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SriRangaSri List Archive: Message 00116 Oct 2003

 
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 Dear friends,
> 
> A collegue of mine at office has a son, Aniruddh,
> studying at 
> Berkeley University, USA. Aniruddh last week sent
> his father via e-
> mail a question about Ethics in Greek and Indian
> philosophy. His 
> father asked me to help him send Aniruddh a proper
> answer. I did 
> manage to draft a response which has since been sent
> to Berkeley.
> 
> Since the subject is of interest to everyone I
> thought it would be 
> appropriate to share it on T'venkatam List also. I
> wonder what 
> members would comment.
> 
> The question was as follows:
> 
> QUOTE
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: <mailto:anirudhv@xxxx>Anirudh
> Vemprala 
> To: <mailto:kanna@xxxx>Kanna Vemprala 
> Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2003 10:51 AM
> Subject: Re: Re:
> 
> i remember that many-a-time you quote telugu quotes
> which involve 
> characters of the great epics (or sometimes things
> from nature - 
> involving animals or something) - remember? 
> u told me that your dad used to say
> somethingsomethinsomething in 
> telugu and then u'd translate it for me and then
> tell me what it 
> meant. i was just wondering: what role did that play
> (quotes 
> pertaining/related or from the epics) in describing
> things like 
> ethics and moral principles, in your childhood?
> 
> my prof says that the hindu philosophy doens't have
> a "system of 
> ethics" like the greeks did. i felt this was wrong,
> but i didn't 
> challenge him cuz i dont know much of Platonic
> system of ethics & the 
> related.
> i told him that i didn't agree since a lot of the
> stuff in the gita 
> has "ethical" discussions like when arjuna didn't
> want to kill his 
> own brothers, krishna has to convince him that it
> was alright. but he 
> said that differed greatly from the greek idea. but
> hmm.. he might 
> have had a point since he said "system of ethics".
> but i duno..
> 
> any comments?
> 
> @ni-cat
> 
> <<<<UNQUOTE
> 
> Now my answer to the above was as follows and as it
> was transmitted 
> by my office colleague to his son in Berkeley:
> 
> QUOTE
> 
> Dear Kanna,
> 
> Another good question your son has posed to you and
> I'm not surprised 
> he's got you stumped! I think you should temporarily
> throw all office 
> work aside and instead take a crash-course on Indian
> religion, 
> philosophy and history! Otherwise I think Aniruddh
> is going to shame 
> you more and more as the days go along!!
> 
> I don't know what exactly Aniruddh's teacher is
> telling him about 
> Greek "system of ethics" but I suspect it is to do
> with the Platonic 
> insistence that Ethics and Morals can be a subject
> of inquiry quite 
> independent of the subject of religion. The ancient
> Greeks believed 
> that human ethics/morality can be derived without
> reference to any 
> religious/philosophical/theological underpinning.
> According to Plato, 
> a "system of ethics" can be founded purely on
> Rationality. It was 
> believed that Man's Reason or Reasonability alone
> can teach him what 
> is good conduct, fair behaviour and how to create
> the ideal society. 
> The argument was -- you do not need Religion or any
> theistic belief-
> system to tell you what is good morals or ethics.
> For e.g. Honesty is 
> a good ethical standard for humans to abide by. Our
> Reason alone 
> gives us many reasons why Honesty is such a
> desirable social 
> practice amongst members of a society. We do not
> require religious 
> authority to tell us that Honesty is indeed a
> virtue.
> 
> At the core of the Platonic system of ethics, hence,
> is the belief 
> that the Reasonable Man is also an Ethical Man.
> 
> The Indian view of ethics/morality is no less a
> "system of thought" 
> than the Platonic one but it is not so clearly
> distinct or so 
> completely divorced from religious thought as the
> Greek system is. 
> That is because we Indians derive our ethics not
> only from Reason but 
> from a much higher basis viz. a theistic outook in
> life. 
> 
> We believe that Reason is an essential but not
> sufficient basis for a 
> system of ethics. Reason, after all, is only one of
> Man's many 
> wonderful but nonetheless frail faculties. Our
> faculties often fail 
> us. And sometimes our self-interest is so powerful
> that we are driven 
> to act in ways that would be utterly un-reasonable
> but yet perfectly 
> acceptable to us. Often, we will come up with
> elegant moral 
> justifications for the most unreasonable deed of
> ours as long as our 
> self-interest is well served. M.K.Gandhi put it very
> beautifully:
> 
> "Satan mostly employs comparatively moral
> instruments and the 
> language of ethics to give his aims an air of
> respectability."
> 
> The Indian (or Hindu) system of ethics is
> inseparable from religious 
> thought and feelings. Central to this ethical system
> is the concept 
> of "dharma" -- Righteousness. This Righteousness is
> a universal 
> concept. Dharma is a very profound and powerful idea
> that is founded 
> in ancient Vedantic thought. It is the central
> subject of the 
> Bhagavath-gita. 'Dharma' forms a much more
> comprehensive and holistic 
> basis on which rests not only the entire gamut of
> social ethics, 
> polity and government but also individual morality,
> relationships 
> and responsibilty. 
> 
> We believe this "Dharma" is the Voice of God ('Vox
> Dei') as echoed in 
> the eternal strains of the Vedic "sruti". For us
> Indians, an ethical 
> value must not only be reasonable but also transcend
> time, space and 
> circumstance. Where else but in divine revelation
> can such a lofty 
> ethical system be found? Another name for our Vedic
> religion 
> is "sanAtana dharma" -- 'sanAtana' means eternal,
> universal; 
> and "dharma" means Law, Ethics or Principle. Our
> 'dhArmic system of 
> ethics' is thus one founded on the first-principles
> of life, nature, 
> of creation and the cosmos. It is founded on a
> natural order that is 
> far higher than and quite independent of the human
> condition, affairs 
> or preference.
> 
> This is the reason why the Indian Vedic system of
> "dharmic" ethics is 
> more profound than the wholly Reason-centric
> Platonic one. Once 
> again, no one could have said it all better than
> Mahatma Gandhi who 
> 
=== message truncated === 

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