INTRODUCTION: THE STATUS OF MORALITY IN MAIMONIDEAN THOUGHT

What sort of life constitutes the highest perfection for a human being? For Maimonides, as for Aristotle, the answer is not moral excellence, but rather intellectual perfection, that is, “the conception of the intelligibles [eternal truths], which teach true opinions concerning the divine things” (GP 3.54, p. 692). Attaining this perfection leads to immortality. Morality, by contrast, is “a preparation for something else” (viz., the life of contemplation) “and not an end in itself” (GP 3.54, p. 635). “To [the] ultimate perfection there do not belong either actions or moral qualities” (GP 3.27, p. 511). The subordination of moral perfection to intellectual perfection is already found in Maimonides' early work, the Commentary on the Mishnah: “Man needs to subordinate all his soul's powers to thought . . . and to set his sight on a single goal: the perception of God . . . I mean, knowledge of Him, in so far as that lies within man's power.”

Moral perfection cannot be supreme, Maimonides argues, for the highest perfection cannot involve, as part of its essence, anyone else besides the person who is questing for perfection. The ultimate perfection must be achievable even by a solitary individual with no social connections. Because moral habits are only dispositions to be useful to other people, “it [moral perfection] is an instrument for someone else” (GP 3.54, p. 635. See also 1.34). Just as God’s perfection does not depend on anything outside Himself, so too the perfected person is a self-sufficient agent and his ultimate perfection does not require others for its attainment.