[Buddha-l] Re: Ethics

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Sat, 2005-03-12 at 22:01 +0200, Michel Clasquin wrote:

> So what do you say if a woman asks "does this make me look fat?" 

It is, I have to admit, quite difficult to restrain oneself when someone
sets herself up like that. When people invite you to deliver painful
truths unto them, you almost have to be a saint not to comply. 

But what does the saint do when confronted with someone who says "Come,
batter my ego with a truth that I am probably unable to hear without
going into a dark mood that will spoil the rest of the day for both of
us." I have no idea. Let one of our local saints respond.

> Sometimes it is necessary to say things that are unpleasant and that 
> will end up making you unpopular. 

Not only that, but to someone who is still a little short of sainthood,
it is fun! It is also fun to saints, I suspect, but they are obliged to
mask their delight, lest the Devil's advocate use their glee against
them. (Was it Sartre who said that a saint is someone who has been
forgiven the sin of having been alive?)

> And sometimes it may be necessary to bend the truth to the advantage
> of a greater good.

If there is such a thing as truth, is it the sort of thing that can
bend? If so, how? While I am not entirely convinced that there is such a
thing as truth, I do think there may be such a thing as sincerity,
although I rarely witness it. Can one bend sincerity? It seems to me
that one cannot, for sincerity is saying what you mean and meaning what
you say. And it seems to me that being sincere is like being alive in
that one either is or is not but can't be so only to some degree.  

> Ethics is slippery, not something that can be captured in a few simple
> rules.

Is that one of the simple rules that slipshod ethics cannot be captured
in?

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico