[Buddha-l] Re. karma and consequences (cont)

[Robert Ellis]

This is the remainder of my previous post responding to Jayarava.

Jayarava wrote >>If we remove the connection between actions and consequences then where does that leave us? Surely there must be some kind of causal link between actions and consequences at the heart of all ethics, else why be good and not evil? So how would you characterise the link, if any?<<
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Of course we need to accept causal links. From the beginning I have been arguing for a distinction between karma and consequences. The causal links are just specific links, provisionally known through experience, not deduced from karmic law.

>> If I were leading a discussion on ethics I wouldn't have let it get this theoretical, but would have brought it down to the level of personal experience of the consequences of behaviour: beginning with the most gross and looking for the subtleties.<<
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That sounds like a good procedure if you want to guide people towards moral awareness. However, the danger in it (if you are teaching this in relation to 'karma') is that people then associate this specific analysis of?experience with karmic law, when karmic law has not helped them with the analysis at all. Karma is, in fact, completely irrelevant to ethics, as your example shows.

Best wishes,
Robert


Robert Ellis

website: www.moralobjectivity.net