Philosophy about East Asia Religions
NanceMonday, September 10, 2018
Buddhism
Siddhartha Gautama, born in the 6th century BCE, lived to be about 80
Probably, a real historic person
The standard legend
A prince
Father sheltered him from suffering (even from seeing it)
Gets married and has a son
Chariot ride
Old man
Sick man
Dead man
Ascetic monk
Self denial fro spiritual ends
Abandons his family to become a monk
Embraces a very strict asceticism, eats one nut and one leaf per day
Eventually collapses in a river and is rescued by a women
Sits under a tree (Bodhi Tree) and eh achieves Nirvana
Gets up and starts teaching
Buddha: enlightened one
The Buddha: Siddhartha Gautama in his enlightened state
The Sermon on the Four Noble Truths
Life is suffering (the problem)
The cause of suffering is trishna (the cause of the problem)
Trishna: selfish desire, craving desire, attachment, etc
Nirvana is the goal, the way to approach that goal is to get rid of trishna (the cure to the problem)
Nirvana: state of wakefulness, peace, joy, and perfect health
The way to get rid of trishna is the Noble Eightfold Path (the mechanism of the cure)
Right…
Understanding: coming to believe that happiness is not outside of us & that things of this world will pass away
Purpose: ordering your life around learning how to live
Speech: speaking kindly, etc
Conduct: acting kindly, etc
Occupation: do not make your livelihood by causing harm (suffering) to anything
Anything that can suffer matters when it comes to ethical action
Two ethnical positions that get endorsed
Vegetarianism
Pacifism
Effort: changing / training our mental olives
Attention: single-minded focus on the here and now
Meditation (Mindfulness): will train our minds to be calm and kind
A challenge: aren’t we being asked to focus on the achievement of Nirvana in the distant future and desire and seek after that?
It is, somewhat paradoxically, possible to have trishna regarding getting rid of trishna?
Some comparison to Hinduism:
Samsara = samsara
karma = karma
Moksha -> Nirvana
Brahman -> Nope
Atman -> Anatman
Mediation -> Meditation
Anatman: there is no soul, no self, no continuity of personal identity
There is only what going on at any particular moment, and how those things relate to what is going on at other moment
There are bundles of mental and physical things, but no continuous person
Dhammapada ch 20, v279
Some Questions:
What give animals and human value if no self?
The concept “value” is not actually invoked
We should be motivated by the badness of suffering to avoid harm / help
If life sucks and we do not even exist, why not commit suicide?
For one thing, you will just reincarnate
There is good in the world
Non-attached pleasure
Nirvana
How do beings reincarnate if no self?
Strictly speaking, you do not
Loosely speaking you can
Analogy of the flame passing between candles
Merely a set of causal connections between things that reincarnate
What happens to those who achieve Nirvana?
They experience the best way of being
The possibility of entrance into permanent bliss
In later forms fo Buddhism, enlightened being choose to come and help others (Bodhisattvas)
What is the difference between all of us being the same thing and none of us being any (stable) thing?
The obvious difference these are totally different claims
However these views do have similar implications
The difference between individuals are not as important as they might seem
Hindu Monism (everything is one), the different between individuals does not matter because it’s ultimately an illusion
Buddhism, the difference between individuals does not matter because they do not amount to a substantive being as opposed to another one
Suffering in “me” is not different from suffering in “them”
Is everything valued equally? Should we think off all suffering as equal?
What doe snot matter is where or in whom the suffering occur
What does mater is the intensity, duration, future effects of, etc
In Buddhism is pain and suffering the same thing?
No
Pain is a physical experience
Suffering is more mental, psychological, emotional
Buddhism is only concerned (directly) with suffering
A detour into Ethics:
Ethics is a sub-field of Value Theory
Ethics is the study of what should do, how to act, right / wrong, good / bad, etc
Normativity
A Guiding Question: what id theta makes actions right / wrong?
Some thing that are wrong
Murder
Savery
Stealing
Selfishnesses
Rape
Avoiding taxes
Not thanking someone
Lying / deceitfulness
Somethings that are tight
Walking on the correct side of the sidewalk
Scooter on the road
Preventing on eliminating wrong
Blood donation
Holding doors for people who need help
Suggestions
Wrong things cause suffering, right things prevent it
Utilitarianism
Wrong things include guilt, right things a kind of pride
There is a claim in meta-ethics what states that wrongness has something to do with the appropriateness of guilt and blame
The intention behind right actions are universalizable and the intentions behind wrong actions are not.
Kantianism
Right action are the kind that the best (morally best, virtuous) people do, wrong actions are not done by those kind of people.
Virtue Ethics
Right / wrong is what society deems to be right / wrong
Cultural / Societal Relativism
(see our discussion of normative vs. skepticism)
Claims: Buddhist ethics is similar to Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism = consequentialism + hedonism + egalitarianism
Consequentialism: the rightness / wrongness of actions is entirely determined by the goodness / badness of consequences
Hedonism: pleasure is the only good, pain is the only bad
Egalitarianism: everyone’s pleasure and pain should be considered equally.
Who is everyone?
Any being that is sentient (capable of experiencing pleasures and pains)
slide issue: why is death bad?
It is a deprivation of culture goods
Example: Baby Hitler
There is a difference between evaluating actions (right/wrong) and evaluating people (praiseworthiness/blameworthiness)
Perhaps the best way to live as a utilitarian is not to thin like utilitarian
John Stuart Mill’s Nautical Almanac
Our mortal rules (do not lie, do not kill babies) are shortcuts and they usually serve well
In fact, if we do not use the shortcuts, we tend to make tings much much worse
We are bad at predicting the future
We are biased toward what we want to do
Buddhist Ethics
The story of Great Compassionate
Catches a stowaway / assassin, who intends to murder 500 merchants to get their wealth
What to do?
Let it happen
Stop it
Kill the stowaway
Tell the crew and have them kill him
If GC kills the stowaway, he will suffer in hell for 10000 eons
Because killing is bad
Especially killing in cold blood
What does he do?
He kills the stowaway
That course of action is the best one from a selfless perspective
Protects the stowaway from all the bad consequences of his murders
Protects the crew from the bad consequences of killing in anger as a mob
Puzzles it looks like Great Compassionate faces a traffic moral dilemma
Tragic moral dilemma is when one is faces with a range of options, all of which are morally bas
Example: a man becomes engaged to multiple women
The monk who carried the woman
The general role of monastic life is not to touch woman
But in this circumstance, following that rule would bring about bad consequences
So the monk breaks the rule
But he returns quickly to his normal monastic behavior
Formal comparison with utilitarianism
Of the three parts of utilitarianism (consequentialism, hedonism, and egalitarianism), Buddhist ethics take issue with the hedonism
Buddhist ethics is not particularly concerned with increasing pleasure; through it is concerned with decreasing harms / pains / sufferings
There is positive goal in Buddhism, the achievement of Nirvana
What about the trolley problem?
Great Compassionate would likely flip the lever because where not not “he” is involved does not matter from a selfless perspective
What about love?
Siddhartha Gautama left his family behind
What is love?
Do not hurt
I want you I need you
Pleasurable bonding
General concern for well being
Investment in the other’s projects
Certain kinds of love look like they might just be a form of attachment
“Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” - Tennyson
Is this compatible with Buddhism?
Two paths
Best path: celibacy
Easier for you to be impartial & unattached
Second best path: family - friendly
These attachments will make it more difficult for you to attain enlightenment
But they can still be pursued in a way that minimized these concerns
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