one’s respectfulness and willingness to accommodate the needs of others. The intellectual virtues, in turn, relate to one’s ability to skillfully present one’s opinion; not being easily swayed by the arguments of the others; and being able to question, and to respond skillfully to the questioning of others.179 These intellectual virtues undoubtedly highlight one’s rational abilities and demonstrate the “extraordinary wisdom” in terms of learning and determining “what is proper to be given precedence, . . . [and] what is proper to postpone.”180
While Maimonides defines the intellectual values of the “wise” man, he does not provide a similar description of the “saintly” man, but rather contrasts a saintly man with a wicked man. In line with his renouncement of any extremes, he endorses moderation and presents the wicked man as the one who leans toward the extreme. The saintly man is further described as temperate: slow to any feelings of anger as contrasted with an intemperate wicked man unable to control his anger. Maimonides argues that a “saintly” man is someone who holds the heightened moral virtues, but in this case, these virtues deviate from the mean and “incline a bit toward an extreme.”181 The term “saintly” is used interchangeably with the term hasid (“pious”) precisely because of this “increase (beyond the mean).” This deviation from the mean is in accord with Maimonides’ view that in some cases a wise man goes beyond the conception of conventional good and evil: “For the exaggeration in a matter would be termed hasid, whether that exaggeration would be in the good or in the evil.”182 But is a hasid, someone engaged in the solitary pursuits, well-suited for political leadership? We now turn to Maimonides’ view of the prophecy and prophets.
Maimonides’ View of Political Leaders and Prophets
The observed tension in Maimonides’ assessment for a proper place for the perfect individual leads to the question: can one engage in a pursuit of solitude if human needs cannot be met outside of the social and political environment? Moreover, what conditions are most conducive to a political leader? Discussing a political leader, Maimonides reiterates his skepticism for passions, which he ties to the appetitive faculty of the soul. He argues that a secular, political leader should never “let loose the reins of anger nor let passion gain mastery over him.”183 Yet, Maimonides offers an astute political comment arguing that on some cases mercy and grace, but similarly anger and wrath, might need to be exercised for the reasons of safety “not out of mere compassion and pity, but in accordance with what is fitting.”184 Nonetheless, even when the actions of hard-heartedness or vengeance are needed for a greater good, “it behooves that acts of mercy, forgiveness, pity, and commiseration should proceed from the governor of a city to a much greater extent than acts of retaliation.”185 If grace and mercy are the actions dissociated from God’s affection but represent a human phenomenon, then acts of anger, vengeance, and jealousy similarly originate and are carried forward by humans. Human governance is the pinnacle of all these actions resulting more often than not from an uncontrollable, unbridled human passion. Human passions can become detrimental when humans are placed in conditions that they cannot fully control or when they lack an adequate understanding of the events. The fundamental problem that holds back human perfection remains to be grounded in the nature of intellect in relation to human body and soul, particularly body’s desires. Perhaps the most onerous hindrance is a human completely severed from any desire for intellectual pursuits.
But how cogent is the relationship between solitude and piety and the philosophical ethics articulated through the adherence to the commandments? Remembering that for a pious man God is the ultimate lawgiver, is Maimonides able to successfully avoid the controversy between the philosophical view on the rational part of the soul with its tendency for deliberation, and piety’s dislike for theoretical speculations? As discussed above, the mean (which in itself can be seen as a part of deliberation) determines what is good for the soul (the state of equilibrium). The commandments, to the contrary, expect leaning toward the extreme. While the mean focuses on the individual, the commandments promote the communal rather than merely an individual focus. What does this quandary tell us about the relationship between the mean and the commandments and also between the soul and the commandments? To bridge the two and to minimize this tension, Maimonides interprets the commandments from both the politico-religious and from the individual viewpoints. In other words, when the Torah commands something, it includes both the social (politico-religious) and the individual (religious) value. In Eight Chapters, Maimonides interprets the commandments as being good for the soul (i.e., generosity benefits the poor—the community as a whole, and the soul of the one who is generous—the individual). Specifically, in chapter 4, Maimonides argues that the perfect commandments make people perfect186 since the commandments are “a discipline for the powers of the soul.”187 We posit here an analogy to Shinran’s thought in relation to the fact that becoming embraced by Amida also means attaining a higher state of perfection. However, contrary to Shinran who exercises a non-dualistic view of human beings, for Maimonides, one’s soul can succumb to evil inclinations generated by matter.
But how does Maimonides see a prophet in terms of a higher state of perfection? We already mentioned that he is less skeptical in his assessment of imagination in relation to prophecy and prophets. Maimonides discusses the nature of prophecy in a number of sources,188 but for our purpose we turn only to the GP II: 32 and 36 where he emphasizes the political aspects of the perfected life. Given Maimonides’ view of Moses as a politico-religious leader, Maimonides considers prophecy as “a certain perfection in the nature of man.”189 In GP II: 36, Maimonides stipulates that the nature of perfection is not limited to one’s moral and rational faculties, but relates also to “the imaginative faculty in respect of its original disposition.”190 However, in line with his skeptical view of the role of matter, he offers the following caveat: “the perspective of the bodily faculties, to which the imaginative faculty belongs, is consequent upon the best temperament, the best possible size, and the purest possible matter, of the part of the body that is the substratum for the faculty in question.”191 For Maimonides, Moses exemplifies a model of both theoretical and practical virtues. As GP I: 34, II: 36, and III: 33 discuss, to establish and preserve a society requires to have a leader with certain ethical traits. However, Maimonides does not always connect ethical skills to intellectual perfection. The prophets and Moses in particular, appear to be the exceptions. But what can we suggest about Maimonides’ overall perception of human perfection?
Irrefutably, the placement of the chapters GP III: 54 and 51 highlight the ambiguity related to Maimonides’ view of human perfection. In III: 51, Maimonides discusses Moses and the patriarchs who appear to transcend the limits imposed by matter. Maimonides states that Aaron and Miriam “died in the pleasure of this apprehension [of the intelligibles] due to the intensity of passionate love.”192 The deaths of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam testify to the divide between the attainment of intellectual perfection (theoretical perfection) and ethical perfection (practical perfection). While their death is defined as “salvation from death,” Maimonides makes sure to stipulate that this salvation does not relate to the existential permanence of matter, but rather to remaining “permanently in that state of intense pleasure, which does not belong to the genus of bodily pleasures.”193 Recalling our argument related to different audiences and different goals, we should note that in the seventh chapter of Eight Chapters, Maimonides argued to the contrary, namely that Moses’ intellect continued being tied to matter. The difference in this argumentation might reflect on Maimonides’ goal of highlighting Moses’ uniqueness as a receiver of divine law in the former case, and of underscoring the limits of human perfection in the latter case. Already in GP I: 1, Maimonides establishes the need for intellectual apprehension: “that which is meant in the Scriptural dictum, let us make man in our image, was the special form, which is intellectual apprehension, not the shape or configuration” (221; emphasis added).194
As argued above, matter continues to be a thorny issue that leads one away from either intellectual perfection or ethical perfection and might result in human evilness. How is Maimonides dealing with these inclinations and what role do the commandments play in eroding or at least in mitigating the evilness?
