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Charles Goodman, consequentialism, Evan Thompson, Mozi, Peter Singer, Princeton University, Śāntideva, utilitarianism
This November, Charles Goodman and I had a wonderful debate at Princeton’s Center for Culture, Society and Religion, on the interpretation of Śāntideva’s ethics: Charles claims that Śāntideva is a utilitarian, I claim that he is a eudaimonist. You can now watch the video of the debate on the Center’s website; I hope you enjoy!
Charles and I refer a lot in the debate to the handouts we created; I’m attaching them here.
Thanks, Amod! I very much enjoyed listening to the debate and the effort to see if Shantideva can fit into one or another Western “box”.
I may not understand utilitarianism well enough to comment. But my impression is that utilitarianism trusts that actions can have objective benefit and be of benefit regardless of the intent behind the action. Intent is so critically important to the working of karma and to Shantideva’s view as to, perhaps, take his teachings out of the utilitarian box. I also thought that Mr. Goodman struggled a bit with the notion of “aggregation”. It occurs to me that Buddhist notions of interdependence and, ultimately, anatta, undermine the ability to count benefit to others as something apart from benefit to self. This is, perhaps, the reason why Mahayana Buddhists talk about the “two benefits” — benefit to self and benefit to other as not being separate.
But the biggest distinction, it seems to me is the Buddhist concept of realization and the corresponding idea that the world of samsara — which includes the idea of spiritual advancement or progress — is based on confusion. Of course, there is a path. There would be no Buddhism without the Eightfold Path. But the Buddha “dwells on the bhumi where he sees all sentient beings”. The end of the path leads to “threefold purity” — spontaneous compassion with no actor, no action, and no recipient of action. The wisdom chapter of Shantideva would, perhaps, take his teachings out of the eudaimonist box as well.
Yeah, once you get to the ninth chapter it complicates a lot of things. It does seem to me that talking about ethics is something one can only really do at the conventional level – but then that’s true of talking about anything, since Śāntideva says the ultimate truth is unspeakable (anabhilāpya).
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