Buddhist Perspectives on Free Will: Agentless Agency?

241 Pages·2017·2.72 MB·English

by  Repetti, Rick

This is an outstanding collection on an undertheorized, but fascinating, set of
topics: Buddhist accounts of agency, free will, and moral responsibility (among
others). The editor’s introduction is insightful and helpful, and the authors consti-
tute an all-s tar lineup in this area. I highly recommend this book.
John Martin Fischer, University of California, Riverside, USA
Repetti brings together a wide range of scholars to consider the notion of free
will in Buddhist thought. Is free will a meaningful conjunction of terms in a Bud-
dhist context? What constitutes freedom for a Buddhist? And what (if anything)
corresponds to will? This volume tackles these tough questions and moves cross-
cultural philosophy another step forward.
Douglas Duckworth, Temple University, USA
Buddhist philosophy and the historical problem of free will have each been of
major philosophical interest for centuries, but until recently they have been
studied separately and by scholars of different traditions. That is changing, thanks
in large part to the work of the contributors in this volume. Rick Repetti has col-
lected contributions from the world’s leading scholars on Buddhism and free will.
His insightful and engaging introduction sets the stage beautifully for philo-
sophers and non- philosophers alike. Anyone interested in Buddhism and free
will, either individually or in relation to each other, should buy this book.
Gregg D. Caruso, SUNY Corning, USA
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Buddhist Perspectives on Free Will
Throughout the history of Buddhism, little has been said prior to the twentieth
century that explicitly raises the question whether we have free will, though the
Buddha rejected fatalism and some Buddhists have addressed whether karma is
fatalistic. Recently, however, Buddhist and Western philosophers have begun to
explicitly discuss Buddhism and free will.
This book incorporates Buddhist philosophy more explicitly into the Western
analytic philosophical discussion of free will, both in order to render more per-
spicuous Buddhist ideas that might shed light on the Western philosophical
debate, and in order to render more perspicuous the many possible positions on
the free will debate that are available to Buddhist philosophy. The book covers:
• Buddhist and Western perspectives on the problem of free will
• The puzzle of whether free will is possible if, as Buddhists believe, there is
no agent/self
• Theravāda views
• Mahāyāna views
• Evidential considerations from science, meditation, and skepticism.
The first book to bring together classical and contemporary perspectives on free
will in Buddhist thought, it is of interest to academics working on Buddhist and
Western ethics, comparative philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of mind,
philosophy of action, agency, and personal identity.
Rick Repetti is Professor of Philosophy at Kingsborough Community College,
CUNY, Brooklyn, NY, USA. He is the author of The Counterfactual Theory of
Free Will (2010), as well as several articles on Buddhism, meditation, free will,
and philosophy of religion.
Routledge Studies in Asian Religion and Philosophy
5 Christianity in Contemporary 13 Objects of Worship in South
China Asian Religions
Socio- cultural perspectives Forms, practices and meanings
Edited by Francis Khek Gee Lim Edited by Knut A. Jacobsen,
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6 The Buddha and Religious
Kristina Myrvold
Diversity
J. Abraham Velez de Cea
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7 Japanese Religions and in Asia
Globalization Collaborations and collisions
Ugo Dessi Ivette Vargas-O ’Bryan and
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8 Religion and the Subtle Body in
Asia and the West
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Between mind and body
and Science
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Edited by István Keul
9 ‘Yogini’ in South Asia
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Interdisciplinary approaches
Ethics in Contemporary
Edited by Istvan Keul
Buddhism
10 The Confucian Philosophy of James John Stewart
Harmony
Chenyang Li 17 Sūtras, Stories and Yoga
Philosophy
11 Postcolonial Resistance and
Narrative and transfiguration
Asian Theology
Daniel Raveh
Simon Shui- Man Kwa
12 Asian Perspectives on Animal 18 Buddhist Perspectives on
Ethics Free Will
Edited by Neil Dalal and Agentless agency?
Chloe Taylor Edited by Rick Repetti
Buddhist Perspectives on
Free Will
Agentless agency?
Edited by
Rick Repetti
First published 2017
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2017 Rick Repetti
The right of Rick Repetti to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
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registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Repetti, Rick, editor.
Title: Buddhist perspectives on free will : agentless agency? / [edited by]
Rick Repetti.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2016. | Series: Routledge studies in
Asian religion and philosophy ; 18 | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016009828| ISBN 9781138950344 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781315668765 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Fate and fatalism–Religious aspects–Buddhism. |
Free will and determinism–Religious aspects–Buddhism.
Classification: LCC BL235 .B83 2016 | DDC 294.3/422–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016009828
ISBN: 978-1-138-95034-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-66876-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
Sarva mangalam!
Especially those trying to figure out whether or not anything is
really up to us. . .
There is free action, there is retribution, but there is no agent that passes from one
set of momentary elements into another one, except the lawful connection of
those elements.
Paramārtha Śūnyatā Sūtra (Discourse on Ultimate Emptiness),
in S. Edelman, Computing the Mind: How the Mind
Really Works, p. 477
Contents
Notes on contributors xi
Foreword xvi
DaNiEl CozoRT
Preface xviii
Acknowledgments xxiv
Introduction: hermeneutical koan—what is the sound of one
Buddhist theory of free will? 1
1 Why the Buddha did not discuss ‘the problem of free will
and determinism’ 11
CHRiSToPHER W. GoWaNS
2 Why there should be a Buddhist theory of free will 22
RiCk REPETTi
3 Uses of the illusion of agency: why some Buddhists should
believe in free will 34
CHaRlES GooDMaN
4 Just another word for ‘nothing left to lose’: freedom,
agency, and ethics for Mādhyamikas 45
JaY GaRFiElD
5 Negative dialectics in comparative philosophy: the case of
Buddhist free will quietism 59
oWEN FlaNaGaN
6 Free will and the sense of self 72
GalEN STRaWSoN