Abstract
Peter Strawson (1962) argued that the truth of determinism would not threaten our reactive attitudes, e.g., resentment, or our normative practices, e.g., punishment, though these presuppose (indeterministic) free will, because they are too entrenched. If autonomous agency presupposes an agent-self, however, the same concern faces the issue of the resilience of belief in an agent-self. If belief in agency would persist in the face of determinism, would belief in the agent-self? If not, what are the likely consequences? Buddhist practice is depicted as the path from allegedly erroneous belief in the conventional agent-self to the ultimately enlightening realization of no-self, with meditation as the primary means for directly experiencing that ultimate reality. One largely unnoticed problem with this view is that analysis of Buddhist claims suggests the opposite: that ordinary people do not have an agent-self nor agency, but that the Buddha had an agent-self and agency, and that Buddhist practice increases agency, thus selfhood. Another problem is that Buddhist practice might not uncover the unreality of self, but disassemble a pre-existing self. And, among other problems, it is possible that the no-self doctrine would disempower individuals, threaten individual wellbeing, and lead to antisocial behavior. Such problems are examined here.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
See Repetti (2019) for an in-depth critique of Harris’s argument.
- 3.
This interestingly parallels the shift from pre-conventional to conventional developmental stages in moral psychology.
- 4.
Frankfurt (1971) identifies personhood with having a metavolitional hierarchy such that, ideally, we enact only those desires we approve.
- 5.
Frankfurt (1988) argues that those volitions we identify with and those we dissociate from (“externalize”) characterize the process of self-formation and personal identity.
- 6.
See also Brent (2018) for an application of this reasoning against the Buddhist no-self doctrine.
- 7.
See Repetti (2019) for an in-depth exploration of this possibility.
- 8.
For a critique of this “consciousness epiphenomenalism”, see Repetti (2019).
- 9.
That is the Mahāyāna view; some early Buddhists see ultimate reality as the micro-level at which momentary atomistic psychophysical tropes are the ultimately real building blocks of conventional reality (Siderits 2017).
- 10.
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Repetti, R. (2023). Selfhood and Resentment. In: Coseru, C. (eds) Reasons and Empty Persons: Mind, Metaphysics, and Morality. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 36. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13995-6_23
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