ABSTRACT
Human freedom and the capacity to repent provides the fuel for a classic case study in philosophical exegesis of a biblical text. Scattered throughout Exodus are remarks in which God is said to have ‘hardened’ or stiffened Pharaoh’s heart, thus rendering him motivationally impotent, andthen punished him for cruelty to the Israelites. The philosophical conundrum here is how to make sense of holding Pharaoh responsible, and therefore justifiably punishing him, for actions springing from a ‘hardened’ heart, from a will rendered unfree. After all, we hold responsible and hence liable for punishment only such agents who freely, without outside interference, choose their actions.Maimonidesis clear in Chapter 8 ofShemonah Perakim (Eight Chapters), his introduction to Avot in his commentary on theMishnah, that we are free to choose our course of action. As a result, we can be held responsible and liable for punishment for what we choose to do, and it is on account of this freedom of choice that God punishes Pharaoh by hardening his heart, by taking away his power to choose. This latteris the divine punishment for previously chosen evil. Indeed it provides the set-up for the ultimate destruction of Pharaoh, but the important point for Maimonides is that the divine hardening of the heart is subsumable under a libertarian theory of moral agency.
