Beyond Revelation and Reason: Building Morality That Doesn’t Collapse ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Sunday, July 13, 2025

Beyond Revelation and Reason: Building Morality That Doesn’t Collapse

The secularized Jewish framework I have been working on, AskHillel, may be based on Jewish concepts, but by its very nature it must be different. After all, Jewish ethics is based above all on the covenant between Israel and God, and no one who is not a believer can accept such a system.

However, the reverse is not true: religious people can accept a secular moral system as long as it doesn't contradict their own. So a truly universal system must be secular, by definition.

That is why my goal has been to create an ethical system that stands alone, that leverages the brilliance of the Jewish ethical system and halachic process, but that can appeal to the entire world and the false assumptions that underlie much of Western secular ethics.

Therefore, AskHillel must distinguish itself both from faith-based Jewish ethics and from the traditional secular philosophies since the Enlightenment.

How is AskHillel different from Jewish ethics?

Faith-based Jewish ethics begins with divine brit: a covenant between God and the Jewish people, grounded in revelation, obligation, and sacred history. It draws authority from halacha, midrash, and divine command. It binds the Jew to God through a living system of duties, many of which transcend rational justification.

AskHillel, by contrast, is covenantal without being theistic. It retains the structure of obligation, tiered values, and moral repair - but re-roots them in shared human axioms, not divine will. It transforms the halachic method into a secular design framework: values are upheld not because they are commanded, but because they build ethical worlds that hold.

Where traditional Jewish ethics is received, AskHillel is engineered. Where one is divine fidelity, the other is moral architecture. The two may share tools, instincts, and even many conclusions, but their foundations differ. AskHillel must prove its validity not through revelation, but through coherence, durability, and human flourishing.

AskHillel and the Architecture of Ethics: A Pragmatic Jewish Answer to Western Morality

In modern ethical theory, a silent assumption has governed for centuries: that morality, if it exists, must be a system that can be deduced, proven, and universally applied. Whether it's Kantian duty, utilitarian calculus, or the existentialist cry for authenticity, the goal is the same: to build a moral system that holds up under reason alone.

But what if that assumption is wrong? What if morality isn't something you deduce, but something you build? Not like geometry, but like architecture. Not abstract perfection, but structural integrity.

This is AskHillel's claim. It treats morality as a tested structure, a system of values and obligations engineered to support human dignity, uphold truth, and withstand collapse. It doesn't ask, "What is the good?" It asks, "What kind of moral world won't fall apart?"

The Failure of Abstraction

Western philosophy begins with the isolated thinker. Morality is something you figure out, ideally from first principles. But this approach often collapses under its own weight. The is/ought problem (Hume), regress of justification (Plato), and moral luck (Nagel) all point to a fundamental fragility: moral systems are built in the air, without ground beneath them.

By contrast, Jewish ethics starts from obligation: a binding commitment to uphold certain values, not because they were logically derived, but because without them, life breaks.

Engineering Ethics

AskHillel takes that principle and makes it secular, transparent, and testable. Its structure is built on three pillars:

Foundational Ontology: Truth exists. Dignity is real. Responsibility is binding. These aren't proven; they are chosen because moral life depends on them.
Tiered Ethical System: Not all values are equal. There are axioms, primary obligations, amplifiers, and overrides. This enables the system to handle conflict without collapse.
Moral Integrity Tests: Like stress tests in architecture, AskHillel uses diagnostic triggers (“override logic”) to detect when a structure is bending toward harm, humiliation, or false certainty.

The result is not moral relativism, nor rigid formalism. It's pragmatic ethics: a structure designed to be lived in, not admired from afar.

AskHillel replaces the Western question, "What is the good?" with a more grounded one:

What kind of ethical structure can people live in, together, without their dignity breaking?

This is the same question architects ask about buildings, or physicians ask about bodies. It's not theoretical. It's lived. When a moral world collapses, people get hurt.

This reframing doesn't make ethics easier. It makes it urgent. Every value must prove its worth by how it holds under stress. Every override must prevent collapse. Every obligation must sustain life, dignity, truth, and repair.

Here is a chart that describes the differences between Western moral philosophies, Jewish ethics and the AskHillel ethical framework:

Axis	Western Philosophy	Traditional Jewish	AskHillel (Secular Jewish Ethics)
Starting Question	What is the good?	What is my obligation, now, to whom?	What kind of moral structure will hold — personally, communally?
Method	Abstract reasoning, logical deduction	Textual interpretation, covenantal reasoning	Structured ethical engineering: values (taken from Judaism) tested like blueprints
Moral Source	Rational autonomy or moral feeling	Divine command, brit, national memory	Shared moral axioms confirmed by their durability under stress
Morality As	System of rules and deductions	Journey of fidelity and sanctification	Architecture of obligation — built to withstand pressure
Individual Role	Independent moral calculator	Bound actor in divine covenant	Co-architect of moral structure, judged by what it sustains, in relationship with others
Conflict Resolution	Philosophical balance of competing theories	Tiered resolution within halachic/metaphysical scaffolding	Override triggers + ethical integrity diagnostics
Telos (Goal)	Universal moral rationality	Redemption, sanctity, justice	Empirical moral viability: a world built on dignity that holds
Time Orientation	Ahistorical theory	Brit rooted in past, aiming toward future	Pragmatic evolution — continuity without utopian fantasy
Error Mode	Logical inconsistency or subjective drift	Betrayal of obligation, moral disloyalty	Structural failure — collapse of dignity, responsibility, or trust

Traditional Jewish ethics relied on a divine covenant to structure obligation. AskHillel secularizes this by treating ethics not as obedience, but as design. You enter into obligation because that's how you build something that lasts. The covenant becomes a blueprint.

That shift changes everything. It makes moral systems accountable not to theoretical elegance, but to durability -the kind that produces flourishing, justice, transformation, and resilience.

AskHillel doesn't claim to be perfect. It claims to be coherent, testable, and built to last. In a time of moral confusion, it offers not commandments from heaven, nor theories from the void, but something much harder to dismiss: a structure you can walk into, live inside, and trust not to fall down.

Because in the end, that's the only kind of morality that works.