Books
Len Goodman
Though not without its critics (Sigmund Freud for one), the ethic of reciprocity is a commonly held, if not universal, maxim. Known as “the Golden Rule,” the injunction to treat others as you would like to be treated yourself is found in ethical systems as seemingly disparate as Islam, Confucianism and Kantianism. In his book Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself (Oxford, 235 pp., $45), Vanderbilt philosophy professor Lenn E. Goodman examines the Golden Rule from the perspective of the Hebrew Bible.
Love Thy Neighbor is compiled from Goodman’s participation in the University of Glasgow’s prestigious Gifford Lectures on natural theology in 2005. The book’s concern is twofold: First, how do we respond to the commandment for reciprocity? Second, what is the basis of that commandment?
In answering, Goodman cites Jewish scholars such as Hillel and Maimonides, as well as non-rabbinic sources like Aristotle and Emmanuel Kant. Working in the tradition of the Midrash, a method of biblical interpretation that’s both conversational and evolutionary, he argues against the idea that reciprocity is an obligation just because God commands it.
As proof, Goodman employs a dialectic he calls “chimneying,” borrowed from the rock-climbing technique by which a climber pushes off opposing rock faces in order to scale through a narrow gap. The commandment, he claims, is actually a two-way street: “We learn about God through our ethical understanding, and we learn about ethics through our understanding of God.” By “pushing off” between our inherent sense of right and our image of the Absolute, Goodman claims, we ascend to a higher ethical ideal and avoid the muddle created when subjective commandments conflict with objective ones.
Ultimately, this commandment to love our neighbors as our ourselves is evidence of God’s existence, says Goodman, because such values “point to His perfection.” But for many readers, Goodman’s claim that the existence of good posits the existence of God will prove problematic. Good, after all, is a relative thing: Its origins are attributable to social or evolutionary forces as easily as they are to divine inspiration. Such naysaying, in fact, is addressed in Love Thy Neighbor’s “Q&A” section, which at 86 pages is by far the longest of the book’s three chapters. Proof enough that, like any theological treatise, Goodman’s argument, no matter how well designed, first requires a leap of faith.
—Paul V. Griffith
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