Indian Ethics

What kind of person should I be?

What should I do?

Four Central Concepts

• Dharma: duty; the laws that maintain cosmic order; the universe’s moral backbone; the right way to live

• Mukti: liberation or enlightenment, the distinct and highest value

• Bhakti: love or devotion to God

• Karma: action or habit

Karma

• Virtue is its own reward• We make our future selves by our

current action through the development of good or bad dispositions to act

• Good actions increase our tendency (not to mention the tendency of others) to do good

• Bad actions do the reverse

Karma

• The Brhadaranyaka Upanishad: “one becomes good by good action, bad by bad action.”

• The Hindu tradition accepts the possibility of reincarnation

• The effects of our actions stretch into future lifetimes

Karma

• Psychological thesis:

• Any action creates a tendency or habit to repeat it

• Thus our karma—our dispositions, formed by our previous acts—determine much of our lives

Karma

• Thesis of moral cosmology: • Virtue is its own reward. Vice is its own

punishment • Actions have external consequences that

invariably embrace a moral dimension • There is moral payback. What goes around

comes around. You get what you deserve, if not in this life then in a future lifetime

The Self is a Hierarchy

• Great Self

• Intellect

• Mind

• Objects of sense

• Senses

To Master Yourself• Higher items must control lower items firmly:• Objects of sense —> senses: be objective, see

the world as it is. Pay attention!• Mind —> objects of sense: be active, focus!• Intellect —> mind: reason —> thoughts and

emotions• Soul —> intellect: Brahman is ultimate reality;

follow path of renunciation

Path of Desire

• Pleasure– But the self is too small

• Success: wealth, fame, power– Exclusive, competitive,

precarious– Insatiable– Self is too small– Rewards are ephemeral

Path of Renunciation

• Duty: Service to Community

– Transitory– Imperfect– Tragic

• Liberation (moksha)

Four Ways

• Strands:– Intelligence —>

passion– Intelligence —>

inertia

• Yoga, discipline

Four Kinds of Yoga

• Jnana yoga: knowledge• Bhakti yoga: love (devotion)• Karma yoga: work• Raja yoga: meditation

Raja Yoga

– Ethical restraints– Ethical observances– Asanas (postures)– Breath control– Withdrawal of the

senses– Meditation

Meditation, 1

• Concentration: “binding the mind to a single spot”

Meditation, 2

• “Meditation”: “cessation of the fluctuations of mind and (self-)awareness”

Meditation, 3

• Mystic trance: “illumination only of the object as object, empty, as it were, of what it essentially is”

Goals of Meditation

• Aloneness (kaivalya): “reversal of the course of the strands, now empty of meaning and value”

• Liberation (mukti)

Ethics in the Gita

• Divine command theory: God’s command is what makes right action right.

• What God commands is obligatory

• What God allows is permissible

• “Perform thou action that is (religiously) required.”

What is Religiously Required?

• Liberation: “Be thou free from the three Strands”—intelligence, passion, and inertia

• Ignore consequences: “On action alone be thy interest, Never on its fruits.”

Sacrifice

• By sacrificing our superficial self-interest and natural desires to act according to God’s will, we become part of God’s ongoing creative activity

• Our consciousness mystically widens to unite with God’s

• Self-sacrifice allows us to participate in God’s action

• That promotes our self-interest in a deeper sense

The Euthyphro Problem

• Euthyphro: What is right is what the gods love

• Socrates: Is it right because the gods love it, or

• Do the gods love it because it is right?

Ethics and Religion

• If the gods love it because it is right, – There is an independent standard of right and wrong– We can describe it independently of religion– A divine command is just a guide– It does not define what is right

Divine Command Theory

• If it is right because the gods love it,– There is no independent standard– Ethics cannot be separated from religion– We cannot morally evaluate the divine

Five Ethical Restraints

• Noninjury (ahimsa): Do not harm

• Property: Do not steal• Chastity: Do not fornicate• Truthfulness: Do not lie• Lack of avarice: Do not

covet

Five Observances

• Cleanliness• Contentment• Self-control• Studiousness• Contemplation of

the divine

Stages of Life

• Student– Habits, skills, information– Self-improvement

• Householder– Pleasure, success, duty to other

• Retirement– Understanding, philosophy– Self-improvement, teaching

• Renunciation– Preparation for death

The Bhakti Movement

• Bhakti: love or devotion to God

• Classical Hinduism: The world harmonizes with our deepest desires

• Huston Smith: “You can get what you want.”

Medieval India

• But medieval India found it hard to maintain that optimism

• Muslim invasions caused widespread destruction and suffering—as many as 100 million dead—and destroyed the great university at Nalanda in 1193

• “Bloodiest Holocaust in world history”: attack cities, pillage, rape, execute all men, execute or enslave women and children

Bhakti Leaders

• Akka Mahadevi (1100s)

• Janabai (1270?–1350?)

• Lalla (1320?–1390?)

• Mirabai (1498?–1550s?)

Bhakti Movement

• These women insist on the insignificance of distinctions

• Hindu, Muslim, or Buddhist, male or female, Brahmin or Shudra, rich or poor—none of this matters

• True spirituality knows no boundaries. It is universal, available to anyone

• It is internal rather than external. It thus depends on nothing outside the self

Buddhism

“What are you?”

“I am awake.”

Buddha (563 - 483 BCE)

Four Passing Sights

• Old age

• Disease

• Death

• Monk

Quest for Fulfillment

• Self-indulgence (path of desire)• Asceticism (path of renunciation)

Four Noble Truths

• 1. Life is suffering • 2. Desire, craving, or clinging is the cause of

suffering • 3. Nirvana extinguishes craving and hence

suffering • 4. The path to Nirvana is the Eightfold Noble

Path

Four Noble Truths: 1• Life is painful (dukkha)

– “Now this, O monks, is the noble truth of pain: birth is painful, old age is painful, sickness is painful, death is painful, sorrow, lamentation, dejection, and despair are painful. Contact with unpleasant things is painful, not getting what one wishes is painful. In short the five khandhas of grasping are painful.”

Four Noble Truths: 2• Desire (tanha) causes pain

– “Now this, O monks, is the noble truth of the cause of pain: that craving which leads to rebirth, combined with pleasure and lust, finding pleasure here and there, namely, the craving for passion, the craving for existence, the craving for non-existence.”

Four Noble Truths: 3

• Eliminating desire can eliminate pain

– “Now this, O monks, is the noble truth of the cessation of pain: the cessation without a remainder of that craving, abandonment, forsaking, release, nonattachment.”

Four Noble Truths: 4• The Eightfold Noble Path

(the Middle Way) eliminates desire: Right– Thought– Intention– Speech– Conduct– Livelihood– Effort– Concentration– Meditation

Right Thought, Intention

• Right Thought:– Dhammapada: “Everything you

are is the result of what you have thought.”

– You must know the Four Noble Truths

– You must avoid harmful thoughts

• Right Intention:– You must try to eliminate

selfish desire

Right Speech, Conduct

• Right Speech– Avoid saying harmful

things

• Right Conduct– Avoid harming others– Obey the five restraints

Ethical restraints

• Do not kill• Do not steal• Do not lie• Do not be

unchaste• Do not ingest

intoxicants

Right Livelihood, Effort

• Right Livelihood– You must enter the

right career– Avoid what requires

you, or even tempts you, to harm others

• Right Effort– You must work

constantly to avoid selfish desire

Right Concentration, Meditation

• Right Concentration– You must develop mental

powers to avoid desire– “Binding mind to a single

spot”, as in Hindu meditation

• Right Meditation– Like Hindu meditation– Cessation of fluctuations– Illumination of object as

object, empty of what it is

Two kinds of Buddhism

• Theravada Buddhism– Southern Canon,

early writings– Southeast Asia– Ideal: arhat

Mahayana Buddhism

• Northern Canon, later writings

• China, Korea, Japan

• Ideal: bodhisattva

Two Ideals• Arhat: saint who attains enlightenment,

experiences nirvana. Chief virtue: wisdom

Mahayana Ideal• Bodhisattva: one who postpones his/her own

enlightenment to promote the enlightenment of others. Chief virtue: compassion

Six Perfections of the Bodhisattva

• Charity

• Good moral character (concern for others)

• Patience

• Energy

• Deep concentration

• Wisdom

Arguments for the Arhat Ideal

• The goal is to eliminate suffering; the means, enlightenment

• If bodhisattvas help others to enlightenment, they help them become arhats

• If it is good to help others to enlightenment, it is because enlightenment is the goal

Arguments for the Bodhisattva Ideal

• If your ideal is the arhat, you seek your own enlightenment

• That is a selfish desire; it leads to suffering• Concern for self presupposes that you have a

separate self• Only bodhisattva ideal leads you beyond

yourself

Jainism

• Mahavira (599-527 BCE): founder of Jainism

• Central doctrine: ahimsa (noninjury)

• Harm no sentient creature

Ahimsa

• Acaranga Sutra:• “One should not injure,

subjugate, enslave, torture or kill any animal, living being, organism or sentient being.”

Desire

• Desire inclines us toward injury

• “He should be dispassionate towards sensual objects.

• He should refrain from worldly desires.”

Pain

• “O philosophers! Is suffering pleasing to you or painful? . . . just as suffering is painful to you, in the same way it is painful, disquieting and terrifying to all animals, living beings, organisms and sentient beings.

• . . . [Causing violence to the mobile-beings], in fact, is the knot of bondage, it, in fact, is the delusion, it, in fact, is the death, it in fact, is the hell. . . .”

Pain

• “Man (experiences pain) when forced into unconsciousness or when he is deprived of life. (So do the mobile-beings.)

• Having discerned this, a sage should neither use any weapon causing violence to the mobile-being, nor cause others to use it nor approve of others using it.”

Differences from Utilitarianism

• Jainism considers pain as a negative source of value

• It sees pleasure not as a positive source, but a temptation to injury

• There are no tradeoffs: injury is forbidden, absolutely

Charvaka

• Lokayata, “those attached to the way of the world”

• Materialism: only matter exists

• Empiricism: all knowledge comes from experience

• Skepticism: reject inference

Mind, Soul = Body

• Brhadaranyaka Upanishad: “Springing forth from these elements, itself solid knowledge, it is destroyed when they are destroyed,— after death no intelligence remains.”

• No life after death: We are purely physical

Good = Pleasure

• Soul = body• So, the good of the soul = the good

of the body = pleasure• “The only end of man is enjoyment

produced by sensual pleasures. . . . Hence it follows that there is no other hell than mundane pain produced by purely mundane causes. . . .”