Violence and the Sacred: On Sacrifice and the Political Order

Date: 

Thursday, November 9, 2006, 4:30pm to 6:00pm

Location: 

Starr Auditorium, Kennedy School of Government

Speaker: Moshe Halbertal, Professor of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, Hebrew University

On November 9, 2006, Moshe Halbertal gave the second in a series of lectures by former faculty fellows to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. Professor Halbertal's lecture was titled "Violence and the Sacred: On Sacrifice and the Political Order." He is Professor of Jewish Thought and Philosophy at The Hebrew University, a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, and currently visiting Professor of Law at New York University.

Professor Halbertal began with the phenomenon of the suicide bomber, and its combination of self sacrifice and killing, in which the perpetrator becomes one of the intended victims. He pointed out that, by so dramatically neglecting their self interest, suicide bombers highlight the power of self-transcendence as a motivator of human behavior. Suicide bombers also highlight the fact that this motivation toward self-transcendence, while central to what makes us human, can be more problematic than excessive attachment to one’s self interest.

The combination of self sacrifice and killing arises in the context of just war theory as well, where it is argued that combatants have the right to kill the enemy only to the extent that they identify themselves as combatants, thereby placing themselves at risk of being killed. Professor Halbertal questioned this view, arguing that, in an unjust war, the process of identifying oneself does not endow those on the wrong side with the right to kill. And those on the just side do not have an obligation to identify themselves, all the better to stop one’s unjust enemy without risk to one’s own life or limb.

Professor Halbertal next considered political theorists’ failure to develop an adequate account of self-sacrifice and self transcendence. Hobbes, for example, argues that individuals give up their natural rights to power and violence in order to escape the state of nature, and realize the security benefits offered by the sovereign. It follows that the sovereign can make no claims of self sacrifice on citizens. Rawls demands that individuals sacrifice vast goods to enter the political order, including any advantages of social position and natural talents. Once individuals have made this enormous act of self sacrifice, Rawls then characterizes them as pure egoists, deciding the structure of the political order based solely on their own self interest.
Professor Halbertal’s lecture provoked a great deal of interest, which extended into the hallways and over dinner. Several audience members asked how he would distinguish self interest from self sacrifice. Isn’t the suicide bomber’s ostensible attempt at self sacrifice more accurately described as an act of pure self interest, motivated by a desire to be taken seriously, to count in society and the world? Professor Halbertal pointed to the fundamental contradiction at the heart of the suicide bomber. The suicide bomber, it is often claimed, will realize lavish gifts in the afterlife. Yet, to be worthy of these gifts, the act must be one of great self sacrifice. Professor Halbertal suggested this theoretical contradiction becomes a phenomenological reality for the suicide bomber who believes in the compensations to come, but experiences death as a terrible and final closing of life. Professor Halbertal was also asked whether he had a positive account for how the relationship between self sacrifice and the political order should be understood. That, he responded, is the topic for his next lecture.

See also: Ethics