TY - JOUR
T1 - Polemics on Perfection
T2 - Maimonides’ Last Law on Slaves Resolves the Debate
AU - Navon, Mois
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Mois Navon, 2024.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - “What is the summum bonum?” This question is, without exaggeration, the ultimate existential question. Of no less import is its corollary: how is one to achieve this summum bonum? Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed endeavors to provide the answers. That said, the precise intent of Maimonides answers has generated no less perplexity than the original questions. Indeed, modern Jewish philosophers have spared no ink in trying to ascertain Maimonides’ intentions on human perfection. In this essay, I seek not to add yet another perspective on Maimonides’ intentions but to provide compelling support for existing positions; support found – worlds apart from the ivory towers where philosophers spill their ink – in the private quarters of a Canaanite slave. It is my thesis that Maimonides, in his last Law on Slaves, provides us with the answers to the ultimate existential questions and, accordingly, with a resolution to the perennial polemics on perfection.
AB - “What is the summum bonum?” This question is, without exaggeration, the ultimate existential question. Of no less import is its corollary: how is one to achieve this summum bonum? Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed endeavors to provide the answers. That said, the precise intent of Maimonides answers has generated no less perplexity than the original questions. Indeed, modern Jewish philosophers have spared no ink in trying to ascertain Maimonides’ intentions on human perfection. In this essay, I seek not to add yet another perspective on Maimonides’ intentions but to provide compelling support for existing positions; support found – worlds apart from the ivory towers where philosophers spill their ink – in the private quarters of a Canaanite slave. It is my thesis that Maimonides, in his last Law on Slaves, provides us with the answers to the ultimate existential questions and, accordingly, with a resolution to the perennial polemics on perfection.
KW - Maimonides
KW - ethics
KW - halakhah
KW - summum bonum
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85203558763&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1163/15700704-20240007
DO - 10.1163/15700704-20240007
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AN - SCOPUS:85203558763
SN - 1568-4857
VL - 27
SP - 132
EP - 154
JO - Review of Rabbinic Judaism
JF - Review of Rabbinic Judaism
IS - 2
ER -