Ethics without Self, Dharma without Atman

290 Pages·2018·3.91 MB·English

by  Gordon F. Davis

Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy
of Traditions and Cultures 24
Gordon F. Davis Editor
Ethics without
Self, Dharma
without Atman
Western and Buddhist Philosophical
Traditions in Dialogue
Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy
of Traditions and Cultures
Volume 24
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Gordon F. Davis
Editor
Ethics without Self, Dharma
without Atman
Western and Buddhist Philosophical
Traditions in Dialogue
Editor
Gordon F. Davis
Department of Philosophy
Carleton University
Ottawa, ON, Canada
ISSN 2211-1107 ISSN 2211-1115 (electronic)
Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures
ISBN 978-3-319-67406-3 ISBN 978-3-319-67407-0 (eBook)
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Preface
There is a familiar conundrum in philosophy that arises out of our complex relation-
ship to the history of philosophical concepts and their diverse cultural origins.
Philosophers use several terms deriving from ancient languages that encompass both
metaphysical and ethical significations, resulting in not only conceptual richness but
also ambiguity. (A prime example is the family of terms deriving from the Greek
term telos, e.g. ‘teleological’.) This polysemy can be revealing, if not fertile; but in
some contexts, the metaphysical and the ethical stand in a problematic relation to
each other. We find a similar tension in certain contexts in which dharma is invoked
as a guiding ideal in ancient Indian philosophy. The cosmic order of dharma was
sometimes assumed to underpin the moral dharma, but various Indian philosophical
traditions questioned such assumptions, including the Buddhist tradition. Admittedly,
the phrase dharma without ātman, in our title, may sound incongruous to those who
think of the Hindu tradition as the primary source of the ethical notion of dharma.
But Buddhists also retained a version of this notion, calling Buddha’s teachings the
buddha-dharma. However, unlike that of the Hindu tradition, this dharma was not
only divorced from assumptions about selfhood or cosmic self (ātman), but based on
a vision of reality without self or selves (an-ātman). Albeit with an imperfect reper-
toire of concepts, contemporary philosophers continue to debate both the question of
personal identity and the question of the bearing (if any) of metaphysics on ethics.
This volume has three main aims. The first aim is to explore interconnections
between metaphysical questions about the nature of selfhood and ethical questions
concerning the practical implications of revising or subverting various traditional
conceptions of selfhood and personhood. Another aim, much more general but
equally important, is to raise problems and new prospects for both comparative
philosophy and cross-cultural philosophy. The focus on Buddhist philosophy, in
particular, highlights a third aim of our project: to throw light on the ways in which
Buddhist philosophy in particular has either anticipated, echoed or contributed to
seminal episodes in the history of Western philosophy. Many of the chapters here
focus on philosophical ideas without belabouring historical details (though the first
offers an overview of the historical connections that link the history of Buddhist
philosophy – at certain points – with the history of Western philosophy). Several of
v
vi Preface
our chapters engage in doing Buddhist philosophy; but at the same time, these chap-
ters directly or indirectly highlight the potential for treating the Buddhist tradition
as an element in a comparative case study. We raise, albeit tentatively in some cases,
the questions of whether, and why, two independent traditions of philosophy would
end up tackling similar philosophical problems, not to mention tackling what might
be the same meta-problem – namely, of how the metaphysical problems and the
ethical problems do or should relate to each other.
Following the overview in the first chapter, a first trio of essays (Chaps. 2, 3, and
4) examines various parallels between ancient Indian Buddhist philosophy and
ancient Greek philosophy. The next three chapters shift to modern philosophy, and
cover what might be called the ‘pre-contact’ phase of Western philosophy, given that
Spinoza, Hume and Kant were probably unaware of specific texts and ideas from the
Buddhist philosophical tradition. (Nonetheless, parallels with Śāntideva’s selfless
altruism, in particular, are explored especially with respect to the role of benevolence
in the ethics of Spinoza and Hume.) Channels of communication had been opened up
by Jesuits in East Asia, decades before Spinoza’s time, establishing a sort of contact
between European and Buddhist philosophical traditions; but specifically Buddhist
themes took some time to be disentangled from elements of other Asian traditions.
Translations of Buddhist texts did not become available until the nineteenth century,
so they were indeed quite novel when Schopenhauer encountered them. The next
three essays can thus be construed as looking at ‘post-contact’ reactions and inspira-
tions; these essays discuss five Western philosophers: Schopenhauer, Nietzsche,
Heidegger, William James and Bertrand Russell. Finally, the last three essays address
themes from Buddhist metaphysics and ethics in contemporary philosophy.
In his essay on contemporary forms of altruism, for example, Stephen Harris
scrutinizes various ways of reading Śāntideva as drawing a moral conclusion based
on a kind of reductionism about selfhood, and proceeds to consider whether a dif-
ferent reading might resonate better with a broader understanding of ethics. In the
following, penultimate chapter, Ashwani Peetush likewise discusses ethical values
that – in a socio-political context – go beyond considerations of narrow forms of
justice. And in the last chapter, Davis and Sahni return to a certain kind of putative
moral obligation, based on environmental concerns, that has nonetheless been
grounded in wide-ranging ethical reflections, often in ways directly inspired by
Buddhist sources. In some ways, these contemporary themes are foreshadowed in
the opening trio of essays, which begin with the Socratic origins of Western philoso-
phy. Considering themes that run through Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, Michael
Griffin explores various resonances with Buddhist ethics, including ethics in the
narrow ‘moral’ sense that concerns interpersonal obligations (as well as broader
senses). Pivoting to ethics in the broader sense, Emily McRae considers the ‘thera-
peutic’ orientation of ancient Stoicism and a related set of problems that kindred
strands of Buddhist ethics address, in some cases more effectively, she argues. And
in the third of those essays, after examining the relationship between religious prac-
tice and ethics (again in the broader sense), Ethan Mills traces parallels between a
Nagarjunian scepticism and a Pyrrhonist scepticism, each of these being more rec-
oncilable to ethical praxis than many have assumed. Ancient Stoics were often at
Preface vii
loggerheads with ancient sceptics in the West; but ethical tendencies that more or
less reconciled them are also traceable, as these early chapters make out, mutatis
mutandis, in certain Buddhist traditions.
In the ancient Greek context, those ethical reflections fell under the heading of
theories of eudaimonia. Proceeding to the modern context, meanwhile, a somewhat
different set of problems comes to the fore, of a more explicitly moral nature.
Although these moral themes are more associated with Kant and the ‘British
Moralists’ than figures like Spinoza, in the fifth chapter Davis and Renaud consider
some neglected moral reflections in Spinoza’s works, and compare these to themes
in Mahāyāna philosophy. Like several other chapters that discuss Śāntideva’s ethics,
chapters five and six focus on themes in Mahāyāna Buddhism, with Jay Garfield
addressing Madhyamaka specifically, in his chapter on Hume’s ethics. Meanwhile,
in exploring ‘contemplative strategies’ of self-analysis in both Buddhist and Kantian
ethics, Emer O’Hagan draws mainly on texts from the Pali Canon, thus addressing
pre-Mahāyāna as well as Mahāyāna themes. The next three chapters then bring us
back to the scene of contemporary ethical theory, both ‘continental’ and ‘analytic’ –
in chapter nine, via Heidegger; and in chapter ten, via Bertrand Russell. Leading up
to this crossroads, Douglas Berger discusses Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, but
instead of recounting the usual narrative of how these figures were inspired by
Buddhist sources, Berger underlines some deep ethical differences. Sonia Sikka
also highlights contrasts, in her case between Buddhist metaphysics and Heidegger’s
early writings (with allowance made for different emphases in his later writings).
With Nalini Ramlakhan’s survey of William James and Bertrand Russell, we come
full circle, in the sense that, in the twentieth century, Western thinkers could finally
claim to have some substantial first-hand knowledge of Buddhist texts; and as the
chapters proceed from there, many of the key figures we discuss in the final stretch,
so to speak, can themselves be described as scholars of Buddhist philosophy, and in
some cases as full-fledged practitioners of Buddhist ethics.
Many of us had the opportunity to present early versions of our chapters at vari-
ous venues in North America, Europe and Asia. I would like to thank my fellow
contributors for their participation in panels on these themes, and for their patience
as other contributors proceeded to present at other venues in later stages of this pro-
cess. On behalf of all the contributors I would like to thank, for their feedback and
encouragement, audiences at the Canadian Philosophical Association and the
International Association of Buddhist Studies, as well as groups of fellow travellers
at Carleton University, the University of Ottawa, SUNY Binghamton, the University
of Hawaii, the University of Delhi, the University of Vienna and Leiden University,
among others. I would also like to thank the anonymous referees for their valuable
advice and comments, the editorial team at Springer for much patience and assis-
tance, and personally, my own family – Leo, Catherine, Margaret and Gordon.
Finally, to close with śrāddha, for some fellow travellers, in memoriam: John Leroux,
David Chappell, Daya Krishna, Derek Parfit, Jiyuan Yu and Sarah Marquardt.
Ottawa, ON, Canada Gordon F. Davis
Contents
1 Self-Sceptical Ethics and Selfless Morality:
A Historical and Cross-Cultural Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Gordon F. Davis
2 The Ethics of Self-Knowledge in Platonic
and Buddhist Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Michael Griffin
3 Detachment in Buddhist and Stoic Ethics:
Ataraxia and Apatheia and Equanimity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Emily McRae
4 Skepticism and Religious Practice in Sextus and Nāgārjuna . . . . . . . 91
Ethan Mills
5 Spinoza Through the Prism of Later ‘East-W est’ Exchanges:
Analogues of Buddhist Themes in the Ethics
and the Works of Early Spinozists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Gordon F. Davis and Mary D. Renaud
6 Hume as a Western Mādhyamika: The Case from Ethics . . . . . . . . . 131
Jay L. Garfield
7 Anattā and Ethics: Kantian and Buddhist Themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Emer O’Hagan
8 The Contingency of Willing: A Vijñānavāda Critique
of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Douglas L. Berger
9 Selfless Care? Heidegger and anattā . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Sonia Sikka
ix
x Contents
10 Echoes of Anattā and Buddhist Ethics in William James
and Bertrand Russell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Nalini Ramlakhan
11 Altruism in the Charnel Ground: Śāntideva and Parfit
on Anātman, Reductionism and Benevolence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Stephen Harris
12 The Ethics of Interconnectedness: Charles Taylor,
No-Self, and Buddhism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Ashwani Peetush
13 Variations on Anātman: Buddhist Themes in Deep Ecology
and in Future-Directed Environmental Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Gordon F. Davis and Pragati Sahni
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275