Śāntideva, Virtue, and Consequentialism

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Descriptionངོ་སྤྲོད།

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In a previous work I argued that, in order to make sense of Śāntideva's morality, we would have to use a framework that combined virtue ethics with some features of consequentialism, which I called a "hybrid" form of virtue ethics.[1] In a recent article, Charles Goodman has argued for a similar position, concluding that Indian Mahāyāna thinkers such as Śāntideva and Asaṅga are best interpreted in terms of a form of perfectionist or character consequentialism, which holds that virtuous states are an aspect of the well-being that moral agents should promote.[2] These are terms for a kind of moral theory in which character is the prime concern, and the best traits of character are those which tend to lead to the best consequences.[3] In what follows, I aim to show why I think these forms of "virtue consequentialism" are a useful lens through which to view what we might call the "bodhisattva ethics"[4] of Indian Mahāyānists, particular those of Śāntideva. Since the publication of Damien Keown's influential The Nature of Buddhist Ethics,[5] in which he argued that Aristotelian virtue ethics were the closest Western analogue to Buddhists ethics, there has been some consensus regarding the fact that the cultivation of virtues are centrally important in Buddhism,[6] so I will focus here on showing why Keown is wrong to reject a consequentialist reading of karma, at least where Śāntideva is concerned. I attend particularly to objections he raises in his article "Karma, Character and Consequentialism."[7] Overall, I wish to suggest that perfectionist consequentialism is helpful for understanding Śāntideva's moral reasoning because it can accommodate the inherent and consequentialist value of Buddhist virtues. I hope it is clear from what follows, though, that my principal aim is not to criticize Keown, but rather to use his views as a skillful means, if you will, for gaining greater insight into Śāntideva's moral thought. (Clayton, preliminary remarks, 15)

Notes

See Barbra Clayton, Moral Theory in Śāntideva's Śikṣāsamuccaya, Critical Studies in Buddhism (London: Routledge, 2006), 112-18. Consequentialism is a broad family of moral theories, all of which understand what is right in terms of what promotes the good, which in turn can be defined in various ways. The most famous form of consequentialism is act utilitarianism, which defines the good hedonistically in terms of pleasure and says that right actions are those that produce the most pleasure. For an overview of consequentialist theories, see David Brink, "Some Forms and Limits of Consequentialism," in The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory, ed. David Copp, 380–423 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).
Charles Goodman. "Consequentialism, Agent-Neutrality, and Mahayana Ethics;' Philosophy East and West 58, no.1 (2008), 17-35.
David Copp, "Introduction," in The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory, ed. David Copp (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 20. The Western moral philosopher Thomas Hurka is associated with the term "perfectionist consequentialism." See Thomas Hurka, Virtue, Vice, and Value (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
That is, the ethics associated with the bodhisattva path, as opposed to that concerned with the Pure Land tradition, for example. On the idea of there being many different types of Mahāyāna ethics, see David Chappell, "Are There Seventeen Mahāyāna Ethics?" Journal of Buddhist Ethics 3 (1996), 1-13.
Damien Keown, The Nature of Buddhist Ethics (London: Macmillan, 1992).
See, for example David E. Cooper and Simon P. James, Buddhism, Virtue and Environment (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2005); Thomas F. MacMillan, "Virtue-Based Ethics: A Comparison of Aristotelian-Thomistic and Buddhist Approaches," Religion East and West 2 (2002), 37-49; and James Whitehill, "Buddhism and the Virtues;' in Contemporary Buddhist Ethics, ed. Damien Keown, 17-36 (Surrey, UK: Curzon, 2000).
Damien Keown. "Karma, Character, and Consequentialism," Journal of Religious Ethics 24 (1996), 329-50.

Citation

Clayton, Barbra R. "Śāntideva, Virtue, and Consequentialism." In Destroying Māra Forever: Buddhist Ethics Essays in Honor of Damien Keown, edited by John Powers and Charles S. Prebish, 15–29 . Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 2009.

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Śāntideva (ཞི་བ་ལྷ་). Bodhicaryāvatāra [बोधिचर्यावतार]. byang chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la 'jug pa [བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའི་སྤྱོད་པ་ལ་འཇུག་པ།]. [The Way of the Bodhisattva]. Tengyur, RKTST 3216 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=3216&typ=2.

Classical WorksAbout this item

An "Introduction to Bodhisattva Practice," the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra is a poem about the path of a bodhisattva, in ten chapters, written by the Indian Buddhist Śāntideva (fl. c. 685–763). One of the masterpieces of world literature, it is a core text of Mahāyāna Buddhism and continues to be taught, studied, and commented upon in many languages and by many traditions around the world. The main subject of the text is bodhicitta, the altruistic aspiration for enlightenment, and the path and practices of the bodhisattva, the six perfections (pāramitās). The text forms the basis of many contemporary discussions of Buddhist ethics and philosophy.