Philosophical Review

Jewish Ethics by Israel MattuckReview by: Milton R. KonvitzThe Philosophical Review, Vol. 64, No. 1 (Jan., 1955), pp. 135-136Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2182246 .

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REVIEWS OF BOOKS

tautology. Presumably, both descriptions would make the same pre- dictions. Which we chose would be, so far as predictive value went, a matter of indifference. Rival moral principles, however, entail different answers to the question, "What shall I do?" So the decision that the answer entailed by one, and not that entailed by the other, is the "correct" answer, is, after all, arbitrary in a usual sense of that word.

Still, the despairing philosophers can hardly disagree with Hare's point that if ultimate decisions are made only after reflection, after giving careful consideration to what, to the best of our knowledge, the facts are, and in the light of what experience teaches are the results of living by one moral principle as compared to another, they are not in the same class as ultimate decisions made impulsively. If there is this agreement about the facts, any dispute as to whether ultimate decisions should be called "rational" or "arbitrary" seems relatively trivial.

VINCENT TOMAS

University of Minnesota

JEWISH ETHICS. By ISRAEL MATTUCK. London, Hutchinson's Uni- versity Library; New York, Longmans, Green and Co., 1953. PP. ix, 158. $i.8o.

The author of this small treatise on a complex subject-the former senior rabbi of the Liberal Synagogue of London-has accomplished the end he set for himself; namely, an objective presentation of the theory, principles, and practical demands of the ethics formulated or found in the Old Testament, the Aprocrypha, and the Talmud. While he in no sense undertook to make a contribution to apologetics, the author considered only those ethical judgments that reflect the higher reaches of ethical principles. This procedure is justified, he states, "by the general fact that a religion consists of its highest teachings, even though its adherents do not always live up to them, and even if some of its exponents expressed lower ideas." An additional-and stronger -reason for this selective process is that the "higher teachings were largely maintained, and generally approved," by the rabbis, while the lower principles were opposed and condemned. This approach seems justified, though it leaves unsatisfied the need of a descriptive, anthropo- logical work on Jewish ethics, which would not take as its terminal date the Talmud, a work that was finished some fourteen centuries ago.

The book is divided into five parts, as follows: (i) the theory of Jewish ethics, (2) general principles, (3) social ethics, (4) the family,

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THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW

and (5) the good life. The book is an extremely succinct statement, yet it is far from being a skeletal, bare treatment; the subject was obviously a challenging, lively one to Rabbi Mattuck, and the book was written with insight and feeling. It expounds a system of ethics to which the author is committed and to which he clings with all his heart, soul, and might. This fact does not stand in the way of objec- tivity; but the objectivity is arrived at by an internal movement: Jewish ethics is seen by one to whom the theory and principles of Jew- ish ethics are part of his own life, thought, and aspirations. This makes for a spirited presentation. A fair illustration of the method and ap- proach is the following passage:

the Law was conceived not as a revelationfrom God but as a revelation of God. The law of God cannot be conceived as external to him. It emanates from him in the way that light emanates from the sun; he "gives the law," in the sense that the sun gives light. . . . The study of the Law was an intellectual pursuit, but in its totality it was informed by the feeling of communion with God.... To study it served a practical purpose by giving the detailed knowledge of its prescriptions, which would enable the students to direct aright their own lives and to guide others. But it meant more than that; it meant close -communion with God. This explains why it [study] was given a religious value equal to prayer. God revealed himself in the Law; to appropriate it brought men into closest relation with him, and it was appropriated by study.

Certainly this point has been made before, by Israel Abrahams, Leo Baeck, Solomon Schechter, and George F. Moore; this circum- stance only confirms its correctness. Indeed, much that is said by Rabbi Mattuck has been said by these scholars before him, but it has not been said so felicitously and yet so compactly.

MILTON R. KONVITZ

Cornell University

THE ART OF MAKING CHOICES. By IAN MCGREAL. Dallas, Southern Methodist University Press, .953. PP. xii, i69. $3.75-

This is an ambitious book. Its aim, or one of its aims, is to "restore the lost sense of value," by supplying "the foundations of a system of values and an art of choice" (pp. 12-13). Thus it attempts to define "value" and such "value terms" as "good," "right," and "obligation' (Ch. IV), and to formulate "the moral law for conduct" (p. 76 and Ch. VI). But in addition it includes a definition of "philosophy" (Ch. II), a discussion of the values of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- ness" (Ch. V), and theories of beauty, truth, and reality-or more

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