1 Discovering The Difference Between Right And Wrong

For nearly three thousand years, philosophers as well as all thoughtful people have asked themselves the question, ‘How can we know the difference between right and wrong?” I believe this question was most likely asked within a culture exposed to a variety of moral customs. Greece is one important example.

Because the Greek islands served as stepping stones east, west, and south, merchants who could chart the treacherous and almost unpredictable seas were able to carry on a brisk trade. They became very rich and were able to build large homes that overshadowed the palaces of royalty. In their travels, they encountered customs very different from those at home.The historian Herodotus who traveled widely encountered denizens of a country that were compelled to eat their dead relatives for religious reasons.^[1] The merchants must have been impressed by the variety of customs they encountered, and foreign customs influenced early Greek philosophers, including how they viewed morality.

The Presocratic philosopher Protagoras said, “Man is the measure,” meaning morality then could only be justified by the conventions of society. Socrates however, was the foremost opponent of this view. Socrates viewed morality as independent of the gods yet did not embrace the idea that it was merely a matter of human convention. In Plato’s dialogue “The Euthyphro,” a young man from a family of priests told Socrates that he planned to accuse his father of murder. When queried by Socrates, Euthyphro explained that his father’s slave had killed another slave that his father had borrowed to do some work. Not knowing what to do, Euthyphro’s father restrained the guilty slave and went to the oracle at Delphi to inquire from the god what punishment was proper. While he was away, the slave died from negligence. Euthyphro, a religious man, cited Athenian law based on the supposed law of the gods and was going to court to ask that his father be punished. Socrates asked Euthyphro if an action is right because the gods willed it, or if the gods willed it because it was right. In asking this question Socrates introduced the study of ethics in the west. Socrates was seeking a rational basis for morality, a goal that he was not able to reach. But he set it as an ideal that future generations still strive to realize.

A similar development occurred in India, also in the sixth century. Most followers of what we have come to call Hinduism, based morality on sacred utterances called the Vedas, considered divine in origin. Some non-Hindu Indian philosophers, however, the Carvakas or Lokavadas, were skeptics and did not hold any statements, including those about morality, to be true.

Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, rejected religious-based morality, such as defined moral obligations according to the caste system.^[2] calling them into question on rational grounds. Why, he asked, should we consider one caste better than another when there are clearly people of great moral stature and intelligence in all of them? Nevertheless, he upheld moral standards, basing them on reason and compassion.

The Enlightenment philosopher Kant, after carefully examining the vast range of human activities, concluded that the only thing that can be considered good without qualification is a good will. Medicine, for example, is usually used for the good. But in the wrong doses given to the wrong people, it can be an instrument of murder. The concept of ‘good will’ is similar to the Confucian term jen/ren, usually translated as righteousness, or willing to do what is right. In Buddhism, the corollary is bodhicitta, the synthesis of wisdom and compassion.

Given that we want to will what is right, how do we know what is right? There is the commonsense approach, favored by Plato, Aristotle, and Confucius. For Plato and Confucius, morality was based on what they took to be the natural hierarchy within each person. As intelligent beings, we try to discover what is right. We should will it, that is, commit ourselves to doing what is right. Then we must ‘order’ our emotions and desires to fall into harmony with what is right. This is sometimes called enlightenment ethics. It is exactly opposite to the romantic view of Hume, an eighteenth-century Scot, who argued that reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions. A romantic view might for example, advocate a love affair which is illegal and dangerous to the stability of the family. We see this tension between the rational and passionate over and over again in movies and TV dramas today.

Plato and Aristotle believed that moral wisdom is to be achieved through the ‘happy medium,’ the juste milieu. For example, the happy medium between cowardliness and fool heartedness is courage, and it is correct to behave courageously. One might disagree about whether this approach is always successful. It is hard to say for example, what extremes would determine patience to be the mean in a given scenario.

Kant argued that the proper way to act can be known by applying the categorical imperative: “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”^[3]

Kant meant that rules should be adoptable by all people regardless of their religion, ethnicity, culture, etc. Let’s suppose that a group of people are cast by a storm onto a desert island. The storm has been so horrific that they suffered permanent and total amnesia. But they can still reason. They need to settle on a set of rules that will enable them to live together. No one wants to be killed, so on the basis of consistency they settle on the rule ‘Don’t kill’. The same method leads to the rules ‘Don’t steal’, ‘Don’t lie’, Don’t break promises’. Having adopted these rules, they are likely to manage everyday living. The categorical imperative does the same job. Through it, one generates commands that are categorical, because there are no ‘ifs’ involved. One does not steal, period. (Not just IF one is not hungry for someone’s food, etc.) It is a command, an imperative; it embodies a universal principle, given not only to others but to oneself as well.

This is a brilliant solution to the problem of finding a set of rules that elicits universal agreement without being a command given by any authority except reason itself. It is not however without its faults. Sometimes following a rule may lead to horrendous consequences. Suppose during the Nazi era, one was hiding Jewish friends. If the Nazis asked, “Have you seen any Jews?”, to tell the truth would be to bring death on your friends. It seems clear that here, lying is ethically required. Also, it is not clear that in every case all people, even those aiming at the good, would necessarily universalize the same rules. For example, when I was a student in Catholic school, I was told never to have sex before marriage. But in my freshman year at Barnard, I was told by my sex hygiene teacher that one should always do so. Otherwise one would be trapping one’s partner into a relationship that might prove to be sexually unsatisfactory for both parties. Both teachers were universalizing a rule but in opposite ways.

Kant was a quiet man, so much a creature of habit that the townspeople set their timepieces in accordance with when he took his walk. (He gave up his walk only on the day when he was waiting for news of the French revolution.) He never married.His views are often contrasted with those of John Stuart Mill who was not concerned with rules, but rather with the consequences of actions. Mill was actively involved in the English women’s suffrage movement and was madly in love with the British philosopher Harriet Taylor, whom he was finally able to marry when her husband died. Mill was a lively man who loved romantic poetry, especially Wordsworth. One might ask how much their personalities influenced their views.

Mill’s guiding principle was to always act so that the results of one’s actions would maximize happiness and minimize pain for the greatest number of people. The following example may clarify the difference between Kant and Mill. Suppose after many years of celebrating Thanksgiving at your aunt Agnes’ house and having recently been promoted to vice-president of your company with a nice salary, you offer to host the Thanksgiving dinner and invite all the relatives. Many years ago, Uncle Harry came to the dinner drunk and beat up two relatives who had to be hospitalized. After that, he disappeared for ten years. Just before Thanksgiving, Uncle Harry calls you, saying he is in town and would like to have dinner with the family for Thanksgiving.

Kant would probably want you to tell him the truth. If you do and tell him he can’t come, Uncle Harry may become furious and cause trouble. Mill would first consider how many people might be distressed and possibly harmed if Uncle Harry came to the dinner or found out he was not invited. Suppose Uncle Harry said he had been sober for ten years and had been attending AA meetings regularly. Should you take a chance on him? Suppose he said he might be in town but was not sure if he would come. Would this make a difference? For Mill, one would have to put on an imaginary scale all the real and possible benefits for all involved on one side, and all the real and possible pains on the other. If the pains tipped the scale, one should lie to Uncle Harry.

This seems like good common sense, certainly in the example given. But the general principle of acting for the benefit of the greatest number does pose difficulties. First and foremost, what role if any does justice play in this utilitarian position? What if a city was composed mainly of two ethnic groups that hated one another? (Let’s call them A and B.) Suppose someone from group A was murdered. If the perpetrator had been from group B, the population from group A might decide to go on a rampage, slaughtering as many members of group B as possible. The mayor of the city, knowing that outcome was likely to happen, decides to frame an innocent member of group A for the crime, and thus avoid the deaths of hundreds of people. According to the utilitarian view, this would be okay as long as no one discovered the truth. But many people might think that framing an innocent person was wrong no matter what the benefit.

There are more problems. Some utilitarians believe that one has no special obligations to anyone, including family members. Suppose a good swimmer took her child to the beach. Strong waves arose threatening her child on the far left as well as two children on her far right. A utilitarian might not be willing to claim that it would be right for the mother to save her one child rather than the two strangers. This may seem to be so contrary to natural feelings as to be an impossible moral position.

Further, there is a problem in deciding what population is to be included in the utilitarian calculus. We face problems like this every day when we, for example, receive brochures in the mail describing in vivid detail the plight of starving children in far-off places. Suppose we must choose between answering this plea for help, and providing our children with luxuries such as tennis lessons. How do we decide? I once heard of a clerk in London on a small salary who gave to Oxfam every penny he had, above what he needed for necessities. When questioned about this he said, “If I can save even one life in so doing, isn’t it worth it?”

The British twentieth-century philosopher Derek Parfit (1942–2017), offered a compromise position. He argued that while ideally, we should help all equally, someone who does not have a special love for family is unlikely to care for anyone else. So, it is actually in the interest of society to encourage family ties while also stressing the importance of helping others.^[4]

Some utilitarians, such as Peter Singer argue that animals should be included in the calculus because they feel pain. If so, should we allow a child to die in order to save the lives of a few animals?^[5] There is also the problem of climate change to consider. One might argue that we have no obligations whatever to non-existent people, such as generations yet to come. But is there a difference between possible people who never come to be, and those who will in fact be born? We may have obligations to the latter but not the former.

Another way to define what is morally right is virtue ethics. A version of this was suggested many centuries ago by the Chinese philosopher Confucius. One might call his view the contagion theory of ethics: One should admire and emulate good people and we ourselves will become good. The problem with this and all forms of virtue ethics is that we must be able to recognize goodness when we see it. To do that, we must have a criterion for deciding what it is. So we are back to square one, unable to justify our judgments.

But perhaps we don’t have to choose between the competing and problematic theories of Kantians, utilitarians, and those who accept virtue ethics. Ancient Buddhists seem to have found a way to incorporate all three in a system of checks and balances.

Here I will offer a bit of an extended focus on Buddhist ethics, the area of study I have focused on most extensively in my career. It presents an illustrative compromise between competing ethical views. Buddhist ethics is based squarely upon the doctrines of anicca and anatta. Anicca, the belief that all things are interdependent and therefore have no independent existence, implies anatta, the view that there is no independent, permanent self or ego. Everything is part of an ever-changing flux. This belief holds that the names we give to things are mere conveniences. The chair one sits on for example, is never the same from moment to moment. But of course, it is impossible to have a different name for how things are at every instant. So names are convenient designations of sets of similar states.

For Buddhists, the situation is the same with the self. There is no separate, permanent self. There is only the flow of mental and bodily experiences. This point was illustrated in the Milindapanha (The Questions of King Milinda) when King Milinda (Menander in the West), a Greek king ruling in India, confronted the Buddhist monk Nagasena. He accused Nagasena of contradicting himself when he, on one hand, denied the self and the idea that he was equivalent to any of his bodily parts (fingernails, etc.), yet asserted that monks could acquire merit and demerit for their actions. Milinda said, “If someone were to kill you, there would be no murder”^[6] and insisted further that if there is no self, no one achieves merit or demerit. Nagasena replied, “Did you come on foot or in a vehicle?” The king said, “I came in a chariot.” Nagasena asked, “Are the wheels the chariot? The axle? etc.?” To each question, Milinda replied it was not. Then Nagasena said “Sir, you are king over all India, a mighty monarch. Of whom are you afraid that you speak a lie?… This King Milinda says, ‘I have come by chariot,’ but on being asked to show the chariot, he does not show it.”^[7] Milinda answered that he had because the word chariot was a convenient designation for all the parts taken together. Nagasena replied that his name “Nagasena” similarly was a convenient designation for all his skandhas, (bodily parts, volitions, ideas, etc.) taken together.

In Buddhist philosophy, words are just conventions, practical designations that impose an unreal permanence on things. The pie of reality can be cut in different ways. We as human beings, because of our practical needs, cut it up into objects and persons.

To Buddhists, this is not wrong, – in fact it is necessary. How could we function without using names? The Buddhists believed that these names do not stand for what is ultimately real. If the self has no substantiality, then we are all in the same cosmic flow as everyone else. Surely, we are more similar to our peers than we are to the zygotes we once were. As the early Buddhist philosopher Santideva said in the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, “Just as you formed a sense of self-identity with regard to the drops of blood and semen of others, contemplate others in the same way.”^[8] If one views one’s own interest as equal to those of others, then in realizing that no one wishes to suffer, one should wish to free all people from suffering. Compassion arises along with a sense of equality and identity with others.

The goal of Buddhist morality is the cessation of suffering. There are two types of ethics designed for two types of people: ordinary ethics and path ethics. Understanding that most people are mainly concerned about what they consider their self-interest to be, ordinary ethics sets out to convince people that they will have better lives if they live decently. For example, Santideva argued that if you control your anger, people will be less likely to become angry with you; so, they will be nice to you and it will be easier for you to be happy:

Those tormented by the pain of anger
Will never know tranquility of mind-
Strangers they will be to every pleasure;
Sleep departs them, they can never rest.
…
From family and friends estranged,
And shunned by those attracted by their bounty,
Men of anger have no joy,
Forsaken by all happiness and peace.^[9]

For people on the Buddhist path of dharma, ethical behavior is exactly that way of acting which will lead them and all beings to enlightenment (peace and a cessation of suffering). The concept of path ethics makes possible the transformation of all experiences into something positive. Santideva delineated this beautifully. An enemy, for example, comes to be seen as a friend because when someone harms us, he or she affords us an opportunity for practicing patience.

Within the context of modern philosophical concerns, one may ask whether following rules (deontological ethics), considering consequences (teleological ethics), or virtue ethics, is a correct ground of ethical judgment from the point of view of Buddhist philosophy. Since Buddhist ethics is a practical path aiming at enlightenment, or perfect peace and happiness for all, it might seem one would opt for consequentialism (teleological ethics).

On the other hand, Buddhists have always believed in the usefulness of following rules. The five prohibitions of the eightfold path regarding moral conduct (not to kill, steal, lie, misuse sex, or become intoxicated), seem to endorse rule-following. Could one then characterize Buddhist ethics as a form of rule utilitarianism, where one should follow the rules chosen, in relation to the goal of helping all sentient beings to achieve enlightenment, and thereby the cessation of suffering?

This is partly accurate, but Buddhism holds that rules can be broken out of compassion to avoid very bad consequences. So for example, a Buddhist could lie to save a life. There is even a story of a Buddhist saint (a “bodhisattva”), who killed a pirate to save five hundred people from shipwreck.

But for Buddhists, rules should be broken only with great caution. It is too easy to fall into what Kant called “the natural dialectic,” that is, to set up a smokescreen of apparently ethical reasons to cover up one’s motive of self-interest. One can, for example, wind up verbally abusing or even harming someone one dislikes, on the pretext of protecting someone who really does not need protection at all or at least not that much.

Buddhists believe rules must not only be broken with great caution, but also with wisdom and compassion. One must not practice stupid compassion, such as shielding a vicious murderer from the authorities. In order to become the kind of person who will have both the wisdom and the lack of selfishness to know when it is best to break rules, one has to develop one’s character through acquiring virtuous habits. The development of a strong moral character is excellent preparation for dealing with moral dilemmas.

The virtues that have been traditionally enjoined in Buddhism are generosity, patience, effort, good conduct, concentration, and wisdom. Each of the virtues is described by Santideva as having both a practical and a dharmic aspect. Patience, for example, is seen at the ordinary level as useful for achieving one’s goals. At the Buddhist path level, it is seen as a method of overcoming clinging. At the highest level, it is practiced as a result of the insight that all that exists is a manifestation of enlightenment. Generosity at the ordinary level is practiced in order to make one’s own life and the lives of others more pleasant. On the path level, it is a reflection of the conviction that there is no sharp distinction between oneself and others. On the highest level, it is a reflection of the wisdom and compassion that is the basis of all that is.

These virtues, of course, are at least at the beginning not easy to live by. The Four Immeasurables are designed to make virtuous activity easier. They can be seen as forming a balanced quatrad:

	COMPASSION
ACTS OF LOVING-KINDNESS		JOY IN THE JOY OF OTHERS
	EQUANIMITY

Deeply felt compassion can be unbearably painful. Sometimes just reading stories in the newspaper about all the atrocities in the world, can make one want to scream. In Buddhism, compassion is balanced by equanimity. This equanimity is a result of the calm and insight achieved in meditation. This allows the practitioner to be completely compassionate without being overwhelmed with despair.

The concept of selflessness in Buddhism is meant to lead Buddhists to want to work unceasingly for others and fill all their days with acts of loving-kindness. In practical terms, this can be exhausting. Practitioners are warned not to commit themselves to more than they can handle, so that they will not become bored and tired, and give up. One method of avoiding this is to become accustomed to rejoicing in the joy of others. For example, a mother may slave over holiday preparations, shopping for gifts, and cooking. Yet she is well-rewarded by the joy in the faces of her children and relatives. This unselfish joy is invaluable in preserving motivation. The nuns of Mother Teresa’s order are seen to have this joy. They labor unceasingly for others and seem very happy.

In Buddhism, the highest source of virtuous behavior, however, is the concept of bodhicitta itself; this is when the enlightened mind experiences spontaneously the overwhelming sweetness of the welling up of compassion mixed with wisdom. In this state, no effort is needed to do good. The enlightened person intuits the best thing to be done in every circumstance and does it as unconsciously as breathing, without any motive whatever. How is this possible?

The answer comes from an examination of the deepest ethical questions in Buddhism. In the collection of Buddha’s teachings, the Dhammapada, it is said that the enlightened being is beyond good and evil. The discerning “eye” of enlightenment goes beyond distinctions. The question arises: Then why doesn’t a Buddhist dispense with ethics? As long as one does no harm out of excessive attachment and bears no ill will out of ego-centeredness, why not just enjoy Nirvana and not lift a finger to help anyone? Why cannot one just feel helpful if this is useful to one’s own salvation, but not do anything about it? Why cannot one just experience the oneness of all being and not act on this at all?

The key is in the experience itself. An analogy can be made between a mother and her only child. The mother will spontaneously help the child. Is this selfish or unselfish? The situation transcends the distinction between selfishness and altruism. Buddha said to treat all beings as one’s only child. It seems as if the realization producing the awareness of the interconnectedness of all beings, simultaneously produces the impetus to help them, and thus to see them as being our cherished child.

Buddhist ethics offers a compromise between always following rules, acting to produce the most favorable consequences for oneself and others, and acting in accordance with virtues, such as patience. This view, however, can be pulled from its Buddhist roots and appreciated as a secular philosophy. Buddhists value accepting the importance of rules, which represent a kind of shorthand that one can use when forced to act quickly. “Don’t lie,” for example, is an important guide when one is tempted to get out of a difficult situation by speaking an untruth. But when one knows telling a lie may save a life, the truth is not the best option. In this case, consequences count. Buddhists view that if one has trained oneself both in the virtues of honesty and compassion, one is more likely to respond ethically.^[10]

Summary and Further Considerations

Let us return to a more detailed consideration of rules, virtues, and consequences. Rational absolutism, introduced by Immanuel Kant, was an attempt to make morality both objective and discoverable through the intellectual effort of each person. It could be compared to a mathematical system like Euclidean geometry. If you understand the system, you will arrive at the same answers to geometry problems as every other student who solves the problem. As in mathematics, the key notion in Kant’s ethics was consistency. Kant believed that if a person wants to know what is moral, he or she need only ask what can be willed consistently for all rational beings. For example, if one wants to know if stealing is acceptable, one needs to decide whether everyone may steal or not. One need merely imagine how one would feel about having others steal from oneself. Clearly, it is more rational to will that no one steals. Kant formulated this principle of consistency in the following way: “Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”^[11]

To return to the problems previously mentioned, (a) moral rules can conflict and, (b) carrying out the rules can sometimes have terrible consequences. For example, what if one must lie to save someone’s life? Or, what if one must break a promise in order to avoid causing someone’s death? Kant’s theory does not seem to allow one to do this. The rules are always binding. Further, if the moral agent universalizing the rule is not a good person, the rule that he or she decides should be followed may be different than the rule a good person will derive.

Utilitarianism, introduced by Jeremy Bentham, accepts only one moral rule: So act so that for the greatest number, pleasure is maximized and pain is minimized. This view is supposed to be close to common sense but there are difficulties. Suppose, for example, torturing one person to death gave great pleasure to 10,000 people. The happiness of the “audience” of 10,000 might outweigh the unhappiness of the tortured victim. And as previously mentioned, there is no room for justice in Bentham’s view. Consequences in terms of pleasure and pain are the only factors to be considered.

Much of contemporary ethics attempts to derive a moral theory that preserves the good elements of Kant’s and Bentham’s views without the difficulties these views imply. One of these compromises is rule utilitarianism. As stated before, this is the view that the point of having moral rules is to benefit human beings because following these rules generally results in increasing happiness or decreasing suffering. This, however, still does not tell us what to do in a particular case when we know that following a rule might cause great suffering. We seem to need a rule to tell us when we may break rules.

Buddhist ethics represents a compromise between rule-following and concern with consequences in terms of human suffering and happiness, a compromise achieved by means of an ethics of virtue. The ultimate goal of Buddhist ethics is the overcoming of suffering. Yet human beings cannot always know what will overcome suffering in the long run. We are limited by (a) ignorance of all the circumstances involved in a moral decision, and, (b) our own tendencies toward self-deception. For this reason, Buddhist ethics has always recognized the importance of moral rules, such as those forbidding killing, theft, lying, sexual misconduct, etc. These rules are meant to protect us from our own ignorance and protect others from our mistakes in judgment. Thus, moral rules are to be respected in Buddhism.

There are of course, as I mentioned before, cases where moral rules must be broken – cases where considerations of compassion may require that they be broken. We must sometimes lie to prevent dire consequences. In such cases, however, Buddhist philosophy holds that the rules should be broken reluctantly because one cannot be absolutely sure that one has correctly judged the consequences.

Practices in any society must be judged by whether or not they are consistent with virtues such as generosity, and whether they can be practiced compassionately. They must be fair in the sense that they are in accordance with explicit or implicit agreements among the people affected. But the practices considered acceptable may nonetheless vary from society to society. In a European country, for example, women may insist on performing the same tasks as men. In other societies, women may not on the whole wish to do this. There is room for tolerance towards different cultural traditions while opposing those that violate the spirit of compassion. Surely kindness and compassion are the saving nectar for our turbulent age.