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Ethics As a Path: Kantian Dimensions of Early Buddhist

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Ethics As a Path: Kantian Dimensions of Early Buddhist ETHICS AS A PATH: KANTIAN DIMENSIONS OF EARLY BUDDHIST ETHICS by Justin Sloan Whitaker MA Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Goldsmiths 2017 University of London DECLARATION I hereby declare that this PhD thesis entitled “ETHICS AS A PATH: KANTIAN DIMENSIONS OF EARLY BUDDHIST ETHICS” was carried out by me for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Religious Studies under the guidance and supervision of Prof. Damien Keown, Goldsmiths, University of London. The interpretations put forth are based on my reading and understanding of the original texts and they are not published anywhere in the form of books, monographs, or articles. All material from other sources has been properly and fully acknowledged at the respective place in the text according to Modern Language Association rules for citation. Justin Whitaker 26 August 2015 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis could not have been possible without the extensive help, occasional prodding, and constant encouragement of countless individuals. Foremost gratitude must be given to my supervisor, Damien Keown, for his bodhisattva-like show of patience, kindness, and invigorating conversation throughout this long process. He has been a regular supplier of the latest research and a helpful guide whenever my thoughts and research have gone astray. It has been a thorough honour to work with him. I would like to give thanks also to Paul Williams and Rupert Gethin who saw me through my MA and beyond, each continuing to check in on me and provide much needed support since my time as a student with them. Richard Gombrich provided exceptional tuition in Pāli and was kind enough to invite me to Oxford for a lecture at Balliol College before himself, Lance Cousins, and a number of other well-regarded scholars, an evening I will never forget. Alan Sponberg from the University of Montana deserves special mention as the spark who ignited the whole academic flame I have been burning for the last decade (perhaps not the most apt metaphor for a scholar of Buddhism). I must also thank many good friends who have seen me along the way, providing stimulating conversations, most often about topics other than academics, putting up with long silences and absences as well as requests to read over a draft or two. They have been the sustenance that has kept me sane and happy through all of this. And lastly I must thank my parents, Patrick and Veronica, who have never wavered in their support. Justin Whitaker 1 Abstract In recent decades Buddhist scholars have begun serious exploration into the theoretical dimensions of Buddhist ethics. However, due to the diversity of moral proclamations found in traditional texts and commentaries, it has been difficult to formulate a widely acceptable theory of Buddhist ethics. Working with the textual analyses of the Buddhist Pāli Canon and recent scholars of Buddhism, I present arguments for viewing early Buddhist ethics as broadly Kantian (deontological) in nature. The methodology follows that of previous authors in Buddhist ethics and in Comparative Religious Ethics with a focus on philosophical ethics and historical and textual studies. In constructing a framework of Buddhist ethics, this work draws from the ancient sources, primarily the Buddhist Pāli Canon, as well as the philological and historical work of previous Buddhist commentators and scholars. A similar construction of the ethics of Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) is based primarily on the recent writings on both the philosophy and life of Kant, and for source material critical English editions of Kant's primary works. The uniqueness of this work is found in the discussion of Buddhist ethics in the context of its theories of human nature and cosmology and secondarily in its revaluation of Kantian thought as a legitimate interlocutor for scholars of Buddhist ethics. This Kantian perspective, when combined with the insights gained from virtue ethics and consequentialist perspectives, provides a fuller understanding of Buddhist ethics. The findings suggest that Buddhist ethics may claim not only many of the same strengths, but also suffer the same weaknesses, as Kantian deontological moral theory. 2 CONTENTS Preface 3 1 Introduction, Methodology, and Literature Review 5 2 Kant and Deontology 50 3 Early Buddhism and its Ethics 91 4 Suffering and Heteronomy: Assessing our Condition 128 5 Cosmology: Mapping the Path 169 6 Virtue and the Summum Bonum 200 7 Conclusion 207 Abbreviations 208 Works Cited 209 3 Preface Buddhism, originating in current-day India approximately 2500 years ago, has spread across the world, adapting to numerous cultural, political, and linguistic contexts as it has done so. Throughout that time, each new adaptation was mixed with a certain degree of conservatism: certain ancient texts and figures were appealed to to justify changes. This is part of what makes Buddhism a unitary religious tradition, or, better, a family of traditions. This thesis does not and cannot account for the ethical concepts developed and employed by the various Buddhist traditions throughout history. It does, however, focus on materials thought to be traceable to the historical Buddha, the Pāli Canon. All Pāli Canon translations are my own unless otherwise noted. The Pāli Canon used was that of the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana CD published by the Vipassana Research Institute, available online at http://www.tipitaka.org/romn/. Foreign terms except names and titles are italicised. Certain Buddhist words such as karma and dharma/Dharma have entered into the English language and thus are not italicised. The Buddhist terms used herein are Pāli unless otherwise stated and will be rendered either exactly as used in the particular text or in their singular stem-form (and with an added ‘s’ if plural). When terms are drawn from the Brahmanic context or are of particular relevance to Mahāyāna thought, the Sanskrit equivalent will be given, e.g. the ultimate self (Skt.: ātman, Pāli: attā). For Kant’s work I rely on the numerous English language translations of his work, noting particular German or Latin terms only when a simple translation might lose certain important aspects of the original term’s meaning. Kant regularly used emphasis in his works, which have been variously replicated with either italics, bold font, or the use of angle brackets: <. >, depending on the translator(s). I have preserved these as they are 4 found in the English translations given in the bibliography. Further, for the major works frequently used here, I give the Academy edition page number, but not the volume, whereas for less used works I use a full Academy edition citation (e.g. Ak 7: 381). 5 1 Introduction, Methodology, and Literature Review Is Buddhist ethics Kantian?1 At first glance, this question may seem strange; Buddhism arose nearly 2500 years ago in present-day India while Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) was a German (Prussian) philosopher writing in the late eighteenth century. On the other hand, it is a question that deserves to be asked now for several reasons. Both the Buddha and Kant put forth teachings meant to be universal in character, addressing the roots of human nature and the problems faced by humanity.2 In the last century or so Buddhism has become a global religion as Buddhists have immigrated to Western countries as labourers, pioneers, missionaries, refugees and more. Similarly, Buddhism has attracted millions of converts in the West. Furthermore, it has been well argued that aspects of human reason are universal enough to allow for fruitful comparisons of philosophies, separated by great spans in space and time, thus giving rise to the subdiscipline of Comparative Religious Ethics (Green Religious Reason; Hindery Comparative Ethics; Little and Twiss Comparative Religious Ethics).3 Buddhism offers the range of moral guidance, rules, goals and ideals that can be assembled into a system of ethics. Damien Keown states, ‘Buddhism is a response to 1 Here we use ‘ethics’ and ‘morals/morality’ interchangeably. Early Buddhist languages (we deal primarily with Pāli here) do not have a word corresponding directly to either of these English terms. Kant primarily used Sitten (customs) and Sittlichkeit (ethical life, morality) to discuss ethics. It is from context that one must decide whether he is discussing Sittlichkeit in terms of customary mores or genuine morality (Moralität, rarely used) grounded in autonomy. Cf. (Sedgwick 6 fn.11; Wood, Kant’s Ethical Thought 239-240). 2 We speak of ‘the Buddha’ here in relatively uncritical terms, despite concerns raised by some that we cannot accurately date or trace any of the early Buddhist teaching to a single historical person. Therefore we may wish to qualify our use, referring instead to ‘the Buddha according to Theravādin Buddhist tradition.’ This will be discussed further in Chapter 3. 3 It is worth noting that while some theories of ethics have been deeply historical, such as that of Zhang Xuecheng 章學誠 (1738 – 1801) or G.F.W. Hegel (1770 – 1831), both Kant and the Buddha held that the key aspects of morality are the same even in vastly different historical periods. Each taught in a manner that, at the most abstract level, denied what Gadamer would call our ‘horizon’ (302), at least that of an awakened being (Thurman). Adherents to historicist theories will find both the universalist claims of Kant and the Buddha as well as a comparison of the two to be fraught with theoretical difficulties. Historical writing didn’t arise in early Buddhism until the 4th-5th centuries CE in Sri Lanka (Bechert). 6 what is fundamentally an ethical problem – the perennial problem of the best kind of life for man to lead’ (The Nature 1). As Matthew Kapstein notes in discussing later Buddhist philosophical issues in the context of Western thought, ‘there is a limit to what the historian of philosophy can reasonably hold on the basis of .
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