The Virtue Ethics of Levi Gersonides by Alexander Green

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Virtue Ethics of Levi Gersonides by Alexander Green Tamar M. Rudavsky Alexander Green. The Virtue Ethics of Levi Gersonides. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. xxiii + 195 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009419000217 Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides) has emerged in recent years as one of the most significant and comprehensive medieval Jewish philosophers. He was quoted constantly (even if only to be criticized) and, through the works of Ḥasdai Crescas and others, his ideas influenced such thinkers as Leibniz and Spinoza. The Gersonidean corpus is wide-ranging and includes halakhic works, biblical exegesis, mathematics, science and astronomy, and philosophy. While most of the attention has focused on his metaphysical and scientific works, recent scholars have turned towards Gersonides's more "Judaic" and ethical works, found primarily in his commentaries on Scripture. Despite the popularity and influence of these commentaries in Jewish biblical exegesis, they have received far less attention from scholars of Jewish philosophy. Charles Touati was the first to highlight the significance of these works, but in the past decade other scholars (Menachem Kellner; David Horwitz; Assael Ben-Or) have begun groundbreaking work in the area. Alexander Green's volume belongs in this [End Page 221] latter category, and provides an innovative and important study of Gersonides's moral and political thought. Gersonides's biblical commentaries were written after he finished Wars of the Lord (Milḥamot ʾAdonai). These include his commentary on the Torah, as well as on other books of Scripture (Job, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, etc.), which often draw from or complement the philosophical material in Wars of the Lord. Gersonides's commentary on Scripture is one of the first by an Aristotelian philosopher to provide a successive commentary on most of the Bible. Why didn't Gersonides provide a supercommentary of Averroes's Nicomachean Ethics and Republic? That ethics, which is based on convention and opinions, is not a precise science like mathematics was noted already by Aristotle in his ethical works. Green suggests that perhaps Gersonides followed Aristotle's line, and introduced a narrative style that exemplifies the contingency and variability of ethical discourse (5). Gersonides's ethical theory is couched in the context of examples, or lessons, of the lives and actions of particular individuals, rather than in a scientific commentary (4). Using biblical proof texts, he derives practical lessons (toʿalot) meant to teach particular virtues. As Green notes, these lessons represent "practical maxims that enable one to achieve perfection" (6). They offer philosophical insights into three main areas: the commandments, moral and political philosophy, and theoretical philosophy that includes both metaphysics and natural science. In chapter 2, Green emphasizes that for Gersonides the primary goal of the practical intellect is self-preservation. Green is concerned to distinguish between Maimonides's and Gersonides's ethical theories. He argues that, like Maimonides, Gersonides focuses on the mean as the basis for ethics, while adding two new virtue categories: virtues of self-preservation and virtues of altruism. Both Aristotle and Maimonides emphasize the doctrine of the mean as part of their ethical theory: on this model, virtues represent a balance between extremes. Maimonides adopts most of Aristotle's virtues. In his Eight Chapters, for example, he describes many of the moral virtues as lying in the mean between excess. Gersonides, however, introduces a new set of materialistic virtues that emphasize the importance of maximizing one's physical needs—endeavor, diligence, and cunning in crafting stratagems—that are described at great length in his toʿalot (33). All three virtues, according to Green, are "physio-biological capacities rooted in the human imagination that humans can perfect to maximize physical self-preservation" (33). Green provides a detailed elaboration of these three virtues as reflected in a variety of biblical contexts. Green makes the interesting point that in contradistinction to Maimonides, who in the Guide for the Perplexed denigrates the body and physical existence of humans, Gersonides claims physical preservation to be a "moral necessity" (35), especially in light of the whims of fate and fortune (34). Abraham, who brought all his possessions with him from Canaan to Egypt, may serve as an example. Gersonides extols Abraham's actions in passing off his wife Sarah as his...