The Mahabharata, an Indian epic poem, describes a legendary war between two sides of a royal family. The epic’s plot involves numerous moral dilemmas that have intrigued and perplexed scholars of Indian literature. Many of these dilemmas revolve around a character named Krsna. Krsna is a divine incarnation and a self-proclaimed upholder of dharma, a system of social and religious duties central to Hindu ethics. Yet, during the war, Krsna repeatedly encourages his allies to use tactics that violate dharma. In (...) this paper, I try to make sense of Krsna’s actions by analyzing them in terms of categories from Western moral philosophy. I show that Krsna seems to embrace an ethical approach called consequentialism, but that his version of consequentialism differs from Western theories of consequentialism by seeing adherence to dharma as an intrinsic good. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:And Thy Neighbor as Thyself:The Elastic Self in the Moral Psychology of John Duns ScotusJoseph Dowd (bio)1. IntroductionAccording to Anselm of Canterbury, God gave human beings two affectiones: the affectio commodi and the affectio iustitiae. For Anselm, these two affectiones are largely equivalent to egoistic motivation and non-egoistic (specifically, moral) motivation: the affectio commodi motivates one to seek one's own advantage (commodum), while the affectio iustitiae motivates one to (...) seek justice (iustitia) for its own sake. Two centuries after Anselm, John Duns Scotus appropriated the terms affectio commodi and affectio iustitiae but made some changes to Anselm's account of the affectiones. Anselm thinks that human beings lost the affectio iustitiae when Adam sinned1 and can regain it only through divine grace,2 but Scotus regards the affectio iustitiae as innate to human beings.3 Also, [End Page 53] Scotus integrates his account of the affectio commodi into the Aristotelian natural teleology commonly accepted at his time, associating the affectio commodi with one's inclination toward one's natural end.4Although Scotus modifies Anselm's account of the affectiones, many interpreters think that he preserves the affectio commodi's association with egoism and the affectio iustitiae's association with non-egoism. I call this interpretation of Scotus's two affectiones "the Standard Reading." On the Standard Reading, the affectio commodi is one's inclination to will things for one's own benefit.5 The Standard Reading's proponents disagree about what exactly the affectio iustitiae is. Some interpret the affectio iustitiae as one's inclination to will or love things because they are good in themselves.6 Others interpret it as one's inclination to love others for their own sake (as opposed to loving them as means to one's own benefit).7 Despite this disagreement, all versions of the Standard Reading agree that the affectio iustitiae enables one to aim at goals other than one's own good.8 [End Page 54]As I argue in this article, some of Scotus's remarks suggest another reading of the two affectiones, one that I call "the Alternative Reading." On this reading, the affectio iustitiae enables one to love both oneself and other beings, and the affectio commodi inclines one to desire things for the benefit of both oneself and other beings that one loves. To be precise, the affectio commodi is an inclination to will what the mind represents as appealing. This inclination, I argue, inclines one to desire what one regards as beneficial to the beings that one loves. Hints of this reading appear in the work of Cruz González-Ayesta,9 but, to my knowledge, no one has drawn special attention to the reading.As I show in this article, both the Standard Reading and the Alternative Reading have textual support, and I regard the support for each as conclusive.10 Therefore, I believe that Scotus accepts both readings. This does not make Scotus inconsistent; I end the article by offering an interpretation that makes both readings true simultaneously. My interpretation is as follows. The affectio commodi is egoistic in that it inclines one to desire what one perceives as beneficial to oneself. The affectio iustitiae is non-egotistic in that it enables one to love a being, whether oneself or something else, for its own sake, as a response to its own objective goodness. But, by loving the being, one comes to see the being's good as part of one's own. Thus, in inclining one to desire things for one's own benefit (as the Standard Reading claims), the affectio commodi inclines one to desire things for the benefit of the beings that one loves (as the Alternative Reading claims) because one perceives their good as part of one's own.To my knowledge, this interpretation of Scotus has not been proposed before. John Hare and Matthew D. Mendham have attributed to Aristotle the view that the self is "elastic": one's own good "stretches" to include the good of one's loved ones. However, they specifically deny that Scotus holds such a view and, in fact, use Aristotle's view as a foil for... (shrink)

Logic-based therapy (LBT) is an approach to philosophical practice that involves finding philosophical ideas that can serve as “antidotes” to clients’ emotional problems. I examine philosophical arguments from an ancient Chinese text, namely the Zhuangzi, and from four Buddhist texts, namely the Bodhicaryāvatāra, the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta, and the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. The Bodhicaryāvatāra contains several antidotes to the fallacy known within LBT as “Damnation of Others.” Arguments from the Zhuangzi, the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta, and the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā may be helpful antidotes to the fallacy (...) of Awfulizing about death. (shrink)

In his Laozi Commentary and Structure of the Laozi’s Subtle Pointers, Wang Bi 王弼 seems to identify the Dao 道 with “absence” or “nothingness”. Despite this identification, some modern commentators regard Wang Bi’s Dao as a being. Other commentators deny that the Dao is a being but, nonetheless, seem to regard it as a reality of some kind. In contrast, I propose that Wang Bi’s Dao is literal absence and that we need not reify this absence in any way. Wang (...) Bi’s descriptions of the Dao can be understood as metaphorical descriptions of mere absence. To support this proposal, I present an interpretation of Wang Bi’s Dao and then apply this interpretation to the first section of Wang Bi’s Laozi Commentary and to the first section of the Structure of the Laozi’s Subtle Pointers. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The Pātañjalayogaśāstra (PYŚ) is typically understood to define yoga as thought-suppression. In several publications, Ian Whicher has sought to avoid the conclusion that the PYŚ endorses thought-suppression by proposing that the PYŚ’s definition of yoga refers not to thought-suppression but to liberation from the puruṣa’s misidentification with the mind. I argue that Whicher’s proposal is unsuccessful because the PYŚ portrays thought-suppression as necessary for this liberation.

The Pātañjalayogaśāstra is typically understood to define yoga as thought-suppression. In several publications, Ian Whicher has sought to avoid the conclusion that the PYŚ endorses thought-su...