Autonomy and Judaism: The Individual and Community in Jewish Philosophical Thought

Autonomy and Community

Autonomy and Community Eugene B. Borowitz Where shall liberal Jews find a compelling sense of Jewish duty now that they deny that revelation comes to us in verbal form? This question has always been at the heart of all forms of nonOrthodox Judaism and it has become increasingly troublesome as the early responses have proved inadequate, even as the press toward freedom has grown more anarchic. Few modern Jews will deny that self-determination is critical to our sense of personal dignity, though Vladimir Jabotinsky wanted the nation to act unquestioningly in support of its leader. And few believe that it will be possible to have any meaningful Jewish continuity without our people being able to make some demands upon us, though Alvin Reines teaches that Jews, like all human beings, ought rationally to do only what their personal free choice directs them to. For most of us, then, the issue is one of balance : what are the proper roles of the self and the group in determining what a Jew ought to do? I stress "ought" because it is critical to this discussion to point to the problem of the urgency associated with the doing. There is a weak sense of "ought," that a given act would be pleasant or desirable if one would do it and, hence, commends itself to us. One often hears talk in the Jewish community about our traditions as resources or options available to enhance the individual's life. While there is value in this liberal approach to the Jewish heritage, certainly in apologetics, it has serious limits. For just as one may find this or that Jewish act valuable , one mayor may not find another resource elsewhere that fulfilled the function as well or better. If Jewish survival involves more than preserving another group of possible behaviors, this weak sense of "ought" should not satisfy us. And that is precisely the problem: how might we understand Jewish duty as directing us with a strong sense of "ought," one urgent enough to give us an effective sense of obligation, though one not as stringent as God's own command to us? 10 Eugene B. Borowitz This analysis already moves us to the philosophical heart of our problem. Ever since Kant's discussion of duty, though surely with roots going back to Descartes' arrogation of his right to judge all ideas faulty that did not commend themselves to his reason as clear and distinct, modern thought has located authority in the individual. It has no comparable, indeed remotely comparable, regard for the community . But surely that statement must be immediately nuanced. Philosophers seem always to have taken it for granted and Kant made it quite explicit that one of the signs of rational thought was its universality . That is, it could be understood by any rational thinker, if cogent it would compel assent, and if an ethical maxim it would apply to everyone. Thus, in the concept of universalism, Kant had a sense of the community of all rational beings and, in fact, a vital sense of the community of all human kind. His rationalism effectively integrated , and did not oppose, autonomy and community; as long as one is only concerned about community in this universal sense one need not despair of finding a philosophic way of linking the two. The difficulties in dealing with community in contemporary philosophy arise precisely when we wish to provide a rational foundation for the authority of any lesser collective, for example, the state. Our preferred solution only proves the theoretical disparity between the self and the group. Following Rousseau, we believe that the most humane form of government will be one which expresses the will of its individual citizens. Democracy allows us to organize self-determining individuals into greater wholes and by their will to join the enterprise (knowing they will have some personal power in it), accepting its discipline over them. At its best, the democratic state will give wide latitude to individual conscience when it clashes with the will or needs of the majority. And, as we have seen so powerfully in our concern for Soviet Jews, we deem it to be a sign of decency in a government that it allows its people the right of emigration. In other words, if individuals feel that the state no longer expresses or might soon no longer express what they powerfully believe to be right, they should be allowed to leave and make a new social contract. In...