In thinking further about Seth Segall’s The House We Live In: Virtue, Wisdom and Pluralism, I want to turn from reviewing the book itself, whose broad approach I generally agree with, to exploring my major points of philosophical difference with it. I think this is a particularly important approach here because the book’s biggest weakness is its refusal to go down to deep philosophical differences, differences in questions of ultimate value, meaning, truth, reality. Such an approach leaves Seth in no position to understand his political opponents, many of whom are going to be conservative Christians (in the US) or conservative Muslims (worldwide). I don’t think you can reach a full mutual understanding with them unless you understand their differences from you at this very deep, foundational level.
For when we look at Seth’s engagement with monotheistic thought – the thought that underlies those conservative Christian or Muslim views – it turns out to be unfortunately superficial. They get their most extensive treatment on pp 133-7, in which the wide range of thinkers quoted includes Francis of Assisi, Rabbi Hillel and Albert Schweitzer. But notice how the section characterizes the work done by its quotations:
This necessarily brief survey of Judeo-Christian, Buddhist, Ogalala Lakota, Ubuntu, and contemporary humanist traditions illustrates how all (or almost all) axial and post-axial religions and humanisms—be they Western, Asian, African, or Native American—provide us with moral resources to help make the transition from an unadulterated individualism or loyalty to a small in-group to a wider identification as an integral member of a broader human community and perhaps even to all life. (137)
The role played by the traditions here is not the role of partners in mutual understanding. Rather, they are a source of resources, tools to be used to further an existing project whose aims had already been decided in advance. I’m in favour drawing creatively on the resources of other traditions to build one’s own – what Augustine would call spoiling the Egyptians – but it is not the same thing as listening for mutual understanding. To do that, you have to go deeper.
Seth’s neglect of fundamental difference isn’t just with his monotheistic foes. It also characterizes his approach to the three traditions—Aristotelian, Buddhist, and Confucian—from which he draws his account of virtue. He phrases his approach as follows:
Let’s begin by outlining some of the prominent features of three classical ethical systems that arose separately from each other due to their geographical separation—the Aristotelean, Buddhist, and Confucian traditions—to see if we can discover commonalties [sic] that override their readily apparent differences. (31)
There is an assumption here, made but not justified, that commonalities “override” differences. But I don’t think there’s any reason to take the commonalities as overriding. One can always find some sorts of commonalities between any small group of phenomena. Aristotle, Śāntideva, and Zhuangzi all have in common the fact that the English spellings of their names contain the letter A. That doesn’t make that commonality significant, let alone overriding.
And when one is not clear about one’s principles for selecting commonalities, those commonalities may in fact turn out to be less significant. Seth attempts to find commonalities between Aristotle and the Buddhist texts – but not between the Buddhists and the Stoics. Strikingly, Seth dismisses the view of the Stoics, according to which “virtue and wisdom are all one needs to flourish”, as “facile” (34). The problem for him is that the conception of flourishing in classical Buddhism, whether in the self-oriented Pali texts or the other-oriented Śāntideva, is much closer to that Stoic view than it is to Aristotle’s; they, like the Stoics, dismiss the external goods that Aristotle values. Their single goal is the removal of suffering (dukkha), and the thing that gets us there is virtue.
Thus Seth quotes Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra and the Dhammapāda, but says nothing about how these texts take the highest lifestyle to be that of a monk. The Buddha’s monastic and other-worldly vision of a well-being liberated from the “fetters” of relationships was very different from Aristotle’s and Confucius’s view of a well-being embedded in social and political relationships.
Because of that difference, many of what Seth takes to be similarities are not. He quotes the Upaḍḍha Sutta in Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translation, where the Buddha says:
This is the entire holy life, Ananda, that is, good friendship, good companionship, good comradeship. When a bhikkhu [monk] has a good friend, a good companion, a good comrade, it is to be expected that he will develop and cultivate the Noble Eightfold Path.
Seth compares this to Aristotle’s view that “without friends no one would choose to live”. But what he doesn’t mention is that the term “good friend” in classical Buddhist texts is typically used in a very specific way: it refers to one’s guru, a person more advanced on the Buddhist path into whom one can put one’s trust, not an equal companion. (See chapters II and III of Śāntideva’s Śikṣā Samuccaya.) Accordingly what’s left of the supposed similarity is merely the bare word “friendship” and its synonyms, with no attention to the fact that what is meant is something very different.
Now this concept of friendship and relationship is something I think the Buddha and Śāntideva are wrong about, probably even in a monastic context and maybe even outside of it. (Just as the Buddha is wrong in the Kamboja Sutta.) My point is exegetical rather than constructive: that is, I’m pointing to what the classical texts actually say, not articulating my own view. I don’t agree with the hierarchical view of friendship; I think we do do better when friendship is mutual and interdependent, probably even if we’re monks. Constructively, I am with Seth rather than the suttas (just as I’m with Justin Whitaker that it’s good to go to the theatre).
So what is the point of making this exegetical argument about the text’s view? It is this: there is value in being challenged by texts we don’t agree with. We learn something from the views we disagree with. The things I learned most from Buddhism were all things I disagreed with at first – and in many ways that’s to be expected. When we already agree with something, there’s a lot less there for us to learn, for we have already learned a good chunk of it. That is one of the reasons I am drawn to Seth’s plea for mutual listening in general, even as I find the book living up to it less in practice: mutual listening doesn’t just help us live in peace, it helps us learn.
Amod, I sometimes think you are critiquing a book I haven’t written, rather than the one I actually wrote. Had I wanted to write a book appreciating the nuances of the differences between the traditions, I easily could have—but that was not the aim of this book. The aim of this book was to imagine the bases for a naturalistic, pragmatic ethics — one that drew on areas of overlapping consensus between the classical traditions, the modern world religions and humanisms, and contemporary empirical psychology as resources — a flourishing-based ethics that a majority of modern Westerners might (someday) reach consensus on. As such, I was also focused on the intellectual and moral competencies that sustain civic and democratic life at a time when American democratic life is imperiled.
The differences between the classical systems are endlessly fascinating, and I mention some in passing in the book—why does Aristotle stress courage and wittiness while Confucius stresses ritual and filial piety? What are the metaphysical assumptions underlying these diverse ethical systems—̆Buddhist karma vs. Confucian Tian vs. Laozi’s Dao vs. Aristotle’s archai vs. the Abrahamic deity? I agree that it is the places where these systems seem most foreign to us where we have the most to learn. In recent years, for example, I have watched a great many Chinese-language television dramas, and the central role of xiao or filial piety in these dramas makes them markedly different from American television fare. Confucian values contributed significantly to how sinographic societies responded to COVID: unlike in the US, there were no protests against mask wearing in Taiwan, China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam or Singapore.
I appreciate the differences between how Aristotle and Indian Buddhists viewed friendship, or how Indian Buddhism and Stoicism had a different view of the role of external goods in relation to human happiness than Aristotle. These are all interesting topics—but I guess I had already made up my mind on where I stood on these topics—at my age one is entitled to have reached a certain view, having explored them at an earlier time in my life—and to have covered all that territory would have taken the focus off my main intention—the question of whether there is wisdom from the past that we can carry forward in a new way to meet the urgent questions that currently confront us. And we need not carry forward all the areas where the ancients agreed—for example, the sexism inherent in all the traditions. We have our own modern standpoint from which we are condemned to engage them.
Thanks, Seth. I don’t think you were trying to write a book about the traditions’ differences – but I do think that the book you were trying to write is weakened by not discussing them. (There will be more on that topic in the coming weeks.) Especially, the project of reaching consensus is very poorly served by ignoring deep and fundamental differences. If you want to try to get people to consensus, you have to work on *convincing* them – either that, or on being convinced yourself. And that’s where I’m not actually sure what book you *were* trying to write. On p152 you say that “Any conversation that begins with the intent of changing the other is doomed to fail” – but if neither you nor the other changes, then by definition you will never reach consensus! The plain fact is that people disagree with you (and me) on a great many things and the very idea of a consensus is an idea of *agreement*. Even if you wanted to try for a Rawlsian overlapping consensus (which is a project I find suspect in itself, but I’ll leave that aside for the moment), you’d still need to get an agreement on *something*. You don’t have that agreement, and I don’t see how you’re going to get it (and – lamentably in my book – I don’t think you really try). If changing the other is doomed to fail, then what’s the point of aiming at consensus?
Even if it’s not doomed (and I don’t think it is), the section quoted in the post above is not going to get us there, *because* of the superficiality. If you want to convince Christians to get on board with your project, you should be quoting Jesus, not Francis and Schweitzer – Christians disagree with those two all the time, and there’s nothing in their faith that prohibits them from doing so.
There’s a lot of rich reflection in your book that can deepen the life experience of those who already agree with you. But your political sections aren’t going to work without convincing those who disagree – or at least, the kind of deep listening that involves understanding their reasons for their positions.
Amod, the issue of “convincing” people whose views are reasonably adjacent to my own and “conversing”with those whose views are a great distance from my own are very different projects. I think many devout Christians—and I would include here people whose Christianity has at least one foot planted in the pragmatic camp like a Reinhold Neibuhr or a David French—would be able to find consensus agreement with much that I have to say. I am already acquainted with people who take their Christianity very seriously who loved the book. I have also had extended conversations with several Jewish rabbis who also liked what my book had to say. On the other hand, fundamentalists of any religious persuasion would find it a harder stretch. That is OK— my aim is not to convince people whose faith is steeped in Biblical literalism and inerrancy. The kind of consensus I am aiming for is not universal public agreement (which never occurs in any meaningful situation) but a working majority consensus that will still leave many outliers. For example, the vast majority (70% or thereabouts) of Americans regardless of religious identification or lack thereof support abortion under some circumstances and some forms of gun control. When it comes to fundamentalists, I have no objections to having conversations with them about our differences that might lead to greater mutual understanding rather than agreement. The purpose of those kinds of conversations, however, is about reaching agreement only on our common humanity.
A majority is a majority, not a consensus, and that’s a very different project: strategically trying to shore up enough agreement to help your side beat the other side. But even if that’s the goal, I’m still left unclear as to how the book is supposed to accomplish it. Much of the first and last chapters consists of articulating a pretty standard set of left-liberal positions on a standard set of issues; most of your readership probably agrees with those positions already, so their reading the book is not going to help you reach majority. That includes liberal Christians and Jews.
The example of David French is the one that I find most interesting here, because he’s someone who’s mostly not already on that side, someone who wouldn’t come to the book already persuaded by most of what you say. Do you think that someone like him would be likely to find the book’s political sections persuasive?
I thought Seth’s goal of “a working majority consensus that will still leave many outliers” is a common definition of consensus, that is, unanimity minus some small percentage of outliers; when the population is large, that small percentage could be many people. That struck me as wise and not an expression of “strategically trying to shore up enough agreement to help your side beat the other side”.
Also, Seth’s book is not necessarily the final text that people would have to reach consensus on, just a proposal that could be modified as a part of a consensus decision-making process. I have only read the book’s chapter summaries, and I can well imagine that right-liberals would object to Seth’s portrayal of individualism in the final chapter as attributing too much evil to individualism. Not even a left-liberal guy like me has the chutzpah to confidently say that “overemphasis on individualism lies at the root of our current discontents” and attribute it to conquistadors, corporations, and the military! I have some beefs with individualism, but man, that claim sounds way too strong given that those are all collective actors. (But I haven’t read the book; perhaps important subtleties are lost in the chapter summary?)
In an opinion column in January, David French said: “To put it simply, the problem with D.E.I. isn’t with diversity, equity or inclusion — all vital values. The danger posed by D.E.I. resides primarily not in these virtuous ends but in the unconstitutional means chosen to advance them.” He concluded: “Virtuous goals should not be accomplished by illiberal means.” It sounds to me as if David French is generally on board with Seth’s values, so I would be interested in hearing an example from Seth’s book of a means that is so illiberal that David French couldn’t tolerate it?
Amod, I have no idea how much David French might agree with me in terms of my political recommendations. But he is the kind of Christian conservative I can readily imagining engaging in intelligent and respectful dialogue with, and I suspect we could learn from each other. By the way, I find that of all the New York Times columnists, French is the one I find myself most often in full agreement with. Indeed, most of the NYT columnists I find myself in agreement with—David French, John McWhorter, Bret Stephens, David Brooks—designate themselves as “conservatives.” What does that say about my liberalism? I guess I beleive there is plenty of room for real dialogue and compromise between people I think of as rational conservatives and people like myself who I imagine as pragmatic old-school liberals (in the way that Hubert Humphrey and Scoop Jackson were liberals).
I often tend to react similarly – in the context of the NYT the conservatives are often the more open-minded ones, since they’re in less of an ideological monoculture.
But the question specifically wasn’t whether French would agree, but whether he would be persuaded. You speak of reaching agreement – which implies moving from a state of disagreement to one of agreement, agreement not being a place one is already in. That’s the hard part, and it seems to me a key task of a work of philosophy – and a book that identifies its key inspirations as Aristotle, Confucius, the Buddha, Rawlsian liberalism, and pragmatism is one that at least presents itself as being a work of philosophy.
I characterize this as contextual reality….it changes, place to place; time to time. Interesting, yet not unusual.
No matter how far you go, there will be someone, somewhere who thinks like you. THAT is the importance of deep differences.
Apropos of the question of whether Buddhism is close to Stoicism or Aristotelianism:
I very much agree that, unlike Aristotle, Buddhism denies that material well-being is inherently necessary for a good life. But one idea that *does* seem to appear in Buddhism but not in Stoicism is the idea that poverty can be morally corrupting–that it can make it much harder (albeit not totally impossible) to be virtuous.
The clearest case of this seems to be in the Cakkavatti Sutta, where the first sin that ends the Golden Age is the Cakravartin king’s failure to support the poor, which drives his subjects to steal. In short, poverty causes crime. Similarly, I’ve read that the canonical Theravada commentarial tradition says that those who starve to death are typically reborn as hungry ghosts, due to their tortured mental state at death.
This idea–that material goods *are* genuinely valuable, but only because they make virtue easier to attain–seems like a third option, distinct from either the Aristotelian or Stoic approaches.
But it seems unclear to me how this can be reconciled with your account of how Shantideva sees gifts of material goods–namely, as only instrumentally beneficial insofar as they make the recipient see the preacher of the Dharma more favorably, and so become more inclined to practice it.
I would have expected Shantideva to praise giving to the poor in order to prevent them from turning to theft out of desperation, or praise feeding the starving in order to save them from a bad rebirth. I wonder why he doesn’t do this.
Hi Morgan – that’s Stephen Jenkins’s claim about the Cakkavatti in “Do bodhisattvas relieve poverty?”, but I don’t think the Cakkvatti is a clear case at all. That one sentence of the text (where poverty leads to crime) is probably quoted more often than the rest of the text, which is quite unfortunate since the rest of the text presents a message so at odds with it. When things get to their worst and direst conditions – far worse than the poverty the king create – that’s when people make their resolution to be better.
Śāntideva returns regularly to the idea of deprivation as an opportunity to be better and become more virtuous. I don’t think he ever says anything about deprivation as interfering with virtue, if anything the opposite: ia lack of external goods makes virtue easier to attain. He does actually advocate giving to the poor – but also advocates giving to the rich, because in both cases the goal is to get people to listen to the bodhisattva and be virtuous. (My dissertation spends a lot of time on these topics, in chapters 3-5.)
Thanks for the helpful response!
It’s interesting that the Cakkavatti line about crime causing poverty is apparently so anomalous within the larger tradition.
The other Pali-canon text that seems to have a similar message is the Kutadanta Sutta (and is similarly often discussed by Engaged Buddhists) is where the Buddha in his previous incarnation advises a king to restore order to his kingdom and stop banditry not by punishing the perpetrators but by making his subjects prosperous.
Do you have any idea of what the original context for these two passages might have been, given how different they seem from the rest of the Pali Canon’s teaching on the relationship between wealth and virtue?
A further point in your favor:
From what else I’ve read of other Buddhist sources on the duties of rulers (Jataka stories about righteous or wicked kings, the Ratnavali, various Mahayana sutras, etc.), the theme of the king’s obligation to support the poor is consistent, and seems to be emphasized decidedly more than in Hindu or ‘secular’ Indic (Arthashastra or Tirukkul) political material.
But it’s noteworthy that nowhere do I recall the *morally-corrupting* effects of poverty on the king’s subjects being mentioned as a justification for royal philanthropy, despite the seeming precedent provided by the Cakkavatti.
These political texts don’t really seem to give *any* justification for why the king ought to materially benefit his subjects, rather than merely concerning himself with promoting the Dharma among them. Unlike with Shantideva, the seeming contradiction between the importance of material charity and Stoic-style eudaimonism doesn’t seem to have been engaged with. (To be fair, you can say the same thing about the Stoic idea that good rulers ought to materially benefit their subjects!)
I would suspect it has to do with the specific obligations of a king – which is not a role that the texts regard highly, they often recommend avoiding it. Steven Collins’s chapter on kingship in Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities is a good place to get a sense of traditional Buddhist political philosophy (which is a different thing from traditional Buddhist ethics).
Thank you for the chapter recommendation–I’ll have to check it out!
Richard Gombrich, in “Theravada Buddhism: A Social History”, sees the distinctive aspect of the Buddhist concept of kingship as *denying* that kings had special duties distinct from those of ordinary householders. He argues that this led, not just to the obvious Buddhist discomfort with the violence inherent to kingship, but to a greater emphasis on royal philanthropy: it was simply the ‘dana’ of a pious householder on a larger scale.