The Moral Arc of the Universe and Maimonides’ Hermeneutics of Accommodation: A Thread
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Maimonides' devotes much Guide for the Perplexed Part III to giving reasons for the commandments. This act is fundamentally hermeneutic, aimed at making sense of the absurd, and I think it has a lot to say to our present moment. (I'll cite chapters, but see III:26–49)
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Maimonides says that many commandments are nonsensical, because they're leftovers from earlier periods of time (III:49). Divine commandments, he says, are always compromises, where Divine Wisdom accommodates the reality of historical conditions (III:32 and more).
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Much of what US civic culture is currently struggling with is how to deal with the past, its agents, and its relics. Many of these are simply going to be seen as evil, but many are a mix. Many, like the commandments, blend progress with the historical status quo.
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Progress, however, means always leaving the status quo farther and farther in the past. Maimonides’ teleology of rational truth means the past–even the commandments, which move us forward–will ultimately be rendered as incomprehensible falsehood (III:49).
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Our teleology of moral goodness will ultimately render the past as despicable evil. Moral progress does this unavoidably. The heroes of a given moment will inevitably be remembered poorly. This doesn't make progress bad, but it must be grappled with.
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This is Rambam's project. How do we grapple with the leftovers of history, which are strike us as absurd/evil? The first is assert/admit to the inevitability of conditions. Even God is not free of them (III:32; see also I:75). There is no leap to utopia;
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change will always be slow, and eventually, too slow.
This can be a conservative principle, preserving the status quo unnecessarily, but when imagining the past, it can also help dispel phantasms of purity.
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This can be a conservative principle, preserving the status quo unnecessarily, but when imagining the past, it can also help dispel phantasms of purity.
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We have to recognize that steps within history, always take part in history. Any attempt to push history forward must grow out of this history. The success of these steps can be measured in the way they seem more and more insufficient as history progresses.
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Of course, some aspects of this don't transfer as well. Rambam is able to cleanly divide between the divine wisdom and the historical nonsense, but it’s harder for us to separate between the good and the bad, as they often inhere in the same person.
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Another question is the practical one. So far we have just dealt with interpreting the past. But what about maintaining vs doing away with remains of the past? Rambam doesn't directly address this question.
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One useful idea is his assertion that commandments are not individualized, neither per person nor historical moment. They are always binding, even when rendered absurd (III:34). Historical change is uneven; people change at different rates. Inevitably, what seems moral to one
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will be immoral to another. Trying to reshape our history's leftovers based on how only some people have changed is a recipe for disaster, though this cuts in both directions.
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Perhaps another useful idea is his distinction between truth and politics (III:8 and more). Building and maintaining a good society is its own project, not identical with the search for truth. But this doesn't help us so much, because our teleology is not about truth, but
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about building a moral society. We can't distinguish between morality and politics in the same way. However, *if* we can accept the necessity of conditions, then we'll have to recognize that moral progress and the politics of the status quo are always going to clash.
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@threadreaderapp please unroll
