I wanted to reflect a bit more on my debate with Charles Goodman at Princeton this November. (If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the video of the debate and our handouts.) I don’t think either of us would consider the debate conclusive. Indeed, following the debate, our conversations that afternoon indicated that the issues we were really concerned about lay elsewhere.
A brief summary of where the debate itself went: the Charles calls Śāntideva a utilitarian because Śāntideva is a universalist consequentialist; that means that he is concerned with bringing about the best overall consequences for all beings. I dispute that “utilitarian” is the right term because I think it has misleading connotations: Charles agreed in the debate that his equation of Śāntideva and Peter Singer doesn’t work, and I think that calling Śāntideva “utilitarian” leads to similar misinterpretations, even though (as Charles noted) analytic philosophers often deploy the term in that way.
As for eudaimonism: Charles repeatedly defines eudaimonism as asserting “a very close connection between virtuous actions and the agent’s own well-being”, or something similar to that. I think it’s inarguable that there is such a close connection for Śāntideva in practice: virtuous actions always, or at least nearly always, do in fact improve the agent’s well-being. Charles clarified during the debate, though, that he did not mean a close connection in practice but a close conceptual connection: that is, on his account of eudaimonism, virtuous actions are defined in terms of the agent’s well-being, as they are for Aristotle and are not for Śāntideva. I agreed that by that standard Śāntideva would not be a eudaimonist.
There is probably more that could be said on the use of both these terms at issue, utilitarianism and eudaimonism. But Charles and I agreed that there’s not that much value in trying to say it. He and I agree on a large number of matters; we picked the topic of utilitarianism and eudaimonism as a point of disagreement in our interpretations of Śāntideva. But the helpful thing we saw in the debate was that our bigger disagreement runs in a more interesting and important direction – a constructive direction. That is: we actually disagree very little, if at all, about what Śāntideva thinks. We disagree on the words we use to characterize him, but much more importantly, we disagree on whether he’s right, about one particular issue.
That issue is an argument that Charles refers to as the Ownerless Suffering Argument. The Ownerless Suffering Argument is probably Śāntideva’s most famous argument, the one excerpted in introductory ethics texts: in a nutshell, Śāntideva argues that because the self is unreal, it makes no sense for us to treat ourselves, or those dear to us, better than any other sentient beings in our actions. In Charles’s terms, the view that Śāntideva argues for is agent-neutral: all people, all moral agents, should have the exact same aim as all the other moral agents, namely the well-being of all sentient beings. We shouldn’t be partial to our friends or families or neighbours, let alone ourselves.
I agree with Charles that Śāntideva holds this view. Contra Charles, I also believe that Śāntideva is wrong. I don’t think this argument works.
And when the disagreement moves to this terrain, we are no longer dealing with small questions of terminology. At issue now, among many other things, is what kind of Buddhists we each are. Charles, I think, is committed to Śāntideva’s Mahāyāna as interpreted by the Tibetans. But while I’ve drawn more from Śāntideva than from any other Buddhist author, and still pray to Mañjuśrī, I learned my own Buddhism in a Theravāda place, and at heart I’m still a Theravādin. I take very seriously the Dhammapāda’s advice that one should not neglect one’s own welfare for the sake of another.
Now I’ve also noted that Śāntideva’s view is not necessarily as far from the Dhammapāda’s as it might look. And Śāntideva makes an entirely different argument for altruism, one that I largely accept. This is that beautiful paradox in Bodhicaryāvatāra VIII.129: “All those in the world who are suffering are so because of a desire for their own happiness. All those in the world who are happy are so because of a desire for the happiness of others.” Egocentrism, in practice, is self-defeating: cultivating other-regarding virtues of generosity and gentleness and honesty improves one’s own well-being.
I suspect that, overall, Charles and I are likely to agree on Śāntideva’s paradox too. in the debate (just after the one-hour mark), on one aspect of the question of whether egocentrism harms one’s well-being, he said “I think that might be true, I think there might be some evidence for that, but that’s an empirical question for the psychologists to talk about.” That quote may identify another source of disagreement between us, a methodological one: with John Doris, I refuse to identify philosophy as an a priori field of inquiry; I think any philosophy that refuses to talk about empirical questions isn’t worthy of the name philosophy. Aristotle was wrong about a great many empirical questions, of course, but he would never have dreamed of excluding such questions from his purview. There is no room for NOMA in my philosophy: many of the most important philosophical claims are subject to empirical confirmation or refutation, including this one. Having said that, I think Charles and I (and Śāntideva!) would likely agree that the weight of evidence does point to egocentrism harming the agent’s well-being, so that in itself is not where our great disagreement lies.
However, important substantive disagreement remains. When one’s focus is turned to the way other-regarding virtue helps one’s own flourishing, it likely leads to partiality: one pays more concern to one’s friends and family and neighbours and colleagues than to strangers one doesn’t know. That partial view, which I accept, is not agent-neutral. An agent-neutral view like Śāntideva’s regards everybody equally, which is one of the reasons he praises the monk’s life so highly: it is difficult if not impossible to live an agent-neutral life when one runs a family household.
It is on that point of agent-neutrality where there is agreement between Śāntideva and the otherwise very different philosopher Peter Singer. Charles noted in our followup conversation that he agrees with Singer’s claim that “if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.” It seems to me that Singer’s philosophy and life are a reductio ad absurdum of this statement: by Singer’s own standard, Singer himself is a murderer. For Śāntideva, unlike for Singer, that sort of universal altruism is not an obligation – but it is still the best course of action to take. One should be giving money to starving children halfway around the world, not buying toys for one’s own children. For Śāntideva the monk, it would not be so hard to live up to that philosophy; for a father like Charles, I think, it is a bigger challenge. (It is relevant here that the Buddha named his son with the word for “fetter”.)
You may have noticed – I am sure Charles has – that I have not actually refuted the Ownerless Suffering Argument itself here (as, say, Paul Williams attempts to do). That’s by design: this post is not intended to establish my view against Charles’s. For one other point of agreement that he and I reached in our post-debate discussions was that we should have a followup debate on this very topic. Where and when are to be determined – but I hope this post sets the context.
Should two similar concepts (utilitarianism and universal consequentialism) be compared and debated? I wonder if such is useful, in a Jamesean or Rortyian sense. If a Christian and a transhumanist were to debate the advantages/benefits of their respective views, the outcome might be equally inconclusive: neither would appear likely to change the other’s mind and the exercise would be one of futility. Perhaps this is something like the outcome you describe between you and your debate opponent. I think, although I do not know, utilitarianism is older, historically, than the other position, whether or not that supposed fact is pertinent. Therefore, I enquire: are such debates, themselves useful, or, are they academic exercise for the amusement of their participants?
Yes, pragmatists would generally find this kind of debate between ideal-type ethical theories to be too academic. Pragmatists emphasize that ethical norms and ideals are discovered and revised over time in a rather ad hoc way as people resolve problems that they encounter in living together and pursuing goals: it’s a naturalistic evolutionary view. A good summary of the pragmatist view is James D. Wallace’s entry on “pragmatic ethics” in The International Encyclopedia of Ethics.
I agree with Amod that what Charles called the “ownerless suffering argument” is not compelling today in the form that Śāntideva stated it. The primary reason why it’s not compelling to me in our time is that the ontology of no-self is too sparse. But an ontology that simply affirms that there are suffering selves is also too sparse! We have the resources today for a much more informationally rich and complex ontology of systems that is now found in all the relevant sciences. Still, there’s an argument that is very similar to the “ownerless suffering argument” that I find compelling: it’s not that my brain and its functioning is “unreal”, it’s that it is impermanent and dependent on others in many ways: any fantasy of personal permanence and omnipotence and supreme importance is false. We’re all in this world together, and death is coming for all of us soon, really soon, especially if we don’t help each other. In fact, in general we have an innate ability to help and care for each other that evolved, presumably, because of its functionality for staving off extinction. (John Dunne discussed this latter point in relation to Śāntideva in his 2019 chapter “Innate human connectivity and Śāntideva’s cultivation of compassion”.) This argument could be summarized as: Because we are all in this fragile life together and in general have evolved an ability to be compassionate that reflects this fact, it makes no sense to act as my own suffering and pleasure is supremely important.
Generally I’d say I agree. The paradox argument in VIII.129 is close to what I hear you making: we are the sort of beings who become happier by being concerned for others’ happiness. But, the kind of concern that does this is partial: it prefers the happiness of those close to us over that of strangers. The Ownerless Suffering Argument treats all suffering equally, and we are not the sort of beings who evolved to do that.
Regarding your last two sentences: I wasn’t thinking that altruistic concern is necessarily partial; whether it manifests more narrowly or broadly seems to depend on the interaction of environmental influences with developmental processes. I think there’s considerable diversity in this dimension, which is why I used the term “in general” and was vague about how broad the altruism is. I imagine the diversity is essential since humans have to adapt to (and in fact do have different biological and cultural adaptations to) a wide variety of social and natural environments. So whether this naturalistic kind of argument could be used to conclude that it’s natural to care for everyone equally would require specifying a certain subpopulation where this tendency has evolved and is maintained; you’re probably right that it couldn’t refer to all of humanity.
I have many further thoughts about this, but I’ll just mention one:
A problem with saying that we prefer “the happiness of those close to us over that of strangers” is that this claim doesn’t account for the longstanding and widespread appeal of universal altruistic sentiments in everything from canonical scriptures like the Metta Sutta to John Lennon’s “Imagine” and similar pop songs. These sentiments make many people (including me) happy, even if our everyday behavior does not seem to match the sentiments. John Dunne’s chapter that I mentioned above follows current mainstream evolutionary accounts in attributing this to general human sociality and the evolution of prosociality. In this account, what underlies prosocial altruism is the social-cognitive tendency to create a shared sense of “we”, rather than the kind of impartial quantitative individualism that underlies utilitarianism.
Regarding agent neutrality, it is worth noting both that karma plays a role in what is possible and that benefit to others is not limited to material benefit.
Taking the second point first, Buddhism recognizes three types of generosity: providing material support (food, shelter, financial support, etc.), offering freedom from fear (providing comfort to the sick or dying, giving counseling or emotional support, protecting the weak, removing the object of fear, etc.), and teaching Dharma. It may be that the emotional support and connection that comes from giving a toy to one’s child is generosity of the second type mentioned above. These three generosities are not hierarchical. They are based on what is needed. You don’t offer Dharma to someone who is hungry and needs a sandwich.
As a result of karma, some people (family, friends, dharma students) are closer than others (people starving in Africa). As a result of this proximity, it is possible to be more helpful to those who are closer. Because of a more intimate connection, it is possible to see what is needed. Generosity is not abstract — it is providing what is needed in the moment.
All of this is by way of saying that the choice between giving a toy to one’s child and feeding children in Africa is abstract and a false choice. Virtuous actions for a Buddhist happen in real time. And virtue is based on intention in the moment.
Buddhists could be criticized for this. Christians have established organizations (hospitals, relief organizations, mission churches, etc.) on a broad scale. Buddhists, with their intense focus on introspection, not so much. But when you consider whether Shantideva is a utilitarian, this difference in view is an important distinction.
Jim said: “As a result of karma, some people (family, friends, dharma students) are closer than others (people starving in Africa). As a result of this proximity, it is possible to be more helpful to those who are closer.”
Although Jim is right that it is necessary to have a causal connection with someone in order to help them, Peter Singer in 1972 famously refuted the claim that we don’t have a causal connection with far-away people:
However, as Amod said above, Singer’s own life seems to refute Singer’s claim that universal altruism is obligatory, even if it is now technologically possible. Furthermore, I agree with Rhys Southan’s 2017 article “Peter Singer, R.M. Hare, and the trouble with logical consistency” that there is a major logical problem in Singer’s prescriptivism that makes his arguments unrealistic in general. In this context, the contrast between Singer and the pragmatists that I mentioned above is noteworthy, since both are naturalists, but pragmatists reject the kind of a priori metaethical principles that Singer employs.
Stephen E. Harris, in his 2015 article “Demandingness, well-being and the bodhisattva path”, pointed to an idea that I think is very important but isn’t discussed as often as it should be: The Buddhist emphasis on psychological development (or psychological transformation as Harris calls it) provides a way of dissolving the debate about whether universal altruism is an ethical ideal that is too demanding or not. A young child is incapable of certain kinds of more sophisticated ethical reasoning and behavior due to psychological underdevelopment (lack of knowledge and skills). In sufficiently facilitating circumstances, an adult will have developed the capability that the child lacks. In Mahāyāna theory, bodhisattvas are people who have made further steps on the same path toward further refinement of knowledge and skills to such a degree that universal altruism does not seem overdemanding to them. If we keep in mind that people develop extraordinary capabilities in various domains such as music and sports, it does not seem implausible that a bodhisattva could adopt ethical principles that correspond to a high degree of psychological and philosophical development (e.g. degree of comprehensiveness and systematicity of understanding) that many people would find strange and incomprehensible. From this lifespan developmental perspective it’s also not surprising that “religion is common but saints are rare” as Luke J. Matthews said in the title of a 2017 article. An interesting question is how this lifespan developmental perspective relates to intergenerational cultural transformation.
The question I have, Nathan, is not whether impartial love that shows no preference for family and friends is possible–perhaps it is–but whether it is in fact desireable. This is an argument that goes back to the argument between Mohzi who argued on behalf of impartial love and the Confucians who found his idea unfilial and offensive.
Bernard Wiliams presents the paradigmatic case of whether if two people were drowning–a family member and a stranger–and you could save only one–wondering whether it is wrong to show a preference for saving the family member was, as he famously put it, “one thought to many.”
I personally would not want to live in a world where I did not care more for my children than I do for a stranger’s child. I believe that special intimate relations–attachments, if you please– add a depth and fullness to life that impartial care for everyone can never replace.
I also find the Jataka tale where the Buddha in a previous incarnation gives his children away to a beggar who asks for them simply horrifying–as I do the story of the Buddha fathering a child he calls “fetter” and then abandoning him for years.
I think it is much better to think of this the way Confucious and Mencius does–that love begins as love for one’s kin and that one learns by analogy to extend it beyond the family. Then the interesting question becomes, “what inner and social moral resources exist that can help us extend this caring outward to wider and more inclusive circles,” but in this version of things, those wider and wider circles still have special relations–friends and family–at the center of the circle.
Of course, your experience may be different than mine.
Thanks, Seth. My experience is definitely different from yours since I don’t have children, or siblings, or a spouse, and my one remaining parent won’t be around forever, so I personally find the idea of caring about “strangers”, and being cared about by them, very comforting and appealing and not unrealistic given how often it happens.
Having said that, I’m familiar with the psychology of attachment and understand how that’s an important part of the human experience, including in my own life. But attachment is not the only form of sociality. And why set up a forced choice between Confucian familism and utilitarianism, as if they exhaust the spectrum of human sociality? It strikes me as the kind of academic exercise that Paul alluded to in the first comment.
Anthropologist David Graeber had a funny term: “baseline communism” or “communism as baseline sociality”. It is not to be confused with Communism (with a capital C) as a theory and system of governance, which it’s not: Graeber was an anarchist, and for the record I’m neither an anarchist nor a Communist. As Graeber put it:
My interpretation of Bernard Williams’s “one thought too many” from the perspective of baseline sociality or prosocial altruism is simply that I want to save everyone and that’s the one thought that’s enough. Various people are on train tracks with a trolley hurtling toward them? Of course I want to save them all. Show me the person who doesn’t want that—surely such a person exists, but it’s not me.
Ah, but it isn’t a false choice between Confucianism and Mohism—there is something very essential at stake, and to my mind the Confucians win this argument hands down. One more thought experiment: Imagine that you were married and you asked your wife if she loved you and she replied, “Of course! I love everyone.” Would that answer satisfy you? I think univeralized love or agape is too weak a tie to bind families together—and if we didn’t love our children to a special and extraordinary degree, how many people would endure the effort, sacrifice, and anxiety childrearing necessarily entails? I believe in the desirability of building metta and karuna and extending good will to others as our default attitude, even to the extent of caring for the well-being of our rivals and enemies. Doing it to the greatest extent possible is our bodhisattva mission. But I believe the universalized good will that we cultivate—what Confucius called 仁 (ren)—doesn’t erase the importance of special attachments that are more central to our flourishing.
Seth, I agree that attachment between children and their caregivers is crucial to human development and I have been the grateful beneficiary of that attachment, and such attachment is important in other relationships too. I am not familiar with the debates between Confucians and Mohists, but here’s where I see a false choice in what you said: Above you said that Confucians attacked Mozi’s view as “unfilial”, but “filial” refers to children, and we’re all children of children of (going back far enough, which is not very far) common ancestors. Do Confucians ever consider the evolutionary fact that we are all related to each other genealogically? Taking this fact into account, the Confucian attack on universal love as “unfilial” just seems scientifically uninformed. There may be other good reasons to reject Mozi’s ideas, but from the perspective of evolutionary Big History, there’s nothing unfilial about caring about everyone, and caring about everyone doesn’t mean treating them as interchangeable but as unique beings, just like our parents and sibilings and third cousins are unique beings. There are so many people that I can’t be attached to all of them, but they are all family.