Justice as a mean

04 Thursday Jun 2009

Posted by in Greek and Roman Tradition, Social Science, Virtue

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Aristotle is well known for saying that virtue is a mean between two bad extremes: learning to live well is like learning to hit a target with an arrow, neither too high nor too low. Such an account seems sensible, even obvious, when it comes to virtues like courage. Too little courage makes one a coward; too much makes one foolhardy, taking unnecessary risks. Virtue here seems clearly in the middle.

But what about justice? Aristotle thought that this too was a mean. If we demand more than we deserve, we are greedy; fair enough. But what if we demand less than we deserve? Aristotle thought that this too was a vice. But isn’t it a good thing to be nice and generous in this way? The Dutch legal philosopher Hugo Grotius certainly thought so, and therefore disagreed with Aristotle. The essence of justice, said Grotius, “lies in abstaining from that which belongs to another.” Grotius’s claim moved society away from an understanding of justice based on virtue, and toward one based on law.

I think, however, that Aristotle is smarter than Grotius gives him credit for, in a way that has significant implications. If one asks for too much, Aristotle tells us, one commits injustice; but if one asks for too little, one suffers injustice, and both, in their way, are serious wrongs. It is unjust to refuse to stand up for yourself, to allow others to walk all over you.

The point is particularly important in an age where women are struggling for equality. The vice of submissiveness or meekness, of not asking for enough, is probably more prevalent in women than men. Sociological works like Women Don’t Ask note that gender wage gaps often arise because women don’t feel entitled to their fair share. Aristotle’s view is empowering.

Naturalizing karma

03 Wednesday Jun 2009

Posted by in Buddhism, External Goods, Greek and Roman Tradition, Karma, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, Supernatural

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You can’t study Buddhism for very long without bumping into the concept of karma – or more specifically, good karma (pu?ya) and bad karma (p?pa). Karma poses a significant problem for those trying to learn from Buddhism in a contemporary context informed by natural science. In a great many Buddhist texts, the central thesis of karma – that good actions result in good fortune for the agent, and vice versa for bad actions – is simply assumed. Śāntideva, for example, spends a long time warning you about the time you’ll spend in the hells as a result of being bad, but doesn’t give you any reason to believe this is true beyond his own say-so and that of the s?tra scriptures.

But does this mean we should simply throw out the idea of karma? I don’t think so. The most helpful way I’ve seen to think about karma is in Dale S. Wright’s valuable article Critical Questions Towards a Naturalized Concept of Karma in Buddhism. Wright proposes an approach to karma based on an Aristotelian approach to virtue: roughly, good actions develop good habits in us – which is to say virtues, such as courage, generosity or patient endurance – and those good habits in turn tend to make our lives better. The key point is that it depends on a distinction between internal and external goods: virtue makes us better and happier on the inside, and makes our lives better in that respect. It doesn’t necessarily make better events happen to us.

There are some problems with Wright’s thesis that I expect to take up here later. But its central insight seems to me worth adopting for a very simple reason: that it is both Buddhist and true.

Ken Wilber

02 Tuesday Jun 2009

Posted by in Metaphilosophy, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion

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There is much that I admire in the works of Ken Wilber, and I think it is essential reading for anyone who wants to think philosophically in the 21st century. That’s not to say that Wilber is right about most things; in many respects I think he isn’t, and I will critique his work in future posts. But before I get to critiquing Wilber’s work, I want to discuss why I admire it so.

Wilber sometimes seems to claim that his work is widely studied in academia. It isn’t, but that’s not a criticism. Wilber’s writing is exactly the kind of work that really needs to be done, but is rarely done within the confines of academic writing. Why? Because Wilber’s work looks at big questions: questions of truth wherever it can be found, the nature of the universe and our place in it, the good life. The traditional questions of philosophy, in other words. Academics generally refuse to investigate these questions, whichever of the three main academic approaches they take. Philologists often believe we have no right to discuss the questions in a text unless we’ve studied it in its own language for decades; analytic philosophers carve up questions into smaller and smaller pieces, leaving the bigger questions unanswered; postmodernists question any questions we might ask, so that the meta-questions are all that are left. (Why these approaches dominate is a question I’ll leave for another time.) Each of these approaches has its value; but each is missing something big.

Wilber’s work finds that “something big.” He takes what he calls an integral approach, meaning an attempt to integrate the valuable insights and truths from every possible source, Asian, Western or otherwise. This basic methodological idea is what makes Wilber’s work a valuable starting point for any cross-cultural philosophical inquiry.

Political quietism today

01 Monday Jun 2009

Posted by in Mahāyāna, Politics

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One of the recurring, and more controversial, themes in my dissertation was Śāntideva’s strong suspicion toward political involvement, as when he proclaims that texts on law and politics (da??an?ti) are fruitless and lead to delusion. When I first presented a chapter of the dissertation at a workshop, a colleague was critical of my attempt to use Śāntideva as a resource for contemporary ethical reflection. I don’t remember his exact words, but they ran along the lines of: “We cannot today accept an ethical system that does not involve working for political change.” For him, Buddhism could only now be acceptable if it was Engaged Buddhism. You can find similar points made in many other places; my friend and occasional mentor Jeff Kripal frequently insists (in the joint article Quietism and Karma, for example) that “quietistic” ascetic traditions cannot be “an adequate resource for contemporary ethics.”

But why should this be? The most typical argument has to do with a variety of “after”s: rhetorically, it is assumed that “after colonialism, after Auschwitz and Hiroshima, after Gandhi’s satyagraha…” political inaction is morally suspect or even unethical. (The quote is from Jeff’s book Crossing Boundaries, pp. 56-7.) I’m skeptical of such claims. History is full of genocides, massacres and struggles, dating back as far as it is recorded. What, if anything, makes our age different? Political quietism has been defended as perfectly ethical, for about as long as it has existed. Why shouldn’t it be similarly defended now?

External goods

21 Thursday May 2009

Posted by in External Goods, Greek and Roman Tradition, Mahāyāna, Stoicism

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The question at the heart of my dissertation work, on the Buddhist thinker Śāntideva, is one I don’t feel I’ve resolved: the question of external goods. I took this term from Martha Nussbaum, who in turn got it from Aristotle: external goods (and bads) are things in life that lie largely beyond our control. Wealth, personal relationships, good health: we have some control over all these things, but in the end they can all be taken from us through no fault of our own. The question is: how should we react to gains and losses of external goods, to the vagaries of fortune?

Nussbaum tends to embrace the most commonsense position: our losses of external goods are real losses, and our strong reactions to such losses are expressing the truth that our lives are poorer. She contrasts this view to the Stoics, who say that we should remain calm and unshaken, confident in our own virtue.

I have a strong sympathy for the Stoic side; it’s been my experience that if one becomes unhappy whenever misfortune strikes, one will never be happy. The most extreme logical conclusion of their view seems to be a single-minded devotion to virtue and inner peace, best expressed in a monasticism like Śāntideva’s; but something does seem to me lost in such a life, a loss that could outweigh the misery from being struck by external losses.

There is a third position on the question, though, which has come to interest me more after the dissertation. Thinkers as far apart as Mencius and Nietzsche tend to support a view that losses do matter, but actually benefit us by strengthening us: “whatever does not kill me makes me stronger.” In some respects Śāntideva is closer to this position than he is to the Stoics; and I’m wondering whether it might be the most sensible position to take.

“Analytic” and “Continental” philosophy

21 Thursday May 2009

Posted by in Analytic Tradition, French Tradition, Metaphilosophy, Truth

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People concerned with the big questions of philosophy, or with cross-cultural philosophy, often reach a quick disillusionment with analytic philosophy – the standard approach of academic philosophy departments. The name is apt, as the approach is typically more concerned with analysis than synthesis; the characteristic method is to divide our fuzzy, vague everyday concepts into ever more precise and specific concepts, referring more and more exactly to smaller and smaller things. Analytic philosophers have typically seen the history of philosophy (Western or otherwise) as interesting but not important. The analytic philosopher W.V.O. Quine once quipped that there are two kinds of philosophers: those who do philosophy, and those who do the history of philosophy.

There is value in the analytic approach, best seen when compared to its main opponent, the French “continental” tradition (especially postmodernism). A “continental” philosophy department typically pays much more attention to the great questions, to the history of philosophy, and even to non-Western traditions. (Full disclosure: continental philosophy departments have generally shown considerably more interest in hiring me than analytic ones have.)

What you will find far less of in “continental” philosophy, however, is any discussion of truth. Continental philosophers’ writings tend to work in an exegetical mode: Heidegger said this, Lévinas said that, Foucault said the other thing. But was Heidegger or Foucault right? Much Continental work seems to shy away from such questions, sometimes acting merely as a mouthpiece for the philosopher being explained. Often the reasoning given, based on thinkers like Jacques Derrida, is that truth doesn’t exist in the first place; all that’s left is text and more text. But such an approach makes one see why Quine made his quip.

My own quip: analytic philosophy is truth without significance, continental philosophy is significance without truth. I would like to look for both.