Philosophy about East Asia Religions

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Buddhism.docx

Monday, 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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