Normative God

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines Eliezer Berkovits’s teleological philosophy of halakhah (Jewish law) in view of moral philosophy and legal theory. It shows how Berkovits justifies the commandments as a means for realizing righteousness in the world and how he operationalizes this purpose in jurisprudential principles that guide the commandments’ implementation. Even as Berkovits affirms the value of righteousness, he argues that it is only obligatory because it is commanded by God. This modified divine command theory is compared to Robert Merrihew Adam’s influential position. Its expression in Berkovits’s jurisprudence is also situated relative to natural law, inclusive positivist, and post-positivist legal theories. The chapter argues that Berkovits struggles in his aim to balance heteronomy and autonomy and to preserve a role for the commandments as commands. These problems point to his deficient conception of reason and view of authority.