[Buddha-l] Buddhas Meditation

[Richard Hayes]

On Jul 9, 2011, at 06:47 , Dan Lusthaus wrote:

> Richard notes:
> 
>> I look at most issues from a virtue-ethics perspective. Dan looks at most 
>> issues from a consequentialist perspective.
> 
> He can classify himself in whihever camp he wishes, but should refrain from 
> characterizing me.

Consequentialists typically look at the consequences of actions and judge the acceptability of actions by calculating the relative gravity of the consequences among a series possible choices. That is a methodology you frequently employ. An ethicist looking at your approach to ethical discussions would note that you follow a textbook model of consequentialism. No one is characterizing you. I am characterizing what you write about ethics and placing it into one of the standard categories used by students of moral philosophy.

> I look at redwood extinction from the redwood 
> perspective.

Will all due respects, I doubt very much that you have even the faintest idea how the world looks from a redwood's perspective. 

> Richard's brand of virtue-ethics strikes me 
> as narcissistic, reducing actual others to imaginary factoids to be 
> manipulated according to how they relate to a "me."

Read up on virtue ethics. It is pretty clear you don't quite grasp what that approach to ethics is about. I'll supply a reading list in the near future.

> On the other hand, I am glad to hear that Richard is working out, staying 
> fit, and feeling good.

Gee, I should have thought you would have thought it dangerous and narcissistic to be physically healthy, given that you seem to regard it as dangerous and narcissistic to be psychologically healthy (which is really what virtue ethics is all about).

Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM