Abstract
Some religious requirements seem genuinely arbitrary in the sense that there seem to be no sufficient explanation of why those requirements with those contents should pertain. This paper aims to understand exactly what it might mean for a religious requirement to be genuinely arbitrary and to discern whether and how a religious practitioner could ever be rational in obeying such a requirement (even with full knowledge of its arbitrariness). We lay out four accounts of what such arbitrariness could consist in, and show how each account provides a different sort of baseline for understanding how obedience to arbitrary requirements could, in principle, be rational.
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Notes
Robinson (2013), Islam: A Concise Introduction, 98.
One might be concerned that this way of characterizing arbitrary requirements fails to distinguish them from ethical first principles—say, for instance, utilitarians’ principle of equal consideration of interests (Singer (1979), Practical Ethics) or a Kantian Categorical Imperative. It might be argued that since they are first principles, they too lack further ethical explanatory reasons. Even if this is so, however, defenders of first principles tend to point to descriptive facts and intuitions to motivate their views (see e.g. Singer, Practical Ethics, Chapter 1). It might be argued that in doing so they provide explanations for their ethical first principles are still rationally satisfying in some way. Given these considerations about ethical first principles, one might prefer to characterize arbitrary requirements this way: arbitrary requirements are requirements for which there is no rationally satisfying explanation.
Arbitrary religious requirements may be regarded as an exercise of God’s practical authority to direct our behaviors. Let’s make a distinction between epistemic (or theoretical) authority and practical authority (Raz 1986:9). Epistemic authority concerns the authority of an expert with greater knowledge to show me a reason that was there all along. Someone with practical authority, on the other hand, can create a new reason for me. As Enoch (2014) explains it, practical authority is a case of “robust reason-giving.” A practical authority has normative power to bring about a change in the addressee’s reasons. God’s commands, in general, can be epistemically authoritative. They can show me a reason to perform what is commanded, a reason that was there all along. Arbitrary religious requirements, however, are requirements for which there seem to be no sufficient reasons to explain why those requirements with those specific contents should pertain. They might be seen as instances of God’s power to give reason robustly. In such cases, God’s issuing a command determines in part that the arbitrary religious requirement obtains.
Robinson (2013), Islam: A Concise Introduction, 98.
Abhinav (2013), “Ember Days and Ember Weeks,” Encylcopedia Britannica.
Eisenberg (2010), Jewish Traditions, 372. In traditional Jewish discourse, huqqim refers to those statutes which either have no reasons or have reasons that we do not, or cannot, know. For helpful discussion see J. Stern (2012), “Problematic Commandments I: Maimonidies on the Huqqim and Antinomianism,” 15 and D. Frank and A. Segal (eds) (2017), Debates in Jewish Philosophy Past and Present, Part 10: “Ritual and Rationality”.
Eisenberg (2010), Jewish Traditions, 372.
Aquinas (1962) takes a related but distinct approach to arbitrary requirements. Since he rejects the idea that divine decrees can be arbitrary (Summa Theologiae, Prima Secundae Partis, Question 95, Article 2), he is eager to explain away the apparent arbitrariness of the “ceremonial precepts” of Jewish law. However, rather than arguing that these precepts are mystically required, he argues that they are “figurative” representations of truths that would later be manifested in Christ (Ibid, Question 101, Article 2).
Abhinav, “Ember Days and Ember Weeks,” Encylcopedia Britannica.
Heinz (2008), “The Origins of Muslim Prayer,” 79ff.
Philosophers of law have also raised concerns about arbitrariness. The most dominant discussion about arbitrariness in the philosophy of law, however, concerns the arbitrariness of judicial interpretations of the law, which is thought to stem (perhaps inevitably) from indeterminacies in human intentions and language [see e.g. Hasnas (1995) and MacCormick (2005)]. Since we are not concerned with interpretations of religious requirements, and since (moreover) we presume that God’s intentions and language need not be constrained by the indeterminacies that affect human intentions and language, these discussions about arbitrariness in legal interpretation are not likely to offer insight into our problem. A less prominent but more promising area of discussion arises in the context on natural law theory. We make note of some of these contributions below in “Arbitrariness from coordination” section.
See e.g. Kant, Foundations of metaphysics of morals and ‘What is enlightenment?’, trans. LW Beck.
See e.g. Habermas (1990), The Theory of Communicative Action, Chapter 2 and esp. 174–179, Behabib, Situating the Self, 42–46. For more Kohlberg’s influence on Habermas, see Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, 116–94.
One might also interpret Aquinas (1962) as making the same suggestion. He argues that the ‘ceremonial precepts’ of Jewish law appear not to have reasons because are merely “figurative” representations of the truth that would later be manifested in Christ. Indeed, he suggests that “divine mysteries” must be revealed to “uncultured people under a veil of figures” (emphasis added, Summa Theologiae, Prima Secundae Partis, Question 101, Article 2).
The language of “ossification” comes from Masuzawa in the course of his elegant summary of Pfliederer’s views (The Invention of World Religions, 198). Pfleiderer writes in his Religion and Historic Faiths that Judaism is caught in a “hard shell of external legality” (quoted in Masuzawa (2005), The Invention of World Religions, 198, footnote 21); he also writes the following of Islam: “founded by the prophet Mohammed under Jewish and Christian influences among the half-barbaric Arabic people in the seventh century, Islamism shares the rigidly theocratic and legalistic character of Judaism” (quoted in Masuzawa (2005), The Invention of World Religions, 199). Pfleiderer’s writing continues an impulse also found in Keunen’s works. For instance, Keunen writes in his National Religions and Universal Religions that we must “attribute [to Judaism] a rigidly national and exclusive character” (quoted in Masuzawa (2005), The Invention of World Religions, 193). For further excellent discussion of Pfleiderer, Keunen, and Tiele’s views, see Masuzawa (2005), The Invention of World Religions, Chapters 2–3, 6 (see especially 82–86, 97, 107–117, 192ff). For further discussion of a specific example as it pertains to Islamic prayer practices, see Powers, “Interiors, Intentions, and the ‘Spirituality’ of Islamic Ritual Practice,” 425–459.
Masuzawa (2005), The Invention of World Religions, Chapters 2–3, 6 (especially 77–78, 107–117, 192ff).
Note that when P is the empty set, φ is completely arbitrary.
We call this metaphysical contingency—however, on some views, we might only have a weaker but related form of necessity such as nomological necessity. If such a view were adopted, the spirit of our argument would probably still hold. We focus here on metaphysical necessity, since it is a more widely-adopted category.
In fact, it seems likely that the most natural way of describing this second dimension is a quantitative rather than qualitative difference, allowing for degrees of strength of entailment. Nothing in the main argument of the paper depends on this question, but treating the difference as qualitative allows us to simplify the discussion.
Raz argues that a necessary condition for practical authority is that all its commands should be based on, or reflect, some reasons that already apply to the subjects of the commands (Raz 1986, p. 47). He calls this condition the dependency thesis. The version of the divine command theory we discuss in this section might be inconsistent with the dependency thesis. That is, God’s basic commands might generate new reasons that are not based on any reason that already applies to us. However, the other examples of arbitrariness that we discuss in “Arbitrariness from coordination, Arbitrariness from empirical irregularity, Arbitrariness from devotion” sections) are consistent with Raz’s thesis. In those cases, the new reasons generated by God commands are partly based on some reasons that already apply to us.
It is worth noting that there are other conceptions of Divine Command Theory in which God’s commands are justified by reference to a higher rationale or standard of goodness (e.g. Audi 2007; Adams 2002; Hare 2015). Even on those conceptions of divine command theory, God may impose some arbitrary requirements. But the arbitrariness of those requirements would not be complete. We will discuss the issue in “Arbitrariness from coordination, Arbitrariness from empirical irregularity, Arbitrariness from devotion” sections.
For instance, Anscombe (1958), “Modern Moral Philosophy,” seems to have a view close to this. In the same vein, Adams (1987, 2002) suggests that moral obligation in particular, owing to its social nature, must be understood in terms of God commands. However, Adams (1987, 2002) holds that moral obligations imposed by God are not completely arbitrary. See footnotes 24 and 33 for further discussion.
This seems to be Adams 's view on divine command theory in his “Moral Arguments for Theistic Belief," (1979a). In that paper, he argues that that the divine command theory is the best theory that explains our intuitions about ethics, and so all moral requirements are specified by God’s commands. However, in this work, he does not hold that there is anything in particular about the concept of wrongness that requires a lawgiver. He also defends a similar view in (1979b). But he modifies his view later. Starting from his “Divine Commands and the Social Nature of Obligation” he holds that the social nature of the concept of wrongness is such that only theistic properties can fill the role assigned by the concept (Adams 1987, 2002). Adams’ very early paper on divine command Theory (1973) also suggests that the meaning of wrongness depends partly on God’s commands.
Of particular note is the prohibition against wearing wool and linen together in the Torah, which has continued to be held up as an example of a requirement that is very difficult to rationalize.
Natural law theorists like Yves Simon (1962) and John Finnis (1980) have emphasized the important coordinative role played by positive laws that are (in some respects) “arbitrary” determinations of general principles of natural law. Simon (1962) and Finnis (1980) are particularly concerned about the role that positive laws play in determining the natural law principle that the common good should be promoted. They take it that the role that the law plays in coordinating interpersonal transactions so as to promote the common good is crucial to its normative authority. Murphy (2002) points to limitations in this “salient coordinator” account of authority in cases where the “end” of coordination is indeterminate either because of vagueness (for instance, Murphy suggests that the end of ‘the common good’ is vague) or complexity (for instance, Murphy gives the example of the end of ‘lowering crime and promoting beautification’) (p. 121–125). These criticisms of the salient coordinator account of authority suggests that there may be an important debate to be had about the limitations of the account of arbitrariness from coordination that we consider in this section. Since, however, we are only in the business of providing a taxonomy of approaches to understanding arbitrary religious requirements, and not in the business of arguing for one of these approaches over another, we do not settle that debate here.
Murphy (2006) suggests that we may be normatively bound to obey a particular determination of a general practical principle in virtue of the fact that incorporating that general principle into our practical reasoning in a way that is “consistent” and “principled” requires that we be guided by a particular determination of the principle (p. 116–117). Murphy gives the example of being directed in a will to give $100 to every bald person who one meets. To do well with respect to taking this principle as a guide to your practical conduct, you must select a determination of the principle that allows you to carry out the will in a consistent and principled way. The cases of arbitrariness that we have considered in this section are similar to this sort of case insofar as both involve a higher-order, non-arbitrary, reason to pick one out of a set of possible determinations. Of course, the higher-order reasons relevant to coordination that we emphasize are distinct from the kind of higher-order reasons that are relevant in this example, in that the former but not the latter are specifically concerned with benefits that redound to a group. However, one can imagine a scenario in which the arbitrariness of (say) a requirement to fast for a certain number of days stems not from any benefits of group coordination, but rather from facts about vagueness. Perhaps, for instance, there is vagueness with respect to when one has been “purified” of a sin, and this vagueness gives rise to a certain degree of arbitrariness in the requirements for an indulgence meant to blot out that sin. In this case, God could have higher-order reasons of consistency and principledness to allow some works but not others to count towards the granting of an indulgence. (For more on indulgences, see the Cardinal Baum (2000) on “The Gift of the Indulgence.”).
In an anecdote from Discourses of Rumi (chapter 2) (Arberry 2004), two of Rumi’s disciples prayed toward him when he was immersed in the light of God. Rumi later says that even though the disciples did not pray toward Mecca, their prayers were really toward the qibla.
Robinson (2013), Islam: A Concise Introduction, 96–97, 106–107.
Of course, in some cases of translation we might have a higher-order reason that we recognize for one of the translations and not the other. In these cases, translation still does not itself act as a higher-order reason, but after translation, we are now in a better position to recognize the higher-order reasons we already had.
Doing courageous acts may be instrumentally valuable to developing courage, but even once such courage is developed, courageous acts might still have intrinsic value qua acts that manifest or exercise the virtue of courage. Similarly, being obedient to arbitrary requirements may be not just instrumentally valuable to developing devotion, but also intrinsically valuable qua acts that manifest or exercise certain devotional virtues.
Adams (2002) offers an account of moral obligation that bears some resemblance to our account of arbitrary devotional requirements. According to Adams’ social theory of moral obligation, “valuing one's social bonds gives one, under certain conditions, a reason to do what is required of one by one's associates or one's community” (p. 242). Specifically, he suggests that complying with someone’s requirements can be “an expression of my valuing and respecting [our] relationship” (p. 242). Adams holds that the social bond that is relevant to moral obligation is our bond with God.
Of course, one might argue that asking for a wrong or practically irrational act does not necessarily always damage a relationship: for instance, perhaps God’s asking to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac (or Ishmael) did not damage their relationship. However, though it’s possible that such a request would not damage a relationship—especially if it is a one-time request (as in Abraham’s case)—it seems that such requests would tend to damage a relationship, especially over time, insofar as they seem to express a lack of respect or concern for the practitioner.
An anonymous reviewer suggested this to us as a rationale given in the Torah based on stories of obedience and disobedience (most obviously Abraham and Isaac, as well as Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu, Adam and Eve, and so on).
Of course, God’s normative power may have a limit. It is a matter of debate whether God has the normative power (of the sort explained in this section) to override commands of morality. The case of God’s asking Abraham to sacrifice his son is a case in point. Kierkegaard thinks that God has such power. Others deny it (e.g. Adams 2002).
Given this general reason, God has practical authority to robustly give us a reason to comply with His arbitrary demands. Enoch (2014) explains how this general reason might give rise to authoritative commands. See footnote 3 for more.
In personal correspondence, Scott Davison points out that it seems that similar devotional results could be achieved if a practitioner merely believes that a law is arbitrary, when in fact it is not. Here though, we can respond by noting that the intrinsic value of such devotion would seem to be diminished by the fact that it was predicated on God’s keeping information from us. If one responds to a requirement that is genuinely arbitrary, then your reasons for obeying the requirement match up with the reasons that there actually are for obeying the requirement, and both are rooted in the value of your relationship with God. However, if one responds to a requirement that is merely believed to be arbitrary, your reasons for obeying the requirement depend on God’s non-disclosure of the actual reasons for obeying it, and these don’t have any internal connection to the value of your relationship to God.
Scott Davison and Josef Stern noted to us that this problem resembles that of incommensurability in choice (e.g. Chang 2001). However, the decision problem we describe can arise even when all values at stake are comparable, or even when a single value is at stake. For instance, a coordination requirement to pray might be based on the collective utility of group well-being, and my obligation to my friend could be based in exactly the same value.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the participants in and organizers of the Randomness & Providence project, three anonymous reviewers, and especially Scott Davison, Sajjad Rizvi, Aaron Segal, Josef Stern and Karen R. Zwier for helpful comments. We also gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the John Templeton Foundation’s “Models of Providence” Grant.
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Aronowitz, S., Coetsee, M. & Saemi, A. The problem of arbitrary requirements: an abrahamic perspective. Int J Philos Relig 89, 221–242 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-020-09775-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-020-09775-7