not hear, you would divert the Train just one second here, you would divert the Train right? Yes, and in this case, you would push him off the bridge. Okay, but you, you're unusual, you're very unusual. There's this 2,000 people, you wouldn't do it. Okay, we'll

come, we'll deal with you later, okay, but one second. I'm saying but, and you're right, okay, so virtually everybody here agrees they would not push the man off, but if you analyze the situation, you'll see this. In this case, you are killing a person to save five, and in this case, you're killing a person to save five. In this case, you're killing a person by bringing a train to a man to kill him to save five. In this case, you're killing a man by bringing a man to a train to kill him. That's the only difference. In this case, you bring the man to the train, and he dies. In this case, you bring the train to the man, and he dies. But in both cases, you're killing one to save five. How come 95% of people would do that, and almost nobody would do that? What's the difference? Oh, because you have to pull it, okay, well, okay, one second, okay, okay. So what these people are saying is because here you have to get your hands dirty with murder, but you didn't notice

then I have a little lever right there, and it's attached to a trapdoor, which is in the bridge. And all you got to do is pull a thing, the trapdoor opens, and he's ever so gently lowered onto the track where the train kills him. Okay, so they are equally indirect. Equally indirect is not pushing. All you gotta do is take an action. In one case, a person dies to save five people by putting him by putting the train in his direction. In this case, you put him in the direction of the Train. What's the moral difference? Now I'm challenging you. What would you say, anyone? What's the difference? Okay, so here we have two people at least saying there's no moral difference. So here's the question: why did 95% of people opt for this and almost no one opts for this if there's no moral difference? No, no, I gave you exactly the same indirect involvement in both cases. You're pulling a lever. That's all you do. That's all you do. Okay, watch this. Here we have

something very interesting to note here. We see that when I asked you for your response here, the hands went up within three or four seconds. I think the last person to put his hand up took about five seconds to say that word divert the train. And here I asked you what to do. Nobody opts for that except for these two weirdos. But I mean, but here's the first observation. It took you no more than a few seconds to respond to these two cases. You were very clear that there's a moral difference between them. And when I ask you why you don't learn, that's amazing. That shows that your moral response is not logical and not calculated. It's coming from someplace completely, completely different. It's coming from a gut. That's an amazing, that's an amazing observation. When you walked in here, this often, if I said to you, Why do you hold your moral positions? You would say logical, thought out, or am religious, my religious principles. Nurses, he responded there within seconds without processing it intellectually at

all and to prove it when I asked you about the differences you cannot justify it. This is an amazing thesis. This suggests that our moral intuition, Hamal responses, are not logically calculated; they come from a different place entirely. There's an interesting book about this, by the way. It's called Moral Minds, written by a Jewish Harvard professor, Mark Hauser, written about maybe four or five years ago. In this book, he brings very interesting and detailed research where he presents people with these sorts of moral dilemmas, solicits their responses, and then asks their explanations, and people cannot explain why their responses are the way they are. His thesis is clear, but better. Yeah, his thesis is that we are hardwired for morality. We are hardwired for morality. We have a moral intuition which is not intellectual. He goes so far as to say that we have a moral intuition which is similar to our language module. You know, there's a theory in language, in linguistics, that human beings have a language acquisition module, right.

language acquisition module. It's called the LA, but the language acquisition module. This is not entirely a great theory, but the theory is that human beings are born with a programmable set of circuits that are designed for language acquisition. We pick up language. The culture you live in picks up the but leads you to pick up the particulars of the language of your culture, but we are naturally designed, so to speak, to speak. And his theory is that we are naturally designed with the moral sensitivity. It's true that the culture you live in develops the particulars, but nevertheless, we have the natural intuition about morality. That is what some of these scenarios purport to show. And the question we need to ask is, is that authentic Jewishly? Is that all think if the authentic? Do we have a natural sense of morality that's reliable? What does Judaism say about that? Most people think, well, morality is what God says. There's no better than gang. Doesn't get better than that. And I don't think that's correct. Here's my radical suggestion. The Torah

attitude is that human beings have a natural morality which is reliable at base. It can be very badly distorted by the culture you live in, and by circumstance, and by history, but at base we have a moral intuitions which is reliable and obliged to be developed. Let me give you a couple of sources. First of all, we have a notion called derech Eretz CAD mala Torah. That means there's a derrick Eretz. It means a sense of rectitude and a morality and fairness. You have that before you start learning Torah. Amazingly, the Torah attitude is that before you start learning moral principles according to Torah, you should be a right-thinking, fair, moral individual. You're expected to have that before you start an education, spiritual education. That's amazing, and it's very important for educating children. It should not be teaching your children that what's moral is to follow the following rules which mean nothing to use. That's not correct. Children need to know that is sense of fairness and indication indignation at

sea moral outrages. That's a reliable thing at root, and it needs to be developed. Let me give you a better proof, and this is wild. It doesn't get better than this. The Torah is full of people asserting their moral intuition in the most extreme way. Example: God comes to Abraham, and he says to him, Avram, Abraham, I'm about to wipe out the city of Sodom and Gomorrah. They are wicked people. I'm gonna wipe them out. Listen to his response. Avram says to Hashem, A shepherd, collar Eretz, lawyer Samish, but will the judge of the entire world not do justice? Abraham is accusing God of injustice. What is you can't wipe out the sodomites because maybe there'll be so righteous people there to kill the righteous with the wicked is immoral, and you cannot do any immoral action. What are you saying? The right response is Abraham and God. What I do is right by definition. God doesn't say that. Let's talk about it. The Torah is full of this, a human being asserting his

moral knowledge based on his own intuition of what's right against God. The Torah is full of that, and you will not find one example in the Torah of a human being asserting an immoral notion where God says, Hey, I am God. Hashem always says, One second, this stuff you don't know. Things happen before, things go burn afterwards. He never pulls moral rank and says, I'm God. That's unbelievable. Another example: the Torah is full of it. The book of Job is full of this. I'll give you another example. Hashem comes to Moshe and says to Moshe, The Jewish people have sinned. They've gone too far. Wiping them out. Moshe turns to Hashem and says, Hashem, that would be immoral of you because you promised the entire Jewish people to give us the land of Israel. And if you break your promise by killing us in the desert, that will be a breaking of a promise, and that's immoral and unjust. And Moshe says the most amazing thing. The mention says that God said to him, Well, you know what I'll do? I won't

break my promise. I'll kill the Jewish people. I said I'll save you. I'll reconstitute the Jewish people from you. You will become a nation, and I'll give the nation that comes out of you the Land of Israel without a moment's hesitation. Mercia turned to our family and said that won't work because you promised the entire nation the Land of Israel, which means all 12 tribes. If you kill them and you save me, the reconstituted nation will only be the progeny of the tribe of Navi, and you'll be breaking your promise. And the measure says that God was unable to answer. That's the kind of lawyer you are not working for you. Yeah, by the way, a year two months later, the same scenario played itself out. This time the spies came back with a bad report. Hashem said they've gone too far. I'm killing them. Where she said ah shame you can't do that. Hana sham said and why not and why she said because people will say that you are mighty enough to take us out of

Egypt but not mighty enough to bring us into Israel. There's a discredit to your name, and that's wrong, and therefore don't do it. And God said, That's not as good an argument as you used a year ago, but good enough. And by the way, by the way, the question is widened to use the trump card that he held the year before. He had an unstoppable argument that God was unable to answer. A year later, he gave a much weaker argument, and the house is obvious. What was his argument to you before you promised us the land of Israel? What has just happened? The spies have just rejected the Land of Israel. You can't say you promised us the land. What a hutzpah! You just rejected my land. So you give a weak argument, okay, but the point is he argued with God based on his own sense of what God ought to be doing. This is unbelievable. Don't try this at home. I don't try this at home, right? You can argue with God on the basis of what you

you are so likely to have a distorted morality, vested interest, ulterior motives. It's true we need an objective standard, that's correct, but the point I'm making is that there's a root sensitivity that the human being ought to have which needs to be developed. Here's the correct place for Torah. Torah is not meant to override your basic humanity, it's meant to cause to flourish and develop and bring it out. I'll just give you one classic example. How should you deal with other people? The mitzvahs between us and each other. Are you supposed to relate to a human being because it's a divine commandment? You visit the sick. Why are you visiting the sick? Because God commanded you. That's wrong. You should be visiting the sick because you feel for the sick person. Of course, you're fulfilling a mitzvah, absolutely no question about it. You should be aware of that as well, but if you visit the sick people because God commanded you and you don't feel for the sick person, you've got the message wrong.

by the way, it makes a big practical difference if you visit some of you sick because God commanded you and you don't care about the sick person. Then the sicker, the better because it's a better Mitzvahs mama Hodor, he's an S right. That is more beautiful and is really suffering more. That's really good. But you know, I once went to visit some of the you sick, took me all day, I schlepped just in hospital and like really, you're at a real hassle. Finally, I get to the hospital after this long journey. I walk into the wood. I said, Where so and so? The nurse said, He got better. He went home. I said, What a husband. Well, that cuts better. He couldn't suffer another day or chuck and a visiting run. Now, that's not the right attitude, right? That's not the right energy. And therefore, the Mitsos are there not to override your morality. They are there to discipline it, train it, to channel it, and bring out your natural depth. It's true. Let me be clear about

this very often. It is in contradiction to your natural intuition because we have distorted intuitions. We're talking about an Abraham at the beginning of history, close to the beginning of time, with a cosmic consciousness. But the point remains that we are divine beings, and the Torah morality is supposed to bring that out in development. And therefore, when God suggests something immoral, you have the right to turn to him and say, That doesn't seem moral to me. By the way, any exceptions to this? Any exceptions where God wants something immoral and the human being does not argue at all? What's the obvious challenge? Come and make my day. The Arcada. Hashem comes to our Romani and says, Kill your son. That is immoral. Not a word. God system. The wipe out the sodomites. Big argument. Hashem says tumors on wrapping on Jewish people. Big argument. Hashem says to Avram, Kill your son. Not a word. And the answer is obvious. That was a commandment. When Hashem comes over and says, I'm wiping out Sodom, what do you think? Argument? We're sure I'm

about to wipe out the Jewish people. I shall speak into me. You want a response. Here's my response. When God gives you an order, the nature of the order is, can you go against your moral intuitions? What is your highest loyalty? That's the nature of the test. I'll give you an example just to make it a bit clearer. You're a soldier on the battlefield. Your commanding officer calls you in and says, Listen, I'd like to discuss military strategy with you. What do you do? You discuss strategy. When your commanding officer says, Soldier, take that hill, then you start discussing military strategy. They shoot you. Moral discussion is one thing; divine instruction, that's something entirely different. But the point remains, the point remains that we are commanded, and yet the commandments are meant to bring on something very deep and radically new in our nature. These scenarios show that very clearly, and therefore when you respond one way to that and one way to this, even though you can't articulate the reason, the

depth of it is coming from a place in which you have a moral sense, and in this case, it happens to be correct. Let me share with you a resolution of the difference between these cases because you didn't do very well. Let me tell you a response to this. I'll give you two responses: one non-Jewish and one Jewish response. So, there is a tradition attributed to Thomas Aquinas, got the 1200. He was born in 1248, died in 1273, something like that. And Thomas Aquinas has a principle called the doctrine of double effect. This is well known in medicine today and many other fields. The doctrine of double effect says that you can do something immoral, like in a person, on condition that it's a double effect, a secondary effect of something else that you're doing, namely you are doing something else which results in a second effect which is bad. And in order to do that, you need to satisfy four requirements. Number one, the act that you are doing must not be evil. The immediate act you are doing must be neutral or

good second. The harmful effect must be something that you do not want at all. It's merely a foreseen, unfortunate, disastrous side effect. You don't want it at all, not as a means or an end. Three, there's no other way out of this dilemma, and for the calculus is worthwhile. It's one against five. Those are the conditions. Let's apply them. Are you ready? Tell me together. Let's apply them. Number one. First criterion is diverting a train from one track to another. Evil or neutral? Anyone disagree? Anyone? I think it's an arguable point, by the way. Personally, I think it's an arguable point. Diverting your train is neutral, but you diverting it onto train track where it's gonna kill somebody. I think that's a dubious point, but let's go to the second one. Let's go to the second point. The death of the man on the sidetrack is something you want or do not want. You know where you want it. It's merely an unfortunately foreseen side effect. Is that clear? You don't want him.

to get by the train at all. Let's go here. It's pushing a man off a bridge into the path of an oncoming train. Neutral or evil. Secondly, do you want him to get smushed by the train? Yes, you do. Of course, you do. You needed to get smushed. That's what's gonna save the people. Do you see that here? You don't need this person to get hit by the train. It's just a side effect here. You be hit, but the trend is the whole point. Did you see this? Let me prove it to you. Watch. Here's the proof. What's the proof? Listen carefully. You divert the train just before it reaches this man. He jumps up and runs away. Would you be happy? He'd be thrilled. Here, you push the gun into the track just before the train gets there. He jumps off and runs away. Would you be happy? You'd be devastated. Five people are gonna die. You get it. And therefore, and therefore, that's very clear. That's a beautiful logical distinction between the cases, right? Double effect. If the

effect you're doing that is harmful is a secondary double effect, so to speak, then it's acceptable. Here, it's not a secondary effect; here, it's the direct act that you need and want, and that makes it unacceptable. Yeah, this is used in medicine, for example. If a person is very, very ill, fragile, delicate, and in terrible pain, you give them pain relief. The medication will relieve the pain, but it might stop them breathing. Acceptable? Why? It's the secondary effect of something that's good. Giving the pain relief is not evil; it's relief pain. If he does, it's an unwanted, unfortunate, foreseen side-effect. That's acceptable. I'm not sure I agree with that. Not you loudly in Judaism, but nevertheless, that's the doctrine of double effect. There's a second resolution of this, which is provided by the husband-ish. The husband issue was the great rabbinic figure who lived in Israel, died in 1954, lived in Bnei Brak, great leader of jury, genius, Taurus sage. We have aluminous writings from him, and he deals with the

parallel situation as this, and let me tell you what he said. By the way, there's a tremendous literature on this, and I've read many books on the subject, and not one book I've ever come across mentions the logic of a husband. I'm not quoting him, probably because he wrote in Hebrew and there's no English translation, but they're not come up with this, the logic that he uses to distinguish in the cases. And I'll try and tell you what he says, but let me give you the context. He was asked in Israel about the following case, nineteen fifty-ish or Serb, thereabouts. A man was driving his car down the Carmel Mountain. Have you been there? Very steep mountain. The fellow was coming down the mountain. The brakes failed. Actually, this was an Israeli. He'd never used the brakes before, just relied on the who time. That's what they do. They know very. They save money there. They don't make the cars with brakes. No one uses a rosary. They're just given double.

anyway, so this fellow was coming down the mountain. Brakes failed, no fault of his car, was 100% correctly checked. Everything was and he was fully responsible. Some crazy accident happened, brakes not working, and he found himself careening towards a bus stop in which ten people were standing. If he did nothing, he killed ten people. He could steer, but unfortunately only to a place where one person was standing. I don't know what he did, but subsequently, people went to ask the red rabbi, rabbi, what should he have done. The hostage said, I think he should have turned and killed the individual. That's very analogous to our first case. They said, rabbi, that's a squeeze with a Rand on how can you say that. Maimonides, the Rambam, rules that you not allow to kill one to save money. That's absolutely clear. Let me tell you the case. The random brings down a case from the Gemara, which is as follows. Let's say you have a group of people captured by terrorists, and you are required to give

one to save everyone. Okay, we're studying this room building surrounded by terrorists. They say, Give us one Jew to kill or one woman to molest. And let's stick to murder. Give us one Jew to kill or we kill everyone. The obvious logic is choose someone. If you don't choose them, everybody's gonna get killed, including the person you would have. In Jewish law, are you allowed to give one person to be killed? No way. Can one person volunteer? Yes, they can run out and give their life. The camera says there were two brothers called Papas and Lianas in the town of Lud when the Romans occupied Israel. Near the town, a Roman girl was found killed. The Roman governor accused the Jewish community of Lud of having killed her, and he threatened to wipe out the whole community unless they yielded the culprits. And two innocent Jewish brothers by the names of Papas and Lianas, they went to the robe and they said, We killed it, even though it's completely false. He killed them and they saved the city. By the way, some

commentaries say that he knew they were lying, but he'd made his offer, and so he killed him. They saved the whole city. The Talmud says they guaranteed a place in heaven, an unparalleled place. So yes, you could give your life like that to save others, but I can't choose you and send you out. Many of our early authorities say the reason is because who are you to make the choice. I cannot make that choice, and therefore a hundred people died. That's our Gemara's problem. We're not allowed to do that. So they said, Look, Rabbi, oh, by the way, what happens if the terrorists name the person they want? There are signals, one, you think we want Finkle? Ma, he's our problem. Can we send that Finkel knowledge debate in the Talmud, in the Jerusalem Talmud? This point is debated without going into the whole debate. Then the Talmud says, Is there two opinions? One opinion is if he's named, you can kill him. You know why? Because you're not making the choice.

he's already being chosen. He's a dead man walking. Why did we all have to die with him? The other opinion is you can only choose him if he's named and responsible. He didn't pay his taxes. He's the reason they've surrounded us, and they're threatening us. Debatable. We ruled stringently. You can't give his life, but nevertheless, there's an opinion that it is specified that's called youth. Do then you can kill him, but the default position is you cannot give one person to be killed. Not that you cannot do so. They said, Rabbi, the Rambam says you can't kill one to save money. So how do you say the car should be turned and diverted and kill one? Let's just be clear. These are two entirely parallel situations. Let me make that totally clear. Here's the case. My cars were moving down the mountain. If I sit there like this doing nothing, I wipe out ten people. Turn the car right down one innocent individual standing under a tree on the side of the road.

thinking deep philosophical thoughts about double effect, said the rabbi. Do it, terrorists in front of me. They're getting about to wipe out ten people. If I do nothing, sit there, they kill 10 people. They give me a gun, tests. He has a high-powered rifle, shoot that innocent person standing under a tree, thinking deep philosophical thoughts. Am I allowed to shoot him? What's the difference? What's the difference of our shooting with the gun and saved 10 people, or run him down with my car and save 10 people? Do you see the problem? What's the difference? Listen to what the husband who said. He said, and this is subtle but very powerful, is they give you a gun and tell you to shoot somebody. There, my say a sorry shall recife. I will translate. If they give you a gun and ask you to shoot somebody, it's an act of murder. It's true that your active were the results in saving 10 people. You may not do it, but when your car's going towards 10 people and you

turn away same I say had Salah. It's an act of salvation. Say it again. If they tell, if they give you the option to murder someone, the consequence of which is will save 10, no way. The Torah says you can't do that. But if you can do an act of saving 10 people by turning away from them, even though you will kill one on the side, says the hostage, that may be acceptable. He writes in his famous response among this, I'm not sure, but I think it's acceptable. And in practice, he ruled that way. Much more subtle than double effect, not the same principle at all, but nevertheless, that is what you are required to do. Is that an act of murder or an act of salvation? Just to make this a bit clearer, anyone disagree with us? I think it's too subtle. Let me make it a little bit more plain. Your car's going towards ten people. You can turn aside, say the husband-ish. I think so. Could you hear that? I think so. Case number two, your doctor in a hospital.

you've got five patients desperately. All they need transplants or they'll die. The nurse walks in and says, Doctor, he's a young man in the waiting room. He's come to visit his mother. Let's grab him, cut his throat, take five organs, save five lives. Raise your hand, please. Oh, so will it's an act of murder to save others? No way when it's an act of saving, possibly. You see the difference, okay? So that's a second way of resolving the issue. Would you like a black belt challenge? Okay, but listen very carefully for this. This is 10th then black belt. I've given you two solutions to the problem, right? Double effect is one form of logic, and the second is the cousin-ish is an act of murder, salvation. These are two different explanations. Now listen carefully. In all Talmudic analysis, whenever you have two ways of answering the same question, that Tom would always ask, 'Why bother giving me two solutions? Just give me one that works.' And the Talmud unfailingly answers, 'Because

whichever argument you take makes a difference. The Talmudic language is lamine enough demeanor. For example, if I said to you, How do I get downtown? and you say to me, Well, you can take a taxi or a train. Why? You give me two solutions. The answer is, one's expensive, one is cheap, one is slow, one is fast. There's got to be a difference. Is this clear? You wouldn't bother much. You wouldn't castle me with one more than one solution to the problem if one of them works. The only reason you give me two different options to solve the problem is when they register the answers that you make a difference. Here's the question: what's the difference whether you accept double effect as the explanation or you effect us except the cancellations logic of? Is it an act of murder, not an own act of salvation? Let me phrase the question clearly. Show me a practical difference depending on whether you accept the first explanation, double effect, or whether you accept the cousin ish. Show me a life-and-death difference that it

would make. I'll show you what's this. Hope you enjoy this. What happens if the trek looked like this camera. Imagine the trek looked like this. Can you see that it's a loop that loops back on itself. Let's try a double effect in double effects. We said you could divert the Train if the track looked like this. Could you divert the trend according to double effect. No way. Why do you need him to get smooshed now. Yes you do because if he jumps up and runs away the trend will kill these people on the back side. Correct. So according to double effect there's no way you could avert the Train now. He bees death becomes essential according to the cousin issue divert the Train. I think so. It's an act of salvation of these people. Okay. I wouldn't be stubborn about it but I think that's that. I think that's the answer. So this is these are some of the thoughts that are associated with these kinds of moral dilemmas. Let me tell you one more resolution here and that is

known as utilitarianism. Again, without going into the details, there is a system of moral theory that's known as utilitarianism. A couple of famous architects of this theory going back 200 years, and this theory says that all you ever need to do in human moral dilemmas is simply count the numbers. That's all. Don't get into this tom-buddy detailed logic; it's all irrelevant. Simply count the numbers: five against one, kill the one. The greatest good for the greatest number, the greatest happiness for the greatest number. It is brilliantly simple, unbelievably simple, totally consistent, and never been accepted. Why not, by the way? One of the main architects of utilitarianism was a fascinating Englishman called Jeremy Bentham. Bentham was a deacon in University College of London about 150 years ago. By the way, if you'd like to visit Jeremy Bentham, you can go and see him today. He left instructions in his will that when he died, his body should be preserved in case in the main hall of the university.

and wheeled out to every Senate meeting. You know the British are a little eccentric, and if you walk into UCL today, in a glass case on the side of the hall sits Bentham, his buddy, their head, his wax, his real head is in the box on the side, which is locked up because the King's College students used to steal it. So, Bentham sits when a gun lecture to the medical students. Now pay my respects to Jeremy Bentham, they're done Willie's body art, but they bring his head to the table at every Senate meeting and is registered as present but not voting. Anyway, I'm not kidding you, this is the case. How do I know this? Because we filed moved to London. I read in a book of her logic response, a called the, it's called the lave area. In fact, you must have, you probably don't know rubber grossness, his father was a dine on the London based in, and many years ago he was asked by a student at UCL who happens to be a Cohen.

If he can walk through the hall, he goes to this our rabbi gala lectures every day. And walking through a hall, there's a corpse in the hole. I'm a Cohen, and he answers very interesting. He says, for a current of contact with a dead body, you may not touch a body with his Jewish or not. But to be a nun or hell, to be in a space for the body only plaster Jewish bodies. However, on second thoughts, a Cohen may have no contact with the grave. This may be Bentham's grave. This is where he's permanently interred. Walk around the whole anyway. So, so Bentham suggested that all you need to do, all this logic is completely irrelevant, simply count the numbers. It is brilliantly simple, works every time, and never been accepted. And here's the bottom line, you know why not? Because it doesn't feel right. Isn't that amazing? It's so logical, it solves all the problems. Society could make unbelievable decisions, and no society's ever accepted it because it doesn't feel right. I mean

the two people in this hall who would you would love it but you know and it's quite easy to show imagine imagine you backpacking in South America and you stumbled into a little Peruvian village high in the Peruvian Andes and you stumble it and you see lined up against the wall 20 men about to be shot it's standing where there I've lost 20 people about to be shot just before they fire they see you and they say in honor of ill Presidente's birthday we're gonna let you shoot one of these people and save 19 lives and they stand there clapping and speaking in Spanish and throwing their heads in there waiting for you to want to shoot it shoot any one of these 19 people spit raise your hand please are not not you the rest of you raise your hand please if you would shoot one of them anyone you were saving 19 lives if you don't they're all gonna die you as well you got infected that's your problem okay the answer is it doesn't feel right.

logically, it's brilliant. 20 people gonna die. You can have 19 of them saved. Doesn't feel right. And on the basis of that, Bernard Williams, the professor of philosophy at Cambridge, wrote an excellent book called Morality, very well worth reading. He was an atheist, although he says very nice things about God, very interesting. But he analyzes utilitarianism, and the best answer you can come to is with all these analytical philosophical approaches. The reason has never been accepted in societies. We have no disproof of it. It works brilliantly, but it doesn't feel right. And our deepest intuition and emotion, an arbiter of what is moral, is our conscience, which has to be considered. Israel, let me finish with this here. We finished with us just to show you how far this goes. In 1944, I mean, in so many situations, you could give as examples, but in 1944 in London, you know the V-2 bombs were being sent in, right? The Germans had constructed these flying bombs. They were being sent over from France. Tens of thousands of people died.

in London, and here's what was happening. Imagine the map of London, City of London. The Germans were aiming at Westminster, of course, they were strategic and very densely populated. But most of the V-2 bombs were falling in Croydon, southwest London, sparsely populated at the time compared to Westminster. And the Germans needed to know where their bombs were falling. There was no GPS or satellites. There were two secret agents in London. One was called Garbo, and one was called Zigzag. Fascinating individuals can read the biography. Zigzag was a guy called Annie Chapman, a very interesting character. They were radioing the Germans about where the bombs were falling, and they were telling the Germans. Unknown to the Germans, there were secret British double agents. They worked for a group called Double Cross. They were taking the orders from Churchill directly. Churchill told them to tell the Germans that their aim was accurate. Churchill wanted the bombs to fall in Croydon to spare the densely populated area of Westminster. So Garbo and Zigzag were telling the

Germans that you're doing great so that the Rockets spelled in this area of London. There was a man of Churchill's cabinet called Harris. It was a working-class man. He worked himself up. He publicly argued against Churchill and accused him publicly of murdering people in Croydon. See the argument. Churchill said, I'm not killing these people and saving lace, and he said, You're killing us. Is this killing to say is a diverging? What is this? How the argument was solved eventually was it was a very upper crust aristocratic English gentleman, the president at the time, who argued forcefully that this was the correct moral decision and they should kill people in Croydon. And his own parents lived in Croydon when they served him. How could you do that? he said. Mum and dad would have wanted it that way anyway. So these are some of the issues that society deals with when the Germans, when they're Americans, killed seventy-four thousand people at Hiroshima. They said, We're not killing people. We're

saving millions more in a war and society has to do with us all the time or these acts of Salvation acts of killing diversion what is it this is a problem we live with all the time and what I'd like to leave you with the suggest I'd like to leave you with is that is that attitude we should have here is that we are meant to become moral individuals not by simply following some algorithm or some rules although when push comes to shove follow those rules because the Torah is more likely to be right objectively and you because of many many distortions that creep in as we move to various phases of society all sorts of things become acceptable they were not acceptable the year before that's true you look at society around us we go through shifting sands of moral fashion no question about that but the ultimate goal of Torah is not to follow a set of rules mindlessly or to develop children who are simply mindless robots following religious rules but to use Torah as a system to get in touch with the deepest essence of

what it is to be a human energy and thereby flourish genuinely in a holistic sense and bring out a natural morality to become people who are truly good. [Applause]

Rabbi Dr Akiva Tatz - Moral dilemmas in everyday life: How do we decide?

Rabbi Dr Akiva Tatz - Moral dilemmas in everyday life: How do we decide?