Naturalism in Indian Ethics: Sāmkhya, Jainism and Buddhism

Abstract

In the Indian context, the idea of society or community is extended to the entire living world. Moral relationships are thoughtfully extended to animals and plants by virtue of the benefits received from them and the services rendered by them. This chapter attempts to show that there are well-established ethical theories which explain meaningful co-variance between the naturalistic and the normative perspectives. For instance, Sāmkhya and Buddhist theories of ethics take nature to be the point of departure for their highly persuasive and plausible deliberations on morality and end up with a systematic formulation of moral codes and theories of moral conduct and moral ideals, even while scrupulously avoiding the domains of belief in God or self or soul. Like the other Indian philosophical schools, the Sāmkhya school considers the existence of suffering to be a great moral evil. However, complete freedom from it can be acquired when one attains liberation. Attachment to worldly things and worldliness is the cause of suffering or bondage. The way to attain freedom is to get rid of the attachment to worldly things. In this sense, early Buddhism is similar to Sāmkhya. The summum bonum in Sāmkhya, Buddhism, and Jainism is conceived as a total turning away from life which is conceived as full of suffering. All three deny the existence of God and the authority of Vedic texts. –We can see a clear similarity between the Sāmkhya notion of suffering and the notion of ‘Dukha’ in Buddhism and Jainism as pivotal for deliberations to work out a theory of liberation. In all the three systems, liberation can be attained by morally elevated persons.