Toward an ethic of compassion: Metaphysics, convention and meditation

This presentation is part of the Ethical and Epistemic Choices: New Approaches track. Women have long searched for an “ethic of care”, a moral orientation grounded in interconnectedness and relationship and prioritizing human care and flourishing over such desiderata of male-generated ethics as the adherence to impersonal, rule-governed systems that, in practice, serve the interests of elites. Perhaps the earliest known Western woman proponent of this approach was Diotima who described love as “desire for the perpetual possession of the good” (Plato, 86). She maintained that it is expressed in two types of “creative instinct”: the physical which is the desire for children; and the “creative desire of the soul” whose progeny are “wisdom and virtue in general” and, further, that “the greatest and fairest branch of wisdom is that which is concerned with the due ordering of states and families” (90). More recently Carol Gilligan’s groundbreaking In a Different Voice (1982) argued that girls and women tend to resolve moral dilemmas by employing an “ethic of care and responsibility”. In contrast to the ethic of rights and justice favored by men and boys, which proceeds by deducing the ‘good’ course of action from accepted rules or principles, practitioners of an ethic of care proceed in a narrative fashion to generate a course of action which will ensure that the needs of all affected will be met as fully as possible. Interestingly, when Kay Johnson (1988) presented boys and girls with a series of moral dilemmas she, too, found that their moral approaches broke down along gender lines and in accord with Gilligan’s findings. However, when she asked the children if there was any other way to solve the moral dilemmas, boys were able to generate answers consonant with Gilligan’s ethic of care, and girls were able to engage the reasoning style of an ethic of rights and justice. In other words, rather than supporting the view propounded by some that males and females are inherently different in their ethical approaches and styles of reasoning, Johnson’s empirical research suggests a gendered preference, one which might most plausibly be explained by reference to gender socialization. I do not propose to defend here the proposition that an ethic of care would be the superior approach in all case, but I will proceed on the assumption that the ethic of care, with its over-riding goal of ensuring that the needs of all are met such that life will flourish, has much to offer to those who are not only seeking ways to deal with interpersonal issues affecting family, friends and associates as well as themselves, but who also seek to address the broader social, political and environmental issues with which we are all faced. However, accepting this assumption raises a host of problems, from those faced by the person who wishes to implement this approach in their daily life but finds them self struggling with the demands of socially mandated gender, to the notorious problems encountered when one attempts to follow through a decision that runs counter to a lifetime of socialization and habit forming, to the even more intractable resistances of a social system largely at odds with the goals and approach of an ethic of care. Further, as the ethic of care is linked to gender, it will have limited appeal to most of the male population and a diminishing appeal to women as well since they are increasing socialized in childhood and pressured in adult life to adopt an ever more masculinized form of femininity. While this picture may seem to depict an extremely pessimistic future for an ethic of care – and clearly we have made little progress since the time of Diotima – the work of feminist philosophers such as Anne Klein (1995, 1987, 1985) and Rita Gross (1998, 1993) casts a more optimistic light. Their work, along with that of others, brings Madhyamika, or Middle Way, Buddhist thought to bear to show that the Buddhist traditions, which in practice have been as patriarchal and misogynist as Western traditions, offer a philosophical perspective consonant with the ideals of an ethic of care as propounded by women from Diotima to Gilligan, both in terms of its concept of women’s, and more inclusively the human, condition and its ethical ideals. Crucially, with the development of meditation practices these traditions also offer a personal path to the realization of the goals of an ethic of care. In this paper I want to explore some of the major arguments developed by the 2nd century C.E. Indian Buddhist thinker Nagarjuna as developed in his major work, Mulamadhyamakakarika (1995). In gist, I will show that Nagarjuna’s work proposes that there is no inherent human nature, or essence, since the thesis of essentialism is incoherent. He shows that humans, like all things are shunyata or empty. While this means that there is no essence to humans, and also no eternal ideals such as universal ethical principles, it does not result in a nihilistic position. One important reason for this is that all things exist in relation to others. It is in these relationships that better and worse ways of being and conducting oneself are to be found. In MKK24:8 Nagarjuna argues for “two truths” which are two sides of the same coin; (1) while all things are empty of inherent existence (shunyata), (2) they exist in relation to each other in the ways that we understand through our mundane experience and express in daily discourse, that is, conventionally. In consequence pratityasamutpada (interdependence or dependent coexistence), while it abolishes universalized principles, leads us to explore these inter-relationships in order to understand how to foster the flourishing of all things, not only those conventionally designated Other, but ourselves as well. Action consonant with pratityasamutpada is karuna, a concept whose meaning is perfectly captured by its translation into English as ‘compassion’. This English word is drawn from the Latin roots com meaning with, together; and patior, to undergo, bear or suffer. Thus karuna reminds us that, since we are interconnected, what is done to others is done to oneself and vice versa. Amongst the important implications of this is that, in contrast to traditional Western femininity, women are not enjoined to sacrifice themselves to others in all circumstances. While Nagarjuna’s thought may present us with a view of reality and human’s place in it that has appeal for a feminist, would its implementation in contemporary society not be every bit as problematic as Diotima’s concept of love or Gilligan’s ethic of care? Would it not be a daunting challenge for women as well as for men to understand and implement this philosophical perspective in their lives? In answer to this Buddhism supplements its thought with meditation practices, which are designed to work on the personal level and that, owing to Pratityasamutpada and its implication of karuna, holds out the hope of effecting change on a broader level. While there are many meditation practices, vipassana or insight meditation can be especially effective. By and large meditation teachers hold that meditation practice is not aimed at effecting change. Some, such as Dogen (1976), founder of the Soto Zen school, maintain that there is no difference at all between how things are now and enlightenment. Nevertheless, vipassana offers powerful tools for bringing about change and it is being used for this purpose in the West in such wide-ranging fields as psychotherapy, stress reduction, addressing medical conditions, and overcoming internalized gender and other forms of oppression, amongst others. It is gaining a growing acceptance for a range of applications in the schools and universities, for instance it can be effective in overcoming such internalized oppressive formations as sexism, racism and homophobia (Forbes 2005, 2004, 2003; Orr 2004, 2002). In fact, these two orientations – accepting things as they are and seeking “to relate sanely with difficult times”, as Pema Chodron put it (163), are not only not mutually exclusive, the latter relies on the former. Speaking of vipassana meditation John Kabat-Zinn has said that it is “simple but not easy” (8-9). It trains one to develop careful but non-judgmental moment-to-moment awareness of experience and to make finely nuanced discriminations of all aspects of any given experience – somatic, cognitive, feeling. One comes to realize on an experiential level, rather than simply on a cognitive level, that all experience is diffuse, transitory, and ill defined. Over time the concepts through which we define ourselves and distinguish ourselves from others lose their aura of necessity, permanence and immutability and give way to the experience of emptiness (shunyata) and interconnectedness (pratityasamutpada) and thus the possibility of action through karuna. At this level gender is also experienced as shunyata and so this experience is as open to males as it is to females. Meditation practice brings a perspective that is different in important but salutary ways from Gilligan’s work on the ethic of care. In introducing the ethic of care and responsibility Gilligan state that, “The different voice I describe is characterized not by gender but by theme. Its association with women is an empirical observation” (2). Nevertheless, its use is also empirically associated with females and Western culture continues to denigrate and marginalize it in favor of the ethic of rights and justice. By being grounded in a perspective that emphasizes non-essentialism, nondualism and interdependence, Mahayana Buddhist thought and meditation practice opens the main features of Gilligan’s ethic of care - its focus on providing care for the well-being of all and its eschewal of dogmatic ethical imperatives – to all humans, not only, or primarily, girls and women. Further, it holds out the promise of opening a space for the creative desire of the soul to bring forth that greatest and highest form of wisdom, that just ordering of families and states that Diotima envisioned