The Buddha, Socrates and Antonio Damasio

Buddha to Damasio

ETHICAL Buddha to Damasio

THOUGHT Venkata Mohan

Notion Press Old No. 38, New No. 6 McNichols Road, Chetpet Chennai - 600 031 First Published by Notion Press 2017 Copyright © Venkata Mohan 2017 All Rights Reserved. ISBN 978-1-947498-70-9

Cartoons and cover design by : Ramana Jeevi This book has been published with all reasonable efforts taken to make the material error-free after the consent of the author. No part of this book shall be used, reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The Author of this book is solely responsible and liable for its content including but not limited to the views, representations, descriptions, statements, information, opinions and references [“Content”]. The Content of this book shall not constitute or be construed or deemed to reflect the opinion or expression of the Publisher or Editor. Neither the Publisher nor Editor endorse or approve the Content of this book or guarantee the reliability, accuracy or completeness of the Content published herein and do not make any representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose. The Publisher and Editor shall not be liable whatsoever for any errors, omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause or claims for loss or damages of any kind, including without limitation, indirect or consequential loss or damage arising out of use, inability to use, or about the reliability, accuracy or sufficiency of the information contained in this book.

PREFACE Why is a certain behavior considered ethical? By what processes does a certain behavior become ethical? Why are some people more capable of behaving ethically? This book discusses questions such as these with the help of the perspectives drawn from three distinct fields: Religion, Philosophy and Neuroscience. Theorists from the ancient to the recent – the Buddha and Socrates to Antonio Damasio – are covered. In a way, this book is an extension of my Sociological Thought: In the Light of J. Krishnamurti’s Philosophy (2010). I would like to suggest to the readers that they also go through the ethics-related topics from that book – Karl Marx, Hegel, Herbert Spencer, Robert Michels, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud, Reflections on Social Order, Ayn Rand, J. Krishnamurti, and Osho and his Krishna.   Venkata Mohan

iii

Contents 1. Socrates

............. 1

Historical situation ............ 1 Plato on Socrates’ death ............. 2

Virtue is knowledge

2. Plato

............ 3 ............

9



Tripartite soul

............ 9



Ideal state

............



Allegory of Cave

............ 12

On philosopher kings

............ 13

3. Aristotle

............ 15



Justice as fit

4. Thucydides

10

............ 17 ............ 21

Mytilenian Debate

............ 27

Cleon’s argument

............ 28





Diodotus responds

............ 28

5. David Hume

............

6. Kant

............ 38

How different from superego? ............

31 39

7. Hegel

............ 41

8. Jeremy Bentham

............ 46

Marx on Bentham

............ 49

iv

9. Nietzsche

............ 53

10. Thomas Hobbes

............ 59

Relevance to IR theory

............ 61

11. John Locke

............ 62



Right to property

............ 64

12. Rousseau

............ 67

13. Edmund Burke

............. 72

14. John Rawls

............ 76

Three principles

............ 78

15. On gods

............ 81

16. Muhammad

............ 88

Shari’a

............ 101

Sufism

............ 103

17. Jesus Christ

............ 108

John the Baptist

............ 110

18. Gautam Buddha

............ 119

19. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

............ 128

20. Swami Vivekananda

............ 132

21. Ramana Maharshi

............ 136

22. Mahatma Gandhi

............ 145

23. Rabindranath Tagore

............ 149

24. Mother Teresa

............. 152

25. Jean-Paul Sartre

............ 156

26. Psychology of emotions

............ 160 v



Emotions and Evolution

............ 160

Studies by Benjamin Libet ............ 161

Biological terms



Emotions in decision-making ............ 164



Empathy and biology

Attunement

Emotional Intelligence

............ 162 ............ 167 ............ 169 ............ 170

Can EI be measured? Marshmallow test

............ 171 ............ 172

27. R.D. Laing

............ 174

28. Patricia Churchland

............ 180

29. Antonio Damsio

............ 184

Brain and mind ............ 185 No self, no consciousness ............ 187 Why did self come to mind? ............ 188 Emotions are not feelings ............ 190 Should we go by reason or feeling? ...... 191 From the conscious to the nonconscious 192 Why is the mind full of thoughts? ..... 193 Not all thinking is reasoning ............ 195 Future is past-bound ........... 195 Dysfunctions of self ........... 196 30. Sheldrake: Mind outside brain ............ 198

References

............ 203



Index

............ 204

vi

1. Socrates

Historical situation Athens was a city-state that had democracy as early as the 5 century BC. That democracy was not like ours where only representatives are sent to the assembly. In Athens all the voters were members of the assembly. Theirs was a direct democracy; ours is a representative democracy. th

In their direct democracy, however, slaves and women didn’t have votes. Of a population of 400,000 around 250,000 were slaves! Surely not all the eligible might be active in the assembly. Athens had its golden period during the rule of Pericles. It had a big navy. It developed trade with island states. Pericles built huge buildings. Parthenon, the chief temple dedicated to the goddess Athena, was perhaps the most imitated building in the world. The golden age, however, was over when Athens got involved in a war with Sparta, a great power at that time but having an 1

Ethical Thought

authoritarian regime. This war broke out in 431 BC. Pericles died in the second year of the war, when a plague broke out. Pericles was not succeeded by any great ruler. And a series of military disasters for which the democratic government was responsible led to Athens’ utter defeat and its subsequent surrender in 404 BC. Thucydides’ account of this war as given in his Peloponnesian War is still a standard text in military planning as well as International Relations! Soon after the defeat in the war, aristocrats abolished democracy and ruled for some time against the will of the people. Plato’s family was part of that aristocracy. Finally their rule was replaced by democracy. It was not aristocracy but democracy that put one of the world’s greatest philosophers, Socrates, on trial. At the end of the trial, Socrates was asked to drink hemlock, which he did. This took place in 399 BC. He was seventy years old then. Plato (427– 347 BC) was born in Athens. He was growing up during the Peloponnesian War that Thucydides was writing about. Plato had studied under Socrates for eight years. He was a witness to his master’s trial and was profoundly moved by the state’s sentencing of wisdom to death.

Plato on Socrates’ death [Plato wrote the following in his Phaedo] “Then, holding the cup to his lips, quite readily and cheerfully he drank the poison. And hitherto most of us had been able to control our sorrow; but now when we saw him drinking, and saw that he had finished the draught, we could no longer forbear, and in spite of myself, my own tears were flowing fast; so that I covered my face and wept over myself; for 2

Socrates

certainly I was not weeping over him, but at the thought of my own calamity in having lost such a companion. Nor was I the first, for Crito, when he found himself unable to restrain his tears, had got up and moved away, and I followed; at that moment Apollodorus who had been weeping all the time, burst out crying loudly which made cowards of us all. “Socrates alone retained his calmness: ‘what is this strange outcry?’ he said. ‘I sent away the women mainly in order that they might not offend in this way, for I have heard that a man should die in peace. Be quiet and have patience.’ When we heard that, we were ashamed, and restrained our tears; and he walked about until, as he said, his legs began to fail, and then he lay on his back according to the directions. … the man who gave him the poison pressed his foot and asked him if he could feel and he said, ‘No’; and then his leg, and so upwards and upwards…Socrates felt them himself, and said, ‘when the poison reaches the heart, that will be the end.’ “‘Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?’ ‘The debt shall be paid,’ Crito said. Crito asked, ‘Is there anything else?’ There was no answer. A minute later Crito closed his eyes and mouth. “Such was the end of our friend, whom I may truly call the wisest, the most just and the best of all the men whom I have ever known.”

Virtue is knowledge [This view is based on Plato’s The Republic] If man is not virtuous, Socrates holds that it is because he doesn’t know that virtue is good for him. “No one does evil voluntarily,” Socrates used to say. 3

Ethical Thought

It does not mean that a wrong-doer does not know that what he is doing is wrong or is considered wrong. But he thinks that given the circumstances he is in, he can’t avoid doing wrong. Man thinks that by not being virtuous he is taking care of himself, but he is not. His well-being lies in being virtuous. To be virtuous is to be happy. But surely man wants to be happy, but why is he not virtuous? Because he doesn’t know how virtue contributes to happiness. But why doesn’t he know that virtue contributes to his own happiness? It is because he doesn’t know his true nature. How can Socrates say that man doesn’t know himself? Socrates thinks man goes around his life without looking at himself. He doesn’t examine himself. So he doesn’t know himself. Since he doesn’t know himself, he doesn’t know what gives him happiness. So he leads a life of inferior quality. “Unexamined life is not worth living,” Socrates used to say.

Evaluation A

4

1. Socrates is right. One may be virtuous because he has been brought up that way. But if he has to be virtuous even under difficult circumstances, he will have to be knowledgeable about how virtue contributes to his happiness. One requires a deeper understanding of virtue to remain virtuous even in difficult times. And that deeper understanding calls for understanding oneself. The virtuous do differ from the wrong-doers in terms of the degree of their understanding of

Socrates

themselves. 2. Some may say this is too rational an approach to life; in reality, man is irrational; motives play a role and the unconscious shapes the behavior. That is not denied. But how is Freud healing his patients? The aim of psychoanalysis is to help the patients see for themselves the causes and the consequences of their problems. That is to make them knowledgeable about themselves.

3. Even if a man is helplessly trapped by evil, knowledge is the way to get him out of it. It is a different matter that such knowledge may not be communicated verbally.

4. If Socrates’ statement is not acceptable, it may be because people equate knowledge with the ability to talk about it or write about it. But to Socrates, knowledge is deeper understanding – only that contributes to virtue.

5. In saying ‘virtue is knowledge’, Socrates is not only right but kind towards human beings and tolerant of their vulnerabilities.



6. Surely Socrates is referring to some of the basic forms of virtue like not stealing, not deceiving, not harming anyone knowingly, and repaying debts. He is not suggesting that whatever is considered good in public opinion is a virtue. Though condemned to die, Socrates thought of himself – as his disciples agreed – that he was being virtuous.

Evaluation B 1. In The Republic, virtue in general is discussed. Accommodation of contrary views would have been possible if specific virtues had been taken into 5

Ethical Thought

consideration. The view of Thrasymachus that laws serve to protect the interests of the powerful (which Marx takes up) or the view of Protagoras that morality is based on conventions specific to cultures (which is what Anthropology propounds) can be accommodated by delving into the specifics. 2. Anyway, the latter-day critics of Plato took cues from the critics of Plato in The Republic, some of whom were called sophists. The history of thought thus followed the method of dialectics – evolution of the higher truth through the resolution of contradictions.   Jesus: The un-virtuous will go to hell.

6

Socrates: Please don’t say that. They are only ignorant people.

Socrates

Questions to think about 1. To which city state did Socrates belong? Was it a direct democracy? 2. Did his city state believe in political equality? 3. What do you know about Pericles? 4. How was Sparta different from Athens? 5. What were the causes of the Peloponnesian war? When did it take place? 6. What do you know about Thucydides? 7. What was the nature of government at the time of Socrates’s death? 8. When was Socrates born? When did he die? 9. What is Plato’s relationship with Socrates? 10.

What are our sources to learn about Socrates’s philosophy?

11.

What is the Socratic method?

12.

On what grounds was Socrates charged?

13.

What do you know about trial of Socrates?

14.

Why did Socrates choose to die?

15.

Did Socrates think the state was justified in sentencing him? Why did he not think of escaping?

16.

Do you think he should have escaped and contributed more to Philosophy?

17.

Analyse these Socratic positions



•

“No one does evil voluntarily” 7

ETHICAL THOUGHT

W

hy is a certain behavior considered ethical? By what processes does a certain behavior become ethical? Why are some people more capable of

behaving ethically? This book discusses questions such as these with the help of the perspectives drawn from three distinct fields: Religion, Philosophy and Neuroscience. Theorists from the ancient to the recent – from the Buddha and Socrates to Antonio Damasio – are covered.

Venkata Mohan is the author of Sociological Thought: In the Light of J. Krishnamurti’s Philosophy and two other non-fiction books. He has also penned his autobiography Marriage of a Monk: A Story of My Ideas and Life. A B. Tech. from IIT-Madras, he is the director of Feynman IAS Institute, Hyderabad where he teaches Sociology, Ethics and Essay.

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