Nonviolence and Holistically Environmental Ethics: Gropings While Reading Samayadivākaravāman̲amun̲i on NīlakēciLIT Verlag Münster, 2007 - 198 pages Put in terms of their essentials, these gropings begin with the difficult validity puzzle ethical epistemology amounts to, continue with the centrality of nonviolence in all Indian thought, and then close with the discussion of the radical contrast between this nonviolence and the holistic - not solely ecological - environmentalism of our own times, interesting though it is that Indian thought today sees, by and large, no such contrast. |
Common terms and phrases
accept Acquiescence afraid Ahimsa argue argument arhat Basava Bodhisattva brāhmaṇa bring Buddha Buddhist Chakravarti cited clearly commentary context course death Delhi demerit accrues Demerit through Mediate Der Spiegel deriving desire dharma doctrine eat flesh eaten eating animal flesh Edited enpatu entirely environmental ethics eristic fault attributed Ficus religiosa gropings guess guilt hence human idea ill-deeds India Indian thought individualistic self-referentialism Indologie infra inherent intended involved Jaina answer Jainism Kālidāsa kāraṇāt karma Let me add let me refer look Madras Mahabharata Manusmrti means Mediate Agency merely merit Mokkalan moral mutalāyina natural Nilakēci nonviolence passage past forms person plants question Rāmānuja rationale rebirth rejected Samayadi Samayadivākara Sanskrit Schmithausen sense sentient simply Śiva slain slaying living Srinivasan surely Tamil teaching Tolkāppiyam translation transmissional trees Tyāgarāja validatability Verlag verse violence words worship xvff Yudhisthira இது இனி என்னை கொலை நீ பொருள் போல மாம்ஸம் முதலாயின மென்பது மென்று ள்
Popular passages
Page 93 - What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer'?
Page 91 - A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.
Page xxiv - I am surpriz'd to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation...
Page 95 - In like manner we may infer that, after the birth of animals, plants exist for their sake, and that the other animals exist for the sake of man, the tame for use and food, the wild, if not all, at least the greater part of them, for food, and for the provision of clothing and various instruments.
Page xxiv - In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark'd, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surpriz'd to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, 1 meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not.
Page 85 - It seems to me that we are driven to this, that logicality inexorably requires that our interests shall not be limited. They must not stop at our own fate, but must embrace the whole community. This community, again, must not be limited, but must extend to all races of beings with whom we can come into immediate or mediate intellectual relation. It must reach, however, vaguely, beyond this geological epoch, beyond all bounds.
Page 90 - I have shown you this evening autographic records of the history of stress and strain in the living and non-living. How similar are the writings ! So similar indeed that you cannot tell one apart from the other.
Page 90 - Amongst such phenomena, how can we draw a line of demarcation, and say, here the physical ends, and there the physiological begins?
Page v - If a blind man were to ask me "Have you got two hands?" I should not make sure by looking. If I were to have any doubt of it, then I don't know why I should trust my eyes.
Page 85 - ... immortal he could be perfectly sure of seeing the day when everything in which he had trusted should betray his trust, and, in short, of coming eventually to hopeless misery. He would break down, at last, as every good fortune, as every dynasty, as every civilization does. In place of this we have death. But what, without death, would happen to every man, with death must happen to some man. At the same tune, death makes the number of our risks, of our inferences, finite, and so makes their mean...