Annihilationism and morals

The Watercooler
21

That’s because you have more sense than the worst annihilationists. But wrong people existed and continue to exist. The suttas frequently (eg DN2) describe the view ‘one could walk down one bank of a river, killing everyone they see, without consequence’.

Now, the modern secular world shows us lots of examples of people who do not believe in karmic rebirth but also act morally. I don’t think the evidence supports the idea that anihilationism guarantees immorality, but there is some experimental evidence that for some people the idea of preternatural afterlife consequences does deter immoral acts. In that sense, removing those consequences does incentivize immorality.

Its a bit like saying “legalizing private duels incentivizes dueling”. I assume that doesn’t apply to anyone here on an individual basis, but if a legislator proposed the “legalization of dueling act of 2024” I’d be concerned we’d see an uptick in dueling fatalities.

22

There does seem to be a history of people who otherwise seem sensible being involved in dueling.
Hamilton wasn’t the only one.

23

Don’t you think that Bonobo aren’t particularly good in promoting the third precept?

Perhaps one who asks question: “what should I do?” should rather consult Suttas then zoology?

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24

More like handshaking for them. Maybe we should give up handshaking too! :joy:

It is almost as if it is the habit of craving and grasping that is involved in most human sexual interactions that is the problem and not necessarily the sexual interactions themselves?

:pray:

25

It’s also good to tease apart some of the views presented at e.g. DN 2. In our modern context and with the limited detail offered in the discourses, we often fail to get an accurate and fair idea of what these various teachers really taught.

In the case of people arguing against good/bad deeds, it’s important to keep in mind that not all of these were materialists. Some scholars of Indian philosophies (forgive lack of reference) have mentioned that the refutation of good/bad deeds efficacy was a Buddhist portrayal of doctrines of fatalism/total pre-determinism. That is, that whatever we experience and do is a fatalistic playing out of causality in the universe, and so whether we were to go killing people or not, it wouldn’t actually have any effect on our journey through samsāra.

Obviously Buddhists disagree, and so sometimes how this is portrayed makes it sound very extreme or irrational. Just how Jain sources depict Buddhists as believing someone can torture children and experience no consequences, so long as they think the child is a melon rather than a person. So how certain belief systems portray others is not always meant to be a well-rounded and well-argued depiction.

So one can still believe in rebirth and an afterlife, but say that one’s deeds have no effect. A modern example are the sects of Christianity that have the doctrine of salvation through faith alone. This varies from group to group, but many in the US for example would say exactly as above: “Even if you were to go killing hundreds of people, faithful believers would not face any results for those deeds and would go to eternal heaven.” And vice versa for non-believers even if they did only moral actions, they go to hell.

So non-materialist belief systems can still have a variety of views around morality and the consequences of actions, just as materialist belief systems can have a variety of views and attitudes around morality.

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26

I think this view or belief in fatalism/deterministic universe was considered by the Teacher as the most pernicious idea and worse fixed view of all. The advocate that taught it was said by the Teacher to be the worst of all. :pray:

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27

A person who behaves morally only to avoid punishment is not genuinely good.

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28

Yet the person who only does good will receive genuine benefit.

29

Perhaps, I don’t know about this.

What I do know is that the minimum standard of behaviour that the Buddha advocated for all people was the five precepts. Which are all about morality. He did not tell his lay followers and questioners to do sila, he told them to follow the five precepts.

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30

Yes, while certainly ‘sīla’ can have the sense of ‘mode of behavior’ , in Buddhism it is closely connected to ethical behavior.

As PED defines it:

“moral practice, good character, Buddhist ethics, code of morality”

31

I think the position that people who don’t believe in rebirth or karma across lifetime are amoral is disgusting, bigoted, and ignorant. I know Atheists who are far more moral than the self righteous devout.

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32

This is explained in the language without using self as the volition makes the kamma, the other 4 aggregates receives the results of the kamma. No need for an
ultimately existing agent to make sense of morality, although practically speaking, it’s much easier to talk morality using language of conventional self.

Buddhist morality also is higher level than mere socially constructed morality. A lot of superheroes have morality, as well as human justice system, based on “is” implies “ought”.

“is” here means what’s the reason for people to suffer. “ought” here means they should and deserve to suffer and no one ought to change it.

Whatever reason for people’s suffering, the ought is to help them if we can. That’s compassion. That’s a core teaching in the right thoughts of noble 8fold path.

This teaching is actually quite contradictory to worldly sense of justice and superhero morality. They believe in “is” implies “ought”. So a person who committed crime ought to be punished, and made to suffer by law or the superhero or the lone anti-hero like marvel’s punisher if the law fails.

But if they cannot see the link of people’s suffering to their actions in current life, they think that those people who suffer should not suffer. But we who learn about Rebirth would keep in mind that people’s actions are not limited to only bearing effect in this life, but also in future lives. Thus some suffering we have seen, maybe due to previous life unwholesome actions.

Those who believe in “is” implies “ought” then find it that if we can tell that this baby who died after being born sick, due to law of kamma, could be that she was a serial killer or something in the far past, so the baby deserves it. That’s repugnant to them because they believe in compassion too, just that their compassion is conditional, conditioned on that the person suffering is innocent.

It’s actually not the law of kamma that is problematic, it’s the view of “is” implies “ought”, which makes their compassion conditional. Upgrade the compassion to be unconditioned, then there’s no issue. This can also imply very hard to do thing. Like towards a person who just tortured oneself, the task for us is to be compassionate to them. Not to generate hate. Not to delight in the knowledge that they will suffer due to their current bad actions, but to have compassion due to it and think to want them to not create more causes of future suffering for themselves. Buddhist morality is higher level than superhero morality.

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33

Why so strong words? It is simply just wrong judgement since I you said there are moral atheist. But wrong judgement is on the first place harmful to one who expresses it, so perhaps more compassion in your judgement would be advisable?

Or perhaps it isn’t at all wrong judgement, but ill expression of what is actually true, namely the most moral atheist who doesn’t believe in law of action and rebirth has in fact a wrong view.

And in this sense he can be described as amoral since any kind of morality according to his view is nullified with the end of this life. There is no moral law, nothing bad can happen to you because of your wrongdoing, nothing good, no pleasant results of your good actions. The death is a great equaliser.

Amorality as any other word may have different meanings, so it is good to define what precisely one means by “amorality”.

34

Would you like to venture an opinion on what Pāli word(s) are translated as “five precepts”?

Presumably, you reject the traditional practice of referring to them as pañcasīla.

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35

Indeed, by which he referred specifically to the five precepts. Or are you suggesting that he actually meant your earlier definition of sila practice?

Pali words mean different things in different contexts, I would argue that the five sense restraints would be a misleading translatio that makes it seem an internal practice, while to me it’s clearly about behaviour. Or do I see it wrong?

36

Note that what I said was not an attack on you. It was an attack on the position. With regard to the strongly worded response, it was a response to the repeated rounds of bashing of secular and agnostic Buddhists we see on the site. It was not directed at you. My apologies if it came off that way.

With regard to wrong view, I think we have reason to doubt that withholding judgement or even doubting rebirth (which I actually believe in) is wrong view. There are many places in the canon where the Buddha appears to not declare what happens to the Buddha after death as well as rebirth by implication or and there are good arguments that these parts of the canon are the earliest texts in the canon or, at least, consistent with those earliest parts.

It is important to remember that you can’t just assume the inerrancy of the canon. That has to be argued to be probable, not just possible. All arguments here are inductive. There is no certainty, just shades of probability. A hypothesis must be credibly argued to be more probable than its null hypothesis.

There is precedent in the texts of other religions that the faithful are not above attributing their own beliefs and opinions to their founders. Christianity and Islam are prime examples of where this happened. With Christianity, a good example of this are the contradictory positions taken in Mark and Mathew on whether or not the Old Testament Laws must be followed. In Islam, textual variants were so contradictory that they were collected and made uniform soon after the death of Mohammed.

If you think Buddhism and the Pali Canon are different, you have to explain apparent contradictions and not by proof texting. You have to do it by textual and historical analysis. Harmonization is precisely why later scribes tinkered with texts. Contradictions in texts that appear to be common to all known early sects of Buddhism are especially important to read critically.

37

Is different from the position described in the OP. Most importantly, it differs in that it’s a categorical statement.

The canon repeatedly says that various kinds of non-Buddhists can be various kinds of good, even extraordinary people. But these things are conditional and complex.

If you’re going to do any sort of comparative religious studies, you’ll have to make these sort of limited comparative statements. For example, you could say, “Christianity’s removal of certain ritual obligations of second temple Judaism removed an incentive for hygiene.” That’s not saying “Christians are unhygienic.” But in some cases where a Jewish person might wash their hands out of religious obligation (eg before eating bread) a non-Jewish person will not wash their hands for that reason, and either abstain from hand washing or wash their hands for some other reason outside of the scope of the statement of comparative religion (eg due to germ theory).

38

I think you wanted to say that I should not (according to you) assume the inerrancy of the Suttas. And if I do so, it is my mistake.

Because actually while maybe it’s my mistake, I do such thing :grin:.

But since undoubtedly it is an act of faith, I don’t exclude the possibility that I am mistaken doing so.

To explain my position little bit further, on the first place I assume my own ignorance, and in the hope of improving my situation I am ready to give up any kind of view which contradict Suttas, in short my attitude towards Suttas is precisely that as Quinn Malika towards Buddha’s words:

“If that has been said by the Blessed One, sire, then it is so.”“No matter what the recluse Gotama says, Mallikā applauds it thus: ‘If that has been said by the Blessed One, sire, then it is so.’ Just as a pupil applauds whatever his teacher says to him, saying: ‘So it is, teacher, so it is!’; so too, Mallikā, no matter what the recluse Gotama says, you applaud it thus: ‘If that [108] has been said by the Blessed One, sire, then it is so.’ MN 87

Or

“Bhikkhus, for a faithful disciple who is intent on fathoming the Teacher’s Dispensation, it is natural that he conduct himself thus: ‘The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple; the Blessed One knows, I do not know.’ MN 70

So I don’t insist that you have to agree with me, but as I see it, position of Suttas is unequivocal: atheism and materialism is a wrong view*. But as we have already established, most of atheist aren’t psychopaths and may behave much better than some Buddhists.

  • “And how, householders, are there three kinds of mental conduct not in accordance with the Dhamma, unrighteous conduct? (…) Or he has wrong view, distorted vision, thus: ‘There is nothing given, nothing offered, nothing sacrificed; no fruit or result of good and bad actions; no this world, no other world; no mother, no father; no beings who are reborn spontaneously; no good and virtuous recluses and brahmins in the world who have themselves realised by direct knowledge and declare this world and the other world.’

MN 41

I see difference between scepticism about rebirth and law of action and atheism, but only in the case of outsider, one who claims to has Lord Buddha as his teacher should abandon his scepticism if he want to progress in Dhamma.

But I only described as I see things, people are different, so they approaches to practice Dhamma also are different.

With metta