anatta, rights and duties
For those who feel that anatta and emptiness imply that 'human rights' make no sense in Buddhism, as there is no real 'owner' of rights: would you apply the same logic to duties?? Surely, just as there are duties (even ones owed to all beings, not just ones arising from particular relationships) but no ultimate Self-essence which owns them, so one can say the same of rights?
Peter Harvey
"peter.harvey" writes:
: For those who feel that anatta and emptiness imply that 'human rights' : make no sense in Buddhism, as there is no real 'owner' of rights: would : you apply the same logic to duties?? Surely, just as there are duties : (even ones owed to all beings, not just ones arising from particular : relationships) but no ultimate Self-essence which owns them, so one can : say the same of rights?
I guess that I may well be one of those who feel that, and to the extent that I do feel that I do think that the same logic applies to duties. If I were trying to follow the Dharma because I have a duty to follow the Dharma I do not think that I would be following the Dharma. But then my experience with Buddhism is largely with Zen.
The rest of my experience is with Shin, and from that background I would say that, though I may have a duty, I am utterly incapable of carrying out that duty under my own power.
Even outside of a Buddhist context, I don't think it makes much sense to speak of ``owning'' duties and I firmly believe that there is a category mistake in talking about ``owning'' rights. If you have all the rights to something that there can be, that it is appropriate to say that you own that thing, or that you have a right to it, but it is not at all clear what it could mean to ``own'' a right. (But these remarks are those of one who has spent much of his life teaching the subject known as property in American law schools--so I react to talk of owning rights the way someone who teaches Sanskrit and Buddhist Philosophy would react to someone confusing karma with its (karmic) consequences.
--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
Internet: junger@pdj2-ra.f-remote.cwru.edu junger@samsara.law.cwru.edu
Peter D. Junger wrote:
>I guess that I may well be one of those who feel that, and to the extent that I do feel that I do think that the same logic applies to duties. If I were trying to follow the Dharma because I have a duty to follow the Dharma I do not think that I would be following the Dharma. But then my experience with Buddhism is largely with Zen.
>The rest of my experience is with Shin, and from that background I would say that, though I may have a duty, I am utterly incapable of carrying out that duty under my own power.
In Shinran we find a transformation of duty (giri) to gratitude (on) as the basis of a life of naturalness (jinen ho ni). For Shinran, the hakkarai (ingrained unhealthiness) of normative, samsaric jiriki (Skt. ahamkara - self making, rooted in satkayadrsti or the erroneous outlook of being a separate, alienated "self") is the basis (root) of social life. That condition cannot be cured; no amount of "practice" results in liberation from the self engaging in it. The futility of practice is likenable to trying to bite your own teeth: you simply cannot liberate the self whose ceaseless calculated efforts bind it to the wheel of birth and death, of suffering and sorrow. Resolution of the dilemma of "ethical works" (merit earning, or sucking up to illumination) for Shinran relies solely on rising above self perpetuation in a single instance of being outside, beyond, and free of calculated ethical good. From that basis, the life of jinen arises - the life of being beyond petty self concern (tariki). In place of carrying out duty to the group (giri), being so freed one lives from a deeply connected sense of gratitude and thanksgiving.
Shinran is hard to get to the core of for the simple reason he's a sort of mainstream buddhist gnostic making use of a mythology we're apt to read literally in the West. He does not harp on ethics nor preach duty. Instead he advocates a radical reorganization of how we frame and relate our lives from the outlook of what might be taken as grace - the grace of the NOT koan, the famous mu koan. His perspective is that of madhyamika or the middle way beyond relative opposites of good and evil. Thus, we might say he's transethical insofar as ethics of good and evil have roots in samsaric pettiness.
>Even outside of a Buddhist context, I don't think it makes much sense to speak of ``owning'' duties and I firmly believe that there is a category mistake in talking about ``owning'' rights. If you have all the rights to something that there can be, that it is appropriate to say that you own that thing, or that you have a right to it, but it is not at all clear what it could mean to ``own'' a right. (But these remarks are those of one who has spent much of his life teaching the subject known as property in American law schools--so I react to talk of owning rights the way someone who teaches Sanskrit and Buddhist Philosophy would react to someone confusing karma with its (karmic) consequences.
Professor Junger is absolutely correct about category mistakes. When we look to the works of the Kyoto School, we begin finding Zen and Shin are two complimentary sides of the same coin that originated in early Indian buddhism. In that respect, there is no merit to be earned; instead, a cessation of earning must come to fruitition - be that earning religious or secular. Only from that foundation can a transethical sense of compassionate understanding gain life, therey renewing one.
Ken O'Neill, Kyoshi
White Lotus Society
Tucson, Arizona
On Thu, 5 Oct 1995, Peter Harvey wrote:
>For those who feel that anatta and emptiness imply that 'human rights' make no sense in Buddhism, as there is no real 'owner' of rights: would you apply the same logic to duties?? Surely, just as there are duties (even ones owed to all beings, not just ones arising from particular relationships) but no ultimate Self-essence which owns them, so one can say the same of rights?
>Peter Harvey
Reviewing the work of Dignaga and Dharmakirti in light of these questions has helped me understand the questions more clearly and precisely. Almost everything I know of their work comes from Stcherbatsky's work on //Buddhist Logic//. Perhaps the real Buddhologists out there will alert me to more recent relevant scholarship.
These thinkers identified three different sources of knowledge: knowledge of ultimate reality (nirvana, enlightenment), inference for oneself (the interpretation of sensation into concepts), and inference for others (syllogism). From the standpoint of ultimate reality, which is beyond distinctions, abstract concepts such as human rights, as well as concrete concepts such as human beings, are unreal.
Dharmarkirti, however, proceded to investigate other types of knowledge because "All successful human action is (necessarily) preceded by right knowledge." Right knowledge is defined as effective knowledge, that is, knowledge that leads to right action. Therefore the question is not whether human rights ultimately exist, but whether the concept is one that leads to right actions. Several contributors have already made this argument in various forms.
The further question can be asked if the concept of human rights can be known as an inference for oneself or an inference for others. This question goes back to one of the early postings in the conference concerning the reasons we care about whether Buddhism and human rights are compatible.
An inference for oneself is the re-cognition that a certain set of sensory data can be represented by a certain phrase. I see a furry, black shape with four legs and a tail and my mind compares that to other shapes I have seen, and recognizes that the shape is my dog, Piper. It can also include an inference of the kind that recognizes from the presence of smoke the presence of fire. The key point here, I think is that this analysis is fact based, like an analysis from the common law. One looks at facts, compares the facts to what one knows, and reachs a conclusion about what the facts show.
In this source of knowledge, rights can only be seen in their violation (as in the common law). It makes no sense to talk of them in the abstract (and now I am finally returning to Peter Harvey's original question about rights and duties). This question is also addressed in Ihara's paper, where he used the example of someone driving through a stop sign. In that fact pattern (as we say in the law), no corresponding right can be found to the drivers duty to stop. On the other hand, if the driver runs a stop sign and strikes and injures a pedestrian, then one can find a right that has been violated.
This knowledge of a specific violation of a specific right can then lead to right action. Thus a judge might compare the facts to the facts of other cases and recognize the right not to be run over because of another's negligence. The judge might then take action based on such knowledge and order the driver to repay the pedestrian in some way.
This kind of a recognition of human rights seems compatible with Buddhist thought and teaching. One must recognize that there is a wrong in order to correct it. This talk of rights, however, depends on the specific facts of specific cases. We may say a certain person's rights are being violated. This statement is not the same as an abstract statement that all persons have such rights, the kind of statements that are issued by the U.N., etc. Such statements of abstract rules do not really come from this kind of knowledge, just as they do not really arise in the common law.
The final source of knowledge, the inference for others or the syllogism, is not really considered to be a source of knowledge at all. It consists merely of propositions about the world, which are resorted to for communicating to others. Thus, in teaching the common law, teachers must resort to speaking of general rules, even if these rules in themselves have less reality than the specific judgments in specific cases. Similarly, in order to talk about human rights, it may useful to speak as if such rights existed as abstract concepts. The test for whether such concepts should be used, it seems, is whether the use leads to right action. Does the use of such terms help our students understand and act?
I know many of these issues are being discussed in different threads at this conference an I hope I am not being too redundant. My goal was to clarify the questions more than the answers.
Sincerely,
Kent
Kent Bunting e-mail - buntinkb@sluvca.slu.edu
St. Louis University phone - (314) 977-2749
School of Law
3700 Lindell Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63108-3412
Peter Harvey writes:
>For those who feel that anatta and emptiness imply that 'human rights' make no sense in Buddhism, as there is no real 'owner' of rights: would you apply the same logic to duties?? Surely, just as there are duties (even ones owed to all beings, not just ones arising from particular relationships) but no ultimate Self-essence which owns them, so one can say the same of rights?
I guess that the problem would depend on just how "inalienable" you thought "duties" were, as it is the "inalienable" or "inherent" or "natural" (i.e., "by nature") aspect of rights that seems difficult in a Buddhist context, for isn't that sort of like a _svalak.sa.na_? Duties seem more clearly related to particular causes and conditions, e.g., I have a duty to feed my son because I am his parent, not because I am a human being; neither you nor anybody else shares this duty until or unless the situation evolves in a very particular (not universal) fashion (but I'll keep you in mind, as he is somewhat voracious these days).
In another post you also referred to the "conventional sense of ownership;" could you and others who agree please clarify this in terms of "inalienable" and also show how something conventional, that is, particular to causes and conditions, could end up being universal and inherent to the human condition?
Off the cuff and venting a bit, I think that American culture is living proof of the intimate relationship between rights talk and ideas of ownership and individualism, with all of the metaphysical (baggage) of presence that goes along with those ideas. Rights in America are largely understood in terms of greed for what is *my* due (rather than what is *your* due) and have bred a hugely litigatious society premised on adversarial nature of those rights. To yet again invoke my son (highschool age), he and his friends *constantly* invoke their "kid rights" every time a teacher tells them to quiet down, stop eating in class, or turn in their homework. And these kids go after the schools with lawsuits regularly. My phonebook contains 8 pages of physicians and 18 pages of lawyers.
Jamie
Jamie Hubbard writes:
'Duties seem more clearly related to particular causes and conditions, e.g. I have a duty to feed my son because I am his parent, not because I am a human being...'
But because //some// duties arise from specific social or biological relationships does not mean //all// do. //Whoever// one is, on can be said to have a duty e.g. not to torture any being.
Jamie also asked for a response on: 'how something conventional, that is, particular to causes and conditions, could end up being universal and inherent in the human condition?'.
Easy- look at the last word in this sentence. To be human is to be reborn in a certain condition, due to various past conditions. Given that temporary state, certain shared 9'universal') things apply.
Peter Harvey
I would reply that there are no "duties" either. The notion of "duties" as we understand it in the context of Western religious traditions and political traditions is not developed on the same cosmological or metaphysical foundation as Buddhist notions of duty or indeed most Asian concepts of duty. It's a trick question, which ignores the obscuration that occurs when you translate casually from one context to another.
For example, the quote beneath speaks of "duties owed to all sentient beings." Well, I wouldn't use the word duty to refer to the undertakings a bodhisattva has promised to engage in. People do not tell a bodhisattva to do his or her duty. They tell him or her to remember the vow. It's a different kind of reminder for a different kind of moral act.
>For those who feel that anatta and emptiness imply that 'human rights' make no sense in Buddhism, as there is no real 'owner' of rights: would you apply the same logic to duties?? Surely, just as there are duties (even ones owed to all beings, not just ones arising from particular relationships) but no ultimate Self-essence which owns them, so one can say the same of rights?
>Peter Harvey