Anger in Buddhist Philosophy: In Defence of Eliminativism Thippapan Chuosavasdi PhD University of York Philosophy October 2018 Abstract The thesis I hope to develop here aims to contribute to recent discussions in ethics on the merits of anger. In particular, it focuses on the debate between moderationists, who contend that anger is, in some way, good, and thus should be retained and utilised, and eliminativists, who contend that anger should be eliminated, i.e. that we should never allow it to arise. By the end of this thesis, I hope that I have shown that (despite its current popularity) the moderationist defence of anger is not without its difficulties. This should hopefully carve out a space for a contemporary defence of eliminativism. The eliminativist view I defend is essentially Buddhist, though it also draws upon Buddhist-inspired accounts in the Western philosophical literature. I advocate a pedagogical reading of the difficult (and perhaps seemingly unattractive) Buddhist metaphysics, that I suggest — when put into practice — might eventually lead to an openness to that metaphysical view. The consequence of both the practice and the metaphysical outlook is the elimination of anger. Far from being the loss of something beneficial or apt, I suggest that the elimination of anger is both beneficial and (from the metaphysical viewpoint) apt. I attempt to demonstrate this by applying the position I defend to the kind of case where moderationists are at their most persuasive — cases of social injustice. I hope to have at least shown that such a position can be a viable alternative to the moderationist suggestion that we harness anger for social change. 2 List of Contents Abstract 2 List of Contents 3 Acknowledgements 5 Declaration 6 Introduction: Overview of the Thesis 7 Chapter 1: Buddhist Characterisation of Anger Introduction 24 1. Approaching Anger 25 2. Characterising Anger 30 2.1 Occasions of anger 31 2.2 Anger and perception 37 3. Experiencing Anger 39 3.1 Anger and pain 41 3.2 Anger and pleasure 46 3.3 Anger as conative 48 3.4 Anger and intentionality 53 4. Anger Unleashed 57 Conclusion 62 Chapter 2: Buddhist Arguments for the Elimination of Anger Introduction 64 1. Happiness and Enlightenment 65 2. Eliminativism and Moderationism 74 3. Anger and its Negative Effects 82 4. Anger and Virtue 94 5. Anger and Epistemic Failure 100 6. Suffering and Enlightenment 107 Conclusion 114 Chapter 3: Moderationist Arguments for Anger Introduction 115 1. The Transformation of Anger 116 2. McRae’s Tantric Anger 121 3 3. The Supposed Benefits of Anger 130 4. ‘Apt’ Anger 138 5. Anger and Compassion 143 Conclusion 147 Chapter 4: In Defence of Eliminativism Introduction 149 1. The Moderationist Challenges 150 2. The Metaphysics of Eliminativism 153 3. Eliminating Anger 158 3.1 Patience and perspective 161 3.2 Patience and virtuous life 167 3.3 Aptness, again! 169 4. Why Eliminating Anger is Apt 171 Conclusion 176 Chapter 5: Eliminativism and Social Injustice Introduction 177 1. Anger? #MeToo 177 2. Turning Theory into Practice 179 2.1 Eliminativism and punishment 183 3. The Benefits of Eliminating Anger 185 Conclusion 189 Appendix 191 Abbreviations 194 Bibliography 195 4 Acknowledgements Throughout the course of writing my PhD thesis, and in my wider life, I have received a lot of support in various forms from colleagues, friends and family, old and new. Thanks are due to my supervisor, Amber Carpenter, for her patience and unwavering support for me. She has introduced me to the Buddhist pragmatism that I have subsequently become attracted to. I am also indebted to Peter Lamarque for the many pleasurable conversations we had, and for his support. I also want to thank Christopher Jay for his many offers to read my work. Any mistakes in this thesis are not reflection of anyone’s deficiency but my own. I am deeply grateful for my family who, despite not knowing what research I have been doing, are always happy to support me in every way; my in-laws who have embraced me as their own and been my family in this foreign country; M, who has always shown concern about my progress and decided that cooking for me is the best form of support. Most importantly, I cannot express my gratitude enough for Andy, my partner in life, who has been by my side through ups and downs in the process of finishing this thesis. 5 Declaration I declare that this thesis is a presentation of original work and I am the sole author. This work has not previously been presented for an award at this, or any other, University. All sources are acknowledged as References. 6 Introduction: OVERVIEW OF THE THESIS Chapter 1: Buddhist Characterisation of Anger Chapter 1 surveys the Buddhist characterisation of anger (focusing specifically on the Indian Buddhist tradition). I first note the multitude of difficulties we face when attempting to work with texts that pose linguistic and cultural barriers to interpretation. The central concept under consideration — ANGER — is shown to pose many difficulties as an object of study, simply in virtue of the nature of the texts. Translations from different source languages (Pāli, Sanskrit, Tibetan etc.) often yield different results — sometimes the same passage is interpreted as discussing ‘hatred’ rather than ‘anger’, for example. As such, a rather broad approach is taken, incorporating all anger-related terms just as long as the topic seems to broadly match a familiar phenomenology of anger. Taking this phenomenology-centred approach, I suggest, helps us to ensure that we are dealing with the same emotion across both Buddhist texts and those from Western literature. This approach thus relies upon a focus on the occasions of anger in the Buddhist texts, i.e. situations that give a description of the circumstances under which the emotion arises. That way we can hopefully avoid some of the linguistic ambiguities posed in translation. Of course, there may still be some cultural difficulties that cannot be overcome using this method — for instance, a Westerner may not understand why a Thai might be angry when you point and gesture towards the TV remote with your foot, rather than your hand. However, many of the occasions of anger described in the Buddhist text provide examples of situations in which we can be highly confident are associated with the emotion we are focused on. Characterising anger by examining the occasions of anger, the accompanying phenomenological character, and its effects as they appear in the Buddhist literature is also a deliberate attempt to avoid imposing a twenty-first- 7 century Anglo-European understanding of anger onto our reading of these texts. The characterisation of the occasions of anger that emerges in the first chapter is that anger occurs when we perceive ourselves, or something or someone we value, to be harmed. Sometimes the cause of this harm can be impersonal — such as when we are irritated constantly by mosquitos, provoking our anger. At other times, the cause is personal — such as when someone insults us, or physically assaults us. What is notably absent in the Buddhist texts is any discussion of social injustice; the examples found in the texts are typically centred on the individual. This is perhaps unsurprising given the meditative or pedagogical purpose of many Buddhist texts, however. Moreover, the Buddhist characterisation of occasions of anger also leans on the notion of perception, i.e. what we perceive as harmful to us. This emphasis on perception reflects the possibility that we can sometimes get it wrong when it comes to anger — sometimes we believe we have been harmed, when we haven’t, or we believe that person A harmed us, when it was person B etc. However, we see in later chapters that the Buddhist Eliminativists don’t concern themselves with this particular kind of epistemic error, but with what they see as a much deeper and more significant kind arising from their distinctive metaphysical position. Chapter 1 goes on to outline a variety of phenomenological aspects of anger. Firstly, I discuss the association of anger and pain. Discussions of anger are rife with fire metaphors, expressing the unpleasantness of the experience of anger. Similarly, metaphors of poison abound. On the Buddhist view, we see that anger is associated with a mental pain which operates over and above whatever pain comes directly from the harm we have suffered. However, we see that anger can also be associated with pleasure. In one Buddhist text, anger is described as having a “poisoned root and honeyed tip.” This acknowledges that anger, or at least some aspects of anger, can be pleasurable — for instance, anticipating revenge — but the scarcity of examples in the Buddhist texts discussing examples of pleasure (there is, in fact, just a single example) reveal a lot about the Buddhist 8 conception of anger. Even this single example sees anger’s roots as poisonous, so the pleasure does not come without suffering. Two further phenomenological aspects of anger are identified and discussed. Anger is shown to have a conative aspect i.e. it desires something. The Buddhist texts focus specifically on our desire for the suffering of the wrongdoer, however they are quick to stress that this suffering will not be brought about by our desires but instead by their own transgressions. Our desire might be for some awful fate to befall an enemy, or it might be a desire for an apology, but each involves some harm to the subject. We also seem to desire to end our own suffering, whether that involves avoiding the cause of it, or destroying that cause. Since anger involves desire, it is perhaps unsurprising that we often also see anger characterised as intentional i.e.