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Love of All Wisdom

~ Philosophy through multiple traditions

Love of All Wisdom

Tag Archives: Seneca

Nussbaum’s revised view of anger

21 Sunday Jul 2019

Posted by Amod Lele in Anger, Grief, Mahāyāna, Patient Endurance, Stoicism

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Elie Wiesel, justice, Martha Nussbaum, Nazism, Śāntideva, Seneca

It has taken me far too long to read Martha Nussbaum’s Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice – long enough that, in characteristic Nussbaum fashion, she has already authored or coauthored at least three more books since it came out. I say this is too long because Nussbaum’s views on anger were a topic important to my dissertation, which Nussbaum read and thought highly of while she was at Harvard. (The footnotes of Anger and Forgiveness make a couple offhand references to Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra, and I strongly suspect that it was through my diss that she learned about the text.) And what is most striking to me when I read the book now is that Nussbaum’s views on anger have taken a startling turn in this book – one that brings them much closer to Śāntideva’s. Continue reading →

Is compassion a virtue?

20 Sunday Mar 2011

Posted by Amod Lele in Christianity, Compassion, Confucianism, Greek and Roman Tradition, Mahāyāna, Pleasure, Virtue

≈ 39 Comments

Tags

Aristotle, chastened intellectualism, Four Noble Truths, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jesus, Julia Annas, Lorraine Besser-Jones, Martha Nussbaum, masochism, Mencius, nonhuman animals, Śāntideva, Seneca, T.R. (Thill) Raghunath

Thill makes an important point in response to my recent post on virtue and pleasure (as well as to a commenter named Bob). The post articulated the view, attributed to Aristotle via Julia Annas and Lorraine Besser-Jones, that the fully virtuous person will take pleasure in virtuous action. Against this position, Thill claims: “Even if you want to kill a dog or a horse in order to put it out of misery and you do it skillfully, it would still be a gross distortion to describe this act as one which gives pleasure to the agent.”

Thill is, I think, getting at an important philosophical debate here: over the value of compassion. Most of us, were we to be faced with the necessity of euthanizing a horse, would feel a painful emotion occasioned by its suffering – that is, compassion. The same would happen if we needed to discipline a child – even if, in either case, we had all the best reasons to believe that this action was the best action to take. But there is still a question: is this feeling a good thing? Continue reading →

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