This paper is the first of two that set out to explore issues that arise at the interface between... more This paper is the first of two that set out to explore issues that arise at the interface between globalised systems of biomedicine and bioethics on the one hand and non-western traditions of medicine, healing and ethics on the other. At this interface, fundamental questions of relativism and context are in evidence. Here we offer a preliminary overview of these questions in relation to medical education in Sri Lanka and attempts by local scholars to develop curricula that incorporate indigenous traditions in ways that are both appropriate and realistic. In the paper, we argue for approaches that go beyond simply accumulating and juxtaposing knowledge of different traditions. The strategy we advocate takes the experience of the medical student as the starting point for pedagogical enquiry into different ethical traditions with an emphasis placed on their translation, evaluation and comparison. The promise of such an approach is a bioethics that makes beneficence, respect for life, h...
Buddhist Path, Buddhist Teachings: Studies in Memory of L.S. Cousins, 2019
The Alagaddūpama Sutta is the 22nd discourse of the Majjhima-nikāya of the Pali canon. In the sut... more The Alagaddūpama Sutta is the 22nd discourse of the Majjhima-nikāya of the Pali canon. In the sutta itself it is mentioned that the Buddha’s delivery of this discourse was necessitated by the need to refute a wrong view held by one of his disciples named Ariṭṭha. Parallel versions of the sutta are found preserved in the Chinese Āgamas. The two main similes used in the sutta, those of the snake and of the raft, are referred to in the scriptures of a number of non-Theravāda Buddhist traditions as well, showing that the Buddhist doctrine represented in it is early and authentic and the message contained in the sutta was considered to be extremely significant by many early Buddhist traditions. The Alagaddūpama Sutta shows the Buddha’s role as one of the earliest thinkers in the history of philosophy who engaged in a critique of the craving for metaphysics and dogma frequently exhibited in those who propound worldviews. The Buddha did not value a belief or a worldview on grounds of the l...
The concepts of sukha and dukkha play a central role in the early Buddhist ethical system. The di... more The concepts of sukha and dukkha play a central role in the early Buddhist ethical system. The distinction between good and bad action is made to rest :ultimately on sukha and dukkha and other related concepts such as attha and hita. Many scholars who have attempted to clarify the ground of Buddhist morality have referred to the significance of the concepts of sukha and dukkha and rendered the terms into English as happiness and unhappiness.1
Digital copies of this work may be made and distributed provided no change is made and no alterat... more Digital copies of this work may be made and distributed provided no change is made and no alteration is made to the content. Reproduction in any other format, with the exception of a single copy for private study, requires the written permission of the author.
Contemporary moral philosophy pays special attention to discussions relating to the possibility o... more Contemporary moral philosophy pays special attention to discussions relating to the possibility of knowledge and truth in the sphere of morals. The conclusions reached in this regard after elaborate analysis of moral concepts and the logic of moral discourse are by no means mutually compatible. Although the primary role of ethical discussions in early Buddhism is not the solution of such logical issues. if the Buddhist ethical system is to be formulated as a rationally coherent one the solutions implicit in the system have to be made explicit. The present paper is an attempt to make the meta-ethical foundations of the early Buddhist ethical doctrine explicit and highlight its concepts of moral truth and moral knowledge. The following questions will therefore be taken into consideration. Is it possible. according to early Buddhism. to have knowledge with regard to what is morally good and bad? Can one be said to be mistaken about one's judgments regarding what) kusa/a (morally good) and kara!tiya (what ought to be done)? Can ethical judgments be true or false? Can they be rationally justified and if so how? Where does early Buddhism stand in the controversy between ethical cognitivism and ethical non-cognitivism ? In the Sarpyutta-nikiiya the Buddha speaks as if there are certain moral phenomena in the world which can be known by us such as kusa/a-akusa/a (good/bad). siivajja-anavajja (blameworthy/non-blameworthy), hina-partita (low/excellent) and ka1}ha-sukka (shady/clean).1 It is said that the Buddha has properly laid down what these moral distinctions are.[2] A person is said to possess right views (sammiiditthi) if he comprehends what akusa/a is, what the source of akusala is, what kusala is and what the source of kurala is.[3] That killing etc. are akusla is to be known; knowledge is not restricted to matters of empirical fact (empirical facts understood according to the fact-value dichotomy established in recent moral philosophy in the West). A person is said to be ignorant and deluded if he does not know the moral distinctions such as kusala-akusala. siivajja-anavajja etc.. An uninstructed ordinary person is said not to know the sort of things he ought or ought not to associate himself with and engage himself in. The skeptical stand taken by some recluses and brahmans is considered by the Buddha to be due to their ignorance of kusa/a and akusa/a as they have come to be.6 38 P. D. PREMASIRI The Buddha expressly uses even the term sacca (true) to characterize certain moral judgments. In the Anguttara-nikiiya the Buddha says: Here wandering ascetics. a Brahmana says thus: "All living beings ought not to be killed." In saying thus the brahman says what is true and not what is false.' What we have said so far shows that the basic components of an objectivist theory of ethics are to be found in the Pali Nikayas. What is kusala and akusala is said to be knowable; skepticism on what is kusala and akusala is said to be unwarranted and certain judgments regarding what we ought and ought not to do are said to be true. In speaking of knowledge of kusala and akusala the Buddha uses forms of the no 'to know' (mostly pajiiniiti and jiiniiti). According to modern ethical non-cog\litivists such as Ayer and Stevenson whatever knowledge one can have in ethics belongs to psychology. sociology, the natural sciences or to logic.[s] The Buddha admitted not merely such 'knowledge in ethics' but also 'ethical knowledge' in the sense in which philosophers who are denominated 'ethical cognitivists' have admitted it. We shall attempt to examine the grounds for this objectivist ethics in early Buddhism and the sense in which it was held that ethical knowledge is possible. In early Buddhism (as it is the case in Indian philosophical systems in general). knowledge was conceived as an integral whole which constitutes both knowledge of matters of fact and knowledge of what is of ultimate value. theoretical knowledge as well as practical knowledge. The early Buddhist term parniii is one which comprehends both these aspects of knowing. paiii'iii has a specific application in Buddhism and does not signify knowledge in general, but knowledge which is connected with the highest good of man. A similar interest in practical knowledge is shown by Socrates who is considered the great founder of moral philosophy in the West. Socrates believed that men's ignorance of their true good was the source of all wrongdoing. He believed .against the sophists of his time, that objective knowledge of good and bad, right and wrong is possible. Gorgias. one. of the leading spohists of his time. declared that the essential nature of things could not be known, or if known. could not be stated. Protagoras, the other prominent sophist. declared that human apprehension is the only standard of what is true and what is false. Socrates, on the other hand, assumed that there is an objective basis for moral distinctions. However, it is not clear what Socrates meant by knowledge of good and evil. Sometimes he attempts to approach the question by seeking for definitions of justice. virtue. etc., although this exercise ends up as a purely negative one of rejecting all definitions offered by others. There are other instances in which the knowledge needed is knowledge of how to estimate pleasures and pains accurately. Plato offered a positive theory of moral knowledge. He, like Socrates, recognized EARLY BUDDHIST CONCEPT OF ETHICAL KNOWLEDGE 39 the objectivity of moral judgments and attempted to explain it in terms of his general epistemological theory founded on the central notion of his philosophy, namely, the doctrine of Ideas or Forms. Early Buddhism, like early Greek philosophy, did not explicitly draw a distinction between factual knowledge and ethical knowledge. Instead it spoke of knowledge in general, admitting that ethical knowledge is possible. But the modem distinction between fact and value raises an important problem for the moral philosopher. Objectivism in e1hics is seen by some contemporary philosophers in the West as being a result of the failure to distinguish between description and evaluation. Knowledge and truth are said to be confined to descriptive scientific statements, on the one hand, and to logical or mathematical statements on the other, and therefore, inapplicable in the realm of ethical evaluation. Common usage unquestionably permits us to speak of moral knowledge. With regard to moral judgments that people make in such forms as 'X' s action A was wrong. We often express our assent saying, 'That's true' or dissent saying, 'That's not true'. We often say that people do certain things, 'knowing' what they are doing is wrong. But it may be argued that common usage is not decisive in this matter, and that philosophical reflec1ion about the nature of morality should convince us that common sense talk about knowledge and truth in morality is misleading. It may therefore be argued that the early Buddhist talk about truth and knowledge in ethics is just the result of the adoption of the unsophisticated common sensical ways of speaking which a n10re reflective analysis could prove to be confused or mistaken. Some contemporary philosophers argue that the confusion in our ordinary notions of morality are due to the misleading grammatical form of ethical utterances. Moral utterances are often expressed in subject-predicate form by sentences in the indicative mood. This, it may be argued, is the source of the confusion. But early Buddhism believes not only that it is possible to justify, objectively, ethical statements in the indicative n:ood, but also ethical utterances which clearly take the imperative ffiood. Ethical statements, according to early Buddhism, mayor may not be disguised imperatives. But imperatives themselves. when they are moral ones, can be adequately or inadequately supported by reasons, In addressing the KfiHimas, we find the Buddha speaking of the possibility of 'personal knowledge' (attanava janeyyiitha) in the sphere of kusala and akusala.9 This personal knowledge is contrasted with six ways of knowing based ell authority and four ways of knowing .based on reason. IO K. N. JayatiJleke recognizes the emphasis on personal and direct knowledge found throughout the Pali Nikfiyas and attempts to clarify in great detail what was ffieant by this kind of knowledge. However, his discussion of the question of knowledge does not pay attention to logical problems that arise when the Buddha speaks of ethical knowledge. His discussion remains within the confines of what the modem positivistic tradition in Western philosophy would describe as factual knowledge. One reason for this is that, within Buddhism itself, the distinction between the factual and the evaluative is not explicitly drawn. However, it is clear that in the context of the Kiilama-Jutta the Buddha is speaking of knowing what is kusala and akusala and hence speaking of ethical knowledge. 40 P. D. PREMASIRI Considerations relevant to the question of knowledge in factual context may be relevant to the moral epistemology of early Buddhism as well. But it is important to see how they become relevant. Their relevance depends, as we shall see. on the nature of the relationship that early Buddhism implicitly recognized between statements of fact and statements of moral value (if we go by this modern distinction). First we shall examine how the terms signifying knowledge are used in early Buddhism. The Pali Nikayas use terms derived from the verbal root jfiii, sometimes with various prefixes (e.g. sarp,-, vi-. pra-, abhi-, pari-,) and sometimes without, to signify in each instance a kind of cognitive activity. There are instances which clearly show that the Buddha, in using jiiniiti (knows), sometimes meant cognition by means of the ordinary physical sense. In the Vima1[lsaka-sutta. for instance, the Buddha says: "An inquiring monk.. . should study the Tathagata in regard to two things :...
The Alagadd?pama Sutta is the 22nd discourse of the Majjhima-nik?ya of the Pali canon. In the sut... more The Alagadd?pama Sutta is the 22nd discourse of the Majjhima-nik?ya of the Pali canon. In the sutta itself it is mentioned that the Buddha’s delivery of this discourse was necessitated by the need to refute a wrong view held by one of his disciples named Ari??ha. Parallel versions of the sutta are found preserved in the Chinese ?gamas. The two main similes used in the sutta, those of the snake and of the raft, are referred to in the scriptures of a number of non-Therav?da Buddhist traditions as well, showing that the Buddhist doctrine represented in it is early and authentic and the message contained in the sutta was considered to be extremely significant by many early Buddhist traditions. The Alagadd?pama Sutta shows the Buddha’s role as one of the earliest thinkers in the history of philosophy who engaged in a critique of the craving for metaphysics and dogma frequently exhibited in those who propound worldviews. The Buddha did not value a belief or a worldview on grounds of the l...
This paper is the first of two that set out to explore issues that arise at the interface between... more This paper is the first of two that set out to explore issues that arise at the interface between globalised systems of biomedicine and bioethics on the one hand and non-western traditions of medicine, healing and ethics on the other. At this interface, fundamental questions of relativism and context are in evidence. Here we offer a preliminary overview of these questions in relation to medical education in Sri Lanka and attempts by local scholars to develop curricula that incorporate indigenous traditions in ways that are both appropriate and realistic. In the paper, we argue for approaches that go beyond simply accumulating and juxtaposing knowledge of different traditions. The strategy we advocate takes the experience of the medical student as the starting point for pedagogical enquiry into different ethical traditions with an emphasis placed on their translation, evaluation and comparison. The promise of such an approach is a bioethics that makes beneficence, respect for life, h...
Buddhist Path, Buddhist Teachings: Studies in Memory of L.S. Cousins, 2019
The Alagaddūpama Sutta is the 22nd discourse of the Majjhima-nikāya of the Pali canon. In the sut... more The Alagaddūpama Sutta is the 22nd discourse of the Majjhima-nikāya of the Pali canon. In the sutta itself it is mentioned that the Buddha’s delivery of this discourse was necessitated by the need to refute a wrong view held by one of his disciples named Ariṭṭha. Parallel versions of the sutta are found preserved in the Chinese Āgamas. The two main similes used in the sutta, those of the snake and of the raft, are referred to in the scriptures of a number of non-Theravāda Buddhist traditions as well, showing that the Buddhist doctrine represented in it is early and authentic and the message contained in the sutta was considered to be extremely significant by many early Buddhist traditions. The Alagaddūpama Sutta shows the Buddha’s role as one of the earliest thinkers in the history of philosophy who engaged in a critique of the craving for metaphysics and dogma frequently exhibited in those who propound worldviews. The Buddha did not value a belief or a worldview on grounds of the l...
The concepts of sukha and dukkha play a central role in the early Buddhist ethical system. The di... more The concepts of sukha and dukkha play a central role in the early Buddhist ethical system. The distinction between good and bad action is made to rest :ultimately on sukha and dukkha and other related concepts such as attha and hita. Many scholars who have attempted to clarify the ground of Buddhist morality have referred to the significance of the concepts of sukha and dukkha and rendered the terms into English as happiness and unhappiness.1
Digital copies of this work may be made and distributed provided no change is made and no alterat... more Digital copies of this work may be made and distributed provided no change is made and no alteration is made to the content. Reproduction in any other format, with the exception of a single copy for private study, requires the written permission of the author.
Contemporary moral philosophy pays special attention to discussions relating to the possibility o... more Contemporary moral philosophy pays special attention to discussions relating to the possibility of knowledge and truth in the sphere of morals. The conclusions reached in this regard after elaborate analysis of moral concepts and the logic of moral discourse are by no means mutually compatible. Although the primary role of ethical discussions in early Buddhism is not the solution of such logical issues. if the Buddhist ethical system is to be formulated as a rationally coherent one the solutions implicit in the system have to be made explicit. The present paper is an attempt to make the meta-ethical foundations of the early Buddhist ethical doctrine explicit and highlight its concepts of moral truth and moral knowledge. The following questions will therefore be taken into consideration. Is it possible. according to early Buddhism. to have knowledge with regard to what is morally good and bad? Can one be said to be mistaken about one's judgments regarding what) kusa/a (morally good) and kara!tiya (what ought to be done)? Can ethical judgments be true or false? Can they be rationally justified and if so how? Where does early Buddhism stand in the controversy between ethical cognitivism and ethical non-cognitivism ? In the Sarpyutta-nikiiya the Buddha speaks as if there are certain moral phenomena in the world which can be known by us such as kusa/a-akusa/a (good/bad). siivajja-anavajja (blameworthy/non-blameworthy), hina-partita (low/excellent) and ka1}ha-sukka (shady/clean).1 It is said that the Buddha has properly laid down what these moral distinctions are.[2] A person is said to possess right views (sammiiditthi) if he comprehends what akusa/a is, what the source of akusala is, what kusala is and what the source of kurala is.[3] That killing etc. are akusla is to be known; knowledge is not restricted to matters of empirical fact (empirical facts understood according to the fact-value dichotomy established in recent moral philosophy in the West). A person is said to be ignorant and deluded if he does not know the moral distinctions such as kusala-akusala. siivajja-anavajja etc.. An uninstructed ordinary person is said not to know the sort of things he ought or ought not to associate himself with and engage himself in. The skeptical stand taken by some recluses and brahmans is considered by the Buddha to be due to their ignorance of kusa/a and akusa/a as they have come to be.6 38 P. D. PREMASIRI The Buddha expressly uses even the term sacca (true) to characterize certain moral judgments. In the Anguttara-nikiiya the Buddha says: Here wandering ascetics. a Brahmana says thus: "All living beings ought not to be killed." In saying thus the brahman says what is true and not what is false.' What we have said so far shows that the basic components of an objectivist theory of ethics are to be found in the Pali Nikayas. What is kusala and akusala is said to be knowable; skepticism on what is kusala and akusala is said to be unwarranted and certain judgments regarding what we ought and ought not to do are said to be true. In speaking of knowledge of kusala and akusala the Buddha uses forms of the no 'to know' (mostly pajiiniiti and jiiniiti). According to modern ethical non-cog\litivists such as Ayer and Stevenson whatever knowledge one can have in ethics belongs to psychology. sociology, the natural sciences or to logic.[s] The Buddha admitted not merely such 'knowledge in ethics' but also 'ethical knowledge' in the sense in which philosophers who are denominated 'ethical cognitivists' have admitted it. We shall attempt to examine the grounds for this objectivist ethics in early Buddhism and the sense in which it was held that ethical knowledge is possible. In early Buddhism (as it is the case in Indian philosophical systems in general). knowledge was conceived as an integral whole which constitutes both knowledge of matters of fact and knowledge of what is of ultimate value. theoretical knowledge as well as practical knowledge. The early Buddhist term parniii is one which comprehends both these aspects of knowing. paiii'iii has a specific application in Buddhism and does not signify knowledge in general, but knowledge which is connected with the highest good of man. A similar interest in practical knowledge is shown by Socrates who is considered the great founder of moral philosophy in the West. Socrates believed that men's ignorance of their true good was the source of all wrongdoing. He believed .against the sophists of his time, that objective knowledge of good and bad, right and wrong is possible. Gorgias. one. of the leading spohists of his time. declared that the essential nature of things could not be known, or if known. could not be stated. Protagoras, the other prominent sophist. declared that human apprehension is the only standard of what is true and what is false. Socrates, on the other hand, assumed that there is an objective basis for moral distinctions. However, it is not clear what Socrates meant by knowledge of good and evil. Sometimes he attempts to approach the question by seeking for definitions of justice. virtue. etc., although this exercise ends up as a purely negative one of rejecting all definitions offered by others. There are other instances in which the knowledge needed is knowledge of how to estimate pleasures and pains accurately. Plato offered a positive theory of moral knowledge. He, like Socrates, recognized EARLY BUDDHIST CONCEPT OF ETHICAL KNOWLEDGE 39 the objectivity of moral judgments and attempted to explain it in terms of his general epistemological theory founded on the central notion of his philosophy, namely, the doctrine of Ideas or Forms. Early Buddhism, like early Greek philosophy, did not explicitly draw a distinction between factual knowledge and ethical knowledge. Instead it spoke of knowledge in general, admitting that ethical knowledge is possible. But the modem distinction between fact and value raises an important problem for the moral philosopher. Objectivism in e1hics is seen by some contemporary philosophers in the West as being a result of the failure to distinguish between description and evaluation. Knowledge and truth are said to be confined to descriptive scientific statements, on the one hand, and to logical or mathematical statements on the other, and therefore, inapplicable in the realm of ethical evaluation. Common usage unquestionably permits us to speak of moral knowledge. With regard to moral judgments that people make in such forms as 'X' s action A was wrong. We often express our assent saying, 'That's true' or dissent saying, 'That's not true'. We often say that people do certain things, 'knowing' what they are doing is wrong. But it may be argued that common usage is not decisive in this matter, and that philosophical reflec1ion about the nature of morality should convince us that common sense talk about knowledge and truth in morality is misleading. It may therefore be argued that the early Buddhist talk about truth and knowledge in ethics is just the result of the adoption of the unsophisticated common sensical ways of speaking which a n10re reflective analysis could prove to be confused or mistaken. Some contemporary philosophers argue that the confusion in our ordinary notions of morality are due to the misleading grammatical form of ethical utterances. Moral utterances are often expressed in subject-predicate form by sentences in the indicative mood. This, it may be argued, is the source of the confusion. But early Buddhism believes not only that it is possible to justify, objectively, ethical statements in the indicative n:ood, but also ethical utterances which clearly take the imperative ffiood. Ethical statements, according to early Buddhism, mayor may not be disguised imperatives. But imperatives themselves. when they are moral ones, can be adequately or inadequately supported by reasons, In addressing the KfiHimas, we find the Buddha speaking of the possibility of 'personal knowledge' (attanava janeyyiitha) in the sphere of kusala and akusala.9 This personal knowledge is contrasted with six ways of knowing based ell authority and four ways of knowing .based on reason. IO K. N. JayatiJleke recognizes the emphasis on personal and direct knowledge found throughout the Pali Nikfiyas and attempts to clarify in great detail what was ffieant by this kind of knowledge. However, his discussion of the question of knowledge does not pay attention to logical problems that arise when the Buddha speaks of ethical knowledge. His discussion remains within the confines of what the modem positivistic tradition in Western philosophy would describe as factual knowledge. One reason for this is that, within Buddhism itself, the distinction between the factual and the evaluative is not explicitly drawn. However, it is clear that in the context of the Kiilama-Jutta the Buddha is speaking of knowing what is kusala and akusala and hence speaking of ethical knowledge. 40 P. D. PREMASIRI Considerations relevant to the question of knowledge in factual context may be relevant to the moral epistemology of early Buddhism as well. But it is important to see how they become relevant. Their relevance depends, as we shall see. on the nature of the relationship that early Buddhism implicitly recognized between statements of fact and statements of moral value (if we go by this modern distinction). First we shall examine how the terms signifying knowledge are used in early Buddhism. The Pali Nikayas use terms derived from the verbal root jfiii, sometimes with various prefixes (e.g. sarp,-, vi-. pra-, abhi-, pari-,) and sometimes without, to signify in each instance a kind of cognitive activity. There are instances which clearly show that the Buddha, in using jiiniiti (knows), sometimes meant cognition by means of the ordinary physical sense. In the Vima1[lsaka-sutta. for instance, the Buddha says: "An inquiring monk.. . should study the Tathagata in regard to two things :...
The Alagadd?pama Sutta is the 22nd discourse of the Majjhima-nik?ya of the Pali canon. In the sut... more The Alagadd?pama Sutta is the 22nd discourse of the Majjhima-nik?ya of the Pali canon. In the sutta itself it is mentioned that the Buddha’s delivery of this discourse was necessitated by the need to refute a wrong view held by one of his disciples named Ari??ha. Parallel versions of the sutta are found preserved in the Chinese ?gamas. The two main similes used in the sutta, those of the snake and of the raft, are referred to in the scriptures of a number of non-Therav?da Buddhist traditions as well, showing that the Buddhist doctrine represented in it is early and authentic and the message contained in the sutta was considered to be extremely significant by many early Buddhist traditions. The Alagadd?pama Sutta shows the Buddha’s role as one of the earliest thinkers in the history of philosophy who engaged in a critique of the craving for metaphysics and dogma frequently exhibited in those who propound worldviews. The Buddha did not value a belief or a worldview on grounds of the l...
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