[Buddha-l] What's the point

[Richard Hayes]

On Jul 12, 2011, at 9:01, Randall Jones <randall.bernard.jones at gmail.com> wrote:

> Maybe it's just a senior moment, but I'm having trouble remembering 
> what's the point of the prohibition against killing.

Assuming the context is traditional Buddhism, and that we're not talking about vinaya rules, there are no prohibitions. What there are instead are voluntary training principles that one undertakes. The point, broadly speaking, is conformity with a community to which one has chosen to belong. 

In an excellent book (with which I find myself in profound disagreement on several points), Charles Goodman argues that Buddhists follow precepts out of respect for the Buddha. One honors him by acting as he did. (I don't disagree with that at all.) Buddhas, arhants and bodhisattvas, says Goodman, do not engage in any kind of moral reasoning. They do not deliberate at all on how to behave. They simply act. Moreover, since there is no free will in Buddhism (says Goodman), buddhas etc have NO CHOICE but to act harmlessly. It's not that they choose not to kill and to be honest and to desist from harsh speech and backbiting; it's that a buddha, arhant or bodhisattva simply cannot deliberately step on a cockroach, tell a lie, say a negative thing (even true) about another or drink a beer. 

Goodman has argued these points in various papers in several different journals, but much of what he has said is recapitulated in The Consequences of Compassion. A breathtakingly excellent critique of Goodman's position will be coming out soon in Sophia (the philosophical journal by that name published by Springer). I don't know the author's name, but I did a blind review of the article and have heard that it was indeed accepted after receiving praise from several reviewers. It's called "Freedom with a Buddhist Face." (As one can infer from the title, the author is convinced that there is freedom of will in Buddhism, even among buddhas and bodhisattvas.)

One more thing to say about Goodman is that he rejects Keown's position that Buddhist ethics are of the virtue-ethics variety. His claim is that Aristotle (and also most Stoics) sees virtue as something that results in eudaemonia, which is usually described as having a healthy and flourishing self (which is in turn seen as the best way to be instrumental in the flourishing of others). But if there is no self, says Goodman, there is no one or nothing to flourish. Therefore a Buddhist who adheres to anātman can't be a virtue ethicist. He is quite adamant on this point. So Buddhists must be consequentialists, he says. But what kind of consequentialist? His answer is: character-consequentialist, that is, someone who believes that cultivating good character by accumulating virtues has good consequences. That is fine, but it ends up being just about exactly what a virtue-ethicist says in the first place. So it looks as though Goodman is rejecting a position when it is called by one name and then endorsing that very same position when it goes by another name. He certainly wouldn't be the first philosopher, or even the first Buddhist philosopher, to do that. 

There is more to say, but if I said it now, I would be late to an appointment with a student. And keeping others waiting is inconsiderate, and that is no virtue. 

Richard (one of many)