The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy states-
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) argued that the supreme principle of morality is a principle of practical rationality that he dubbed the “Categorical Imperative” (CI). Kant characterized the CI as an objective, rationally necessary and unconditional principle that we must follow despite any natural desires we may have to the contrary.
if we are truly autonomous and rational. Kant wasn't saying a heteronomous person (e.g. a slave, a woman, or a Chinese dude) or an irrational person ( e.g. a big fat nigger- like Professor Anton Wilhelm Amo, a Ghanaian who held Professorships of Philosophy at Halle and Jena back when Kant was a kid) must, or could, follow any fucking unconditional principles whatsoever.
All specific moral requirements, according to Kant, are justified by this principle, which means that all immoral actions are irrational because they violate the CI.
In other words CI is an axiom of any deontic system whose 'model' specifies a particular moral requirement. A moral theory (or philosophy) is a tool to accept or reject such deontic systems or, rather, their 'structure' in deontic logic. Iff deontic logic is 'rational' Kant is halfway home. Sadly, if Darwin, not Deuteronomy, better represents the facts of the case for our species, Kant is halfway to the madness that would claim that great mind.
Other philosophers, such as Hobbes, Locke and Aquinas, had also argued that moral requirements are based on standards of rationality.
Because, either God is rational or else it is natural for those who survive and thrive to have done things reason explains.
However, these standards were either instrumental principles of rationality for satisfying one’s desires,
or just surviving
as in Hobbes, or external rational principles that are discoverable by reason, as in Locke and Aquinas.
both of whom understood that survival is based on a rational 'economia'- which though mysterious (like the invisible hand)- keeps the Eschaton, or Anarchy, at bay. An example of a law code which appeared 'natural' rather than 'positive' (i.e. based on the King's command) was the Lex Mercatoria of the merchants.
Kant agreed with many of his predecessors that an analysis of practical reason reveals the requirement that rational agents must conform to instrumental principles. Yet he also argued that conformity to the CI (a non-instrumental principle), and hence to moral requirements themselves, can nevertheless be shown to be essential to rational agency.
He hoped that his argument was 'prescriptive'- i.e. those who heard it would have an incentive to act in accordance with it. Kant was a careful thinker. He wasn't setting himself up as the new Moses.
This argument was based on his striking doctrine that a rational will must be regarded as autonomous, or free, in the sense of being the author of the law that binds it.
Though sovereignty is precisely that which can't bind itself. It has an 'immunity' in that respect. Thus Kant was really talking about a type of 'beamten' or civil servant like himself who anticipates what the Enlightened Despot wants rather than waits for orders. In modern H.R jargon, such a person is a 'self-starter'- i.e shows initiative so as to implement the enterprise's Mission.
The fundamental principle of morality — the CI — is none other than the law of an autonomous will.
But, if that will is sovereign, it won't be bound by it. Autonomy is less than Sovereignty. This is not Libertarianism or the doctrine of self-ownership. It is 'Beamtenliberalismus' or the Liberalism of the officials employed by the Enlightened Despot.
Thus, at the heart of Kant’s moral philosophy is a conception of reason whose reach in practical affairs goes well beyond that of a Humean ‘slave’ to the passions.
No. At its heart is a sweet and nice version of Nazi 'Fuhrerprinzip' such that Civil Servants wouldn't wait for the 'word' but autonomously seek to fulfil the will of the Fuhrer.
Moreover, it is the presence of this self-governing reason in each person that Kant thought offered decisive grounds for viewing each as possessed of equal worth and deserving of equal respect.
He didn't think women and darkies and proles and peasants and barnyard animals deserved shit though no doubt you could get more work out of them by refraining from beating or buggering them to death.
Kant holds that the fundamental principle of our moral duties is a categorical imperative.
i.e. every theory regarding specific moral duties binding on a particular class has CI as one of its axiom. Moreover, CI is unique in that respect. Thus, if every 'true' moral theory, or every concrete model available for the evaluation of a theory (which is a tool to accept or reject a system or structure), is found to have CI as a fundamental axiom or Archimedian point, then, clearly, CI is actually 'categorical'.
Kant, as I have said, was a careful thinker. He understood that a 'categorical imperative' might not be (at least, first order) complete. Moreover, he had an inkling of problems with 'naturality' (Hume too had come to this realisation) and thus really wasn't saying any of the things attributed to him by later, stupider, pedants.
It is an imperative because it is a command
No. A command is 'positive' not categorical. Suppose your small child says 'Daddy I love you. Please don't smoke. I don't want you to die of cancer. Also it makes you smell bad and I don't like it when you kiss me.' Is this a command? No. Kids can't command big fat men. But it has greater 'imperative' force than a threat from your boss to sack you if you keep sloping off for a sly ciggie or, even, a dire warning from your GP.
addressed to agents who could follow it but might not (e.g. , “Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”). It is categorical in virtue of applying to us unconditionally,
Lots of things, e.g. the Law of Gravity, apply to us unconditionally but they are neither categorical nor imperative. Kant is here being mangled by lesser minds.
or simply because we possesses rational wills,
possession isn't use. Lots of peeps with dicks or vaginas don't use them for pleasure, or to create joy.
without reference to any ends that we might or might not have.
Like Kant's phenomenology, which was shit because he couldn't have predicted an Einstein would show Newton was wrong, Kant's teleology was shit because he couldn't have predicted that Biology too would have its Newton- whose name was Charles Darwin. He wrote that it would be “absurd for human beings…to hope that there may yet arise a Newton who could make conceivable even so much as the production of a blade of grass according to natural laws which no intention has ordered.'
It does not, in other words, apply to us on the condition that we have antecedently adopted some goal for ourselves.
No. It only applies to us if we believe CI is a rational argument and our goal is to act rationally. Kant wasn't stupid. He wasn't saying that his King was, or could be deemed to be, 'irrational'. Like other backward, beamten, German importers of Scottish 'common sense', Kant was defending the autonomy (i.e. 'self-starter' type superior obedience) of the class his task it was to educate or otherwise inspire.
There are “oughts” other than our moral duties, according to Kant, but these oughts are distinguished from the moral ought in being based on a quite different kind of principle, one that is the source of hypothetical imperatives.
The fact that a Professor (who was a 'beamten' or Civil Servant in Prussia- which is why Einstein was regarded as a German citizen by the German State while he held a Professorship in Berlin- is a Kantian doesn't mean he is likely to disobey a hypothetical successor to the King who wants to kill Jews and convert Universities into Military training camps.
A hypothetical imperative is a command that also applies to us in virtue of our having a rational will, but not simply in virtue of this.
We might say there is an 'uncorrelated asymmetry'- e.g. being born a subject of the Hohenzollerns. For Kant, this 'oikeiosis' gives rise to an 'end' it would be irrational not to have. Also, you could be killed if you didn't. To preserve conatus, you have to have the end associated with your 'oikeiosis' otherwise Kingji may fuck you over but good.
It requires us to exercise our wills in a certain way given we have antecedently willed an end.
No. Kant just says that we could have done so. Obviously, if you are a subject of the Prussian King, it would be pretty fucking irrational not to do what he wanted- unless you had made arrangements to flee Prussian realms and had got British residency or Swiss citizenship for yourself and your family.
A hypothetical imperative is thus a command in a conditional form. But not any command in this form counts as a hypothetical imperative in Kant’s sense. For instance, “if you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands!” is a conditional command.
Nonsense! It is purely phatic. It isn't a command at all.
But the antecedent conditions under which the command “clap your hands” applies to you do not posit any end that you will, but consist rather of emotional and cognitive states you may or may not be in. Further, “if you want pastrami, try the corner deli” is also a command in conditional form,
Nope. It is alethic and informative.
but strictly speaking it too fails to be a hypothetical imperative in Kant’s sense since this command does not apply to us in virtue of our willing some end, but only in virtue of our desiring or wanting an end.
wanting pastrami aint an 'end'. It is a fucking 'preference'. That is all.
For Kant, willing an end involves more than desiring; it requires actively choosing or committing to the end rather than merely finding oneself with a passive desire for it.
Contextually, yes. But that context is guys who read books by stupid pedants, not those whose power and will are of a sort much superior and efficacious- i.e. the Princes and Prelates the beamten class served.
Further, there is nothing irrational in failing to will means to what one desires.
Your flunkeys can figure that shit out by themselves on pain of being hanged, drawn and quartered.
An imperative that applied to us in virtue of our desiring some end would thus not be a hypothetical imperative of practical rationality in Kant’s sense.
Only because no actual imperative was at work. Kant could be quite scrupulous in his thinking but, because of his geographical location and social background, could only replace dogmatic slumber with dogmatic 'wokeness' of an Enlightened- i.e. racist, misogynistic, sort.
Against Kant, who said that a nigger who said something sensible (i.e. misogynistic) was nevertheless stupid coz his skin was black, you have Lord Krishna (Krishna means 'black skinned') whose 'Celestial Song' gained increasing salience in a Europe sundered from Kant's cant by Darwin's 'dangerous idea'.
The Mahabharata is unusual in that though based on Iron Age Epic material, it draws on a sophisticated 'Sanhkya' tradition of what we would call 'discrete math'. In particular, the Just King, in order to overcome Vishada (Depression or Abulia) has learn statistical game theory in the Nalophkyana episode. The Bhagvad Gita, which deals with the method by which Krishna enables Arjuna to overcome Vishada, is the dual of the Vyadha Gita and the Nalophphyanam taken together.
Sadly, nobody else seems to have noticed this.
Amber Carpenter, a visiting Professor at Kings writes-
Questioning Kṛṣṇa’s Kantianism
Krishna is the God of an occasionalist Universe in which he is the only efficient cause. But is he what Brouwer might call a 'creating subject' and is his 'choice sequence' lawless? If it isn't, then is Krishna himself constrained to follow some rule? If so, Krishna isn't just recommending a 'deontological course of action to Arjuna- viz. do your duty- he is himself performing a duty. Perhaps this involves ensuring that karma and dharma are 'conserved' (Noetheran) properties of the system. This view is rejected by the Mahabharata. Karma and Dharma are sublatable 'Maya' or illusion. This does not mean the Theistic or 'Dualist' path is necessarily inferior. If you are a Theist by nature (that is your 'svadharma') that is your good fortune.
Indeed, if Krishna's 'choice sequence' is 'lawless', God may grant you all sorts of goodies purely gratuitiously and as a matter of Grace. Sadly, the true Vaishnav doesn't want Heaven or super-powers or omniscience or any Liberation from the cycle of re-birth. They simply want to serve the Lord through an infinite sequence of lives.
It has been claimed
by Bengali cretins
that we are best off seeing Kṛṣṇa—at least as he is depicted in his conversation with Arjuna in the Bhagavadgītā—as a sort of deontologist, an extreme sort. As the prince Arjuna’s confidante and advisor,
Krishna is Arjuna's charioteer. It is his duty to keep up Arjuna's fighting spirit.
Kṛṣṇa insists that Arjuna enter into battle with his brothers, against their half-brothers and teachers who have usurped the throne.
No. They gained the Pandava's territories and are refusing to hand it back.
Like Kant, Kṛṣṇa speaks in terms of duties—duties whose claim on us cannot be over-ridden by any other sort of consideration.
Except quitting your job and deciding to be a 'Principal' rather than an 'Agent'.
I want to dispute this characterisation of Kṛṣṇa, firstly, to contest the interpretation of the niṣkāma karma (desireless action) principle on which the charge of deontology rests.
There is no duty to perform your duty dispassionately. Krishna merely says that the influx of karma binding particles is stopped if the thing is done dispassionately. If your job is to kill but you take no pleasure in it, it is less likely that your ethos will be affected.
But I want to dispute it also, and more importantly, because I think Kṛṣṇa’s moral voice is rather more rich and interesting than our classifications of “deontological” and “consequentialist” (even broad consequentialist) allow.
It is a loving and affectionate voice. Moral voices tend to be boring and scoldy.
I. NIṢKĀMA KARMA The best case to be made in favor of Kṛṣṇa as a deontologist is his support of the view famously articulated in that part of the Mahābhārata excised and treated separately as the Bhagavadgītā.
Nope. It is the dual of the Vyadha Gita which treats of the dharma of the Principal (more particularly in relation to dependents) , not the Agent.
A considerable portion of the Gītā dwells on the principle that one should not act with a view to the fruits of one’s labors. “Work alone is your proper business, never the fruits: let not your motive be the fruit of works ...” (II.47).2 Isolated from its epic context, and developed as an independent view, this principle has indeed acquired, as Amartya Sen writes, “great theological importance.”
In other words, don't kill people because you like killing or so as to steal their nice shiny stuff. If you are a soldier and it is your duty to fight with the result that your adversary might be killed, then you are welcome to keep the wage you get. Just don't have an orgasm every time you stick your sword into the enemy's guts. The thing is unseemly.
Is this view—niṣkāma karma, that perfect action is not done with a view to the fruits—rightly regarded as “high deontology”?
Nope. It is context specific. If your job is to pick fruit and your payment is eating some of the fruit you picked, you are welcome to relish that fruit.
Even where “deontology” need have nothing in particular to do with Kant’s arguments, but has rather to do with a hostility to consequentialist thinking—“doing one’s duty irrespective of consequences” —
is itself consequentialist if you can quit your job or decide to follow some other way of life with different duties. Krishna isn't saying 'soldiers can't decide to become ascetics or farmers etc.' After all, his own elder brother decided to quit the battlefield while he himself has the epithet 'the one who fled the battlefield.' Obviously, the consequence of people not doing what they are paid to do, would be bad.
I think the answer is “no.”
Carpenter studies ancient texts. She does not read modern nonsense into them. Good for her.
Questioning Kṛṣṇa’s Kantianism In order to count as deontological, in the strongest sense, the niṣkāma karma ideal would have to be interpreted as advising that we act (rightly) when we act without any regard for what any of the consequences are.
No. 'Do your duty dispassionately' could be deontological. Thus a guy who is enjoying eating the mango he plucked as part of his duty could be scolded by his boss who says to him 'it is a condition of your enjoyment that you make a wry face when eating this mango. That way mango thieves will be deterred. You have failed in your duty.'
But this is not, in fact, what Kṛṣṇa says. In fact, Kṛṣṇa says, “... so unattached, should the wise man do, longing to bring about the welfare [and coherence] of the world” (III.25).
In other words, the 'wise man' should pursue his own soteriological self-interest. If he takes pleasure or feels repugnance in the course of doing his duty, he may suffer an influx of karma binding particles or otherwise incur karmic consequences. The doctrine here is that there is a way to live in the world without forfeiting the karmic benefits of renouncing it.
When acting well, we should after all have an eye on some consequences
because one's duty is only properly performed in a thoughtful and well considered manner.
—on just the sort of impersonally considered, overall, sorts of consequences familiar from classical consequentialism. The injunction to “act, longing to bring about the welfare of the world” is a strikingly utilitarian attitude.
In context, it is psychological. The ancients weren't stupid. They knew 'Knightian uncertainty' exists. We don't know the consequences of our actions. All we can do is exercise 'due diligence' and foresight.
There is some way that it would be good for the world to be, and good action is that which arises out of a desire to make the world better than it is.
This does not follow. Good actions can arise without any desire whatsoever. If we had omniscience and did whatever was required to promote an optimal trajectory, then we would be following a canonical or 'natural' path. Intentionality would be otiose.
Krishna is merely pointing to a psychological 'cure' for 'vishada' or abulia.
Kṛṣṇa, however, does not quite say that this end-state is what I should look to when considering whether an action is right or wrong, good or bad.
Because the 'end state' is computationally intractable- perhaps even for an omniscient being. We may speak of 'the end of mathematical time' but that is exponential to the lifetime of the multi-verse.
In fact, as we shall see more closely later on, Kṛṣṇa’s view as the Gītā develops is disturbingly free from any useful or practical advice for distinguishing right acts from wrong, disturbing especially when what is at stake is whether or not to wage war on one’s power-hungry brethren.
But, over the course of the Mahabharata, Krishna reveals that he has a plan. Sadly, this involves the killing of nice guys like Ghatotkacha.
But however we are to discern right from wrong action, it is at least clear that Kṛṣṇa’s endorsement of niṣkāma karma
for a psychological reason. Ancient Indians weren't stupid. They knew it was fine to enjoy eating a mango even if your job as mango-taster made eating mangoes your duty. Still, if you actually wanted to be an ascetic, there was a workaround so you didn't have to quit your day-job and join the long queue of ascetics (a.k.a bums) waiting for a Himalayan cave to become vacant.
does not rest on a rejection of all consequences as informing the rightness or wrongness of an act. His point is rather that I must act, if I am to act well, without concern for whether the consequences benefi t me. “Hold pleasure and pain, profit and loss, victory and defeat to be the same” (II.38). I must not look to whether I get some profit from the act. I should not, when considering how to act, be looking for rewards—“Be without personal aspirations or concern for possessions, and fight unconcernedly” (III.30).
This is good advise for warriors. You have to stay alert rather than jizz every time you shove your spear into a guy's guts.
Now this looks deontological inasmuch as Kant, for example, argued vehemently that acting for the sake of reward—for the sake of mere happiness—destroys the moral worth of an act.
Hinduism agrees that moral or spiritual worth can only be gained if an action is gratuitous and promotes no utilitarian end. But that's obvious. Only kids are told they are good little boys or girls if they do potty.
Personal gain as a motivation extinguishes whatever was especially “morally” good in the action.
More especially if that gain is reputational. You should have done good with more stealth.
One might think this Kantian view of the fragility (and exclusivity) of moral worth implausibly hard.
But it is 'common sense'. Sooner or later some one will point out you gained a benefit by doing good. Only if this is not the case- indeed, could never be the case- that we can say the act was morally good (unless of course, it was done accidentally or with some other purpose in mind). It is often forgotten that Kant's deduction are not 'natural' they are juristic- i.e. you have to provide grounds for why the relevant concept applies.
For if I return the wallet in order to get the reward, it still seems something good was done, and I did the right thing, even if it was a less than perfect act; and if that greengrocer prices his goods fairly because he knows that he can only retain customers if he builds their trust, there is something good—even morally, not merely instrumentally good, or pleasant—in his fair pricing policy.
We may give the benefit of the doubt to either side. Something more is needed for a deduction or judicial decision.
CONCEPTIONS OF VIRTUE But when Kṛṣṇa advocates acting without a view to rewards, he does not seem to be endorsing something even so strong as the hard-hearted view outlined above, that there is no worth in action done for the sake of reward.
The problem with this view is that we know Krishna will egg on Arjuna to kill his true eldest brother, Karna, while in the grip of 'Manyu' (dark anger). On the other hand, the Bhagvad Gita explains why the 'Vyadha' (butcher) suffers no ill effects despite his profession being synonymous with either brutality or (assuming he is a meat vendor) fraudulent business practices. This solves the puzzle of why some ordinary people- carters, house-wives, butchers etc.- could be 'jivan-mukta'.
To be clear, the Hindu view is that moral or spiritual worth arises from gratuitous or non-utilitarian actions. These could be ritual in nature (karma-kanda).
This will be partly because “worth” is not divided between moral and non-moral: If an action is to retain any worth, it will be also moral worth, or it will be as much distinctively “moral” worth as the fully perfect action.
This does not follow. An act can be factorized in various ways. Suppose we see a Corporation donate a million pounds to a good cause. On studying their financials, we might find that they gains 100,000 of consumer goodwill, 200,000 of share value appreciation, 300, 000 of political or other reputational benefit. 400,000 is 'moral worth' or would be if there wasn't a tax write off. Still, the Company promoter may genuinely support the good cause and perhaps 100,000 represents 'moral worth'.
But the niṣkāma karma view remains deontological in its emphasis on the importance of motivation.
Motivation is psychological. It is not deontic unless there is a specific rule or requirement such that you are not allowed to show emotion while doing your duty in which cases you should try to be dispassionate- or appear so.
A selfishly motivated act may be a somewhat good one, or the partially right thing to do; but non-selfish motivation invariably issues in better action.
Nonsense! You hire a guy who wants to get paid for fixing your toilet. A guy with a non-selfish motivation may be a shitty plumber.
दूरेण ह्यवरं कर्म बुद्धियोगाद्धनञ्जय |“The act as such is far inferior to the application of singleness of purpose to it” (II.49).
बुद्धौ शरणमन्विच्छ कृपणा: फलहेतव: ||
Right motivation alone always improves the quality of an act;
It is generally irrelevant.
but whether or not a motivation is right is determined in part by which sorts of consequences one looks to in deciding what to do.
It is subjectively determined. The fact is, if you take a dump you must also have the right motivation to do so- viz. to advance the cause of Socioproctology by expelling turds- otherwise you are merely shitting rather than participating in the battle against Neo-Liberalism.
There might be two reasons one might invoke to support this claim that right motivation always improves the quality of an act.
Both are stupid.
Non-selfish motivation might issue invariably in better action
They don't. That's why markets work.
because there is some special, intrinsic goodness to non-selfish motivations.
Subjectively, there may be. I like to think that every body, when taking a dump, is motivated purely by the desire to advance the cause of Socioproctology- more particularly if they are elephants.
All non-selfishly motivated action includes the fact that there has been some non-selfish motivation going on, and this is good in itself.
Nonsense. A guy who non-selfishly chops you into pieces is not, in your eyes, doing something good in itself.
Or, one might think that non-selfish motivation invariably issues in better action because it is only freedom from interest in reward that helps one to see clearly what is in fact to be done—what one’s duties in fact are and/or what overall state-of-affairs would be preferred.
This is why, when the police really want to catch a bad guy, they refuse to offer a reward. Most crimes are actually solved by rabbits which, famously, lack any selfish desire to gain fame as detectives.
I think the latter is a preferable way of reading the niṣkāma karma doctrine,
perhaps because the Professor is actually a rabbit.
and shall have more to say about this later.
It would put Kṛṣṇa, and the principle of niṣkāma karma, neither in the deontological nor the consequentialist camp.
The thing is psychological or part of a pep talk. Mummy says to the kid with exam nerves 'Darling, don't worry about passing or failing. Just do your best. Daddy and me couldn't be more proud of you.'
If we are looking for post-Enlightenment bedfellows, the principle of non-selfi sh action taken on its own bears more similarity to impersonalist doctrines of all sorts than it bears to deontology in particular.
Not in this context. Krishna was giving Arjuna a pep talk because that was his duty as Arjuna's charioteer.
If fact, I think this resemblance is also illusory, and perhaps more misleading than helpful, if we are to see what is philosophically engaging in the conversation between Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna,
There is an open problem in Math re. the possibility of a wholly 'lawless' choice sequence. If an 'absolute proof' exists, or there is a 'natural proof' that P is not equal to NP, then maybe this is 'decidable'. Otherwise, all we can say is that the Bhagvad Gita is the dual of the Vyadha Gita. Just as, in the latter case, we don't know what type of game theory is needful for the Principal, so too in the former case we don't what is the substantive ethical doctrine associated with dispelling the vishada of the Agent. All we can say is that God has promised to take on the sins of omission or commission of his devotees provided they do their duty dispassionately.
in the early chapters of the Bhagavadgītā. But before considering this, we should look at Arjuna’s arguments against going into battle.
That is easily done. He foresees the outcome perhaps because of the Gandharva's gift of caksushi vidya.
II. ARJUNA’S NON-CONSEQUENTIALISM There is something else wrong with the picture of Kṛṣṇa as the arch-deontologist, oblivious to consequences, trying to persuade a consequence-sensitive Arjuna to fight.
Krishna took the job of charioteer which involved a duty of keeping up the martial spirit of the archer.
While it is true that Kṛṣṇa recommends that Arjuna fight because it is his duty, Arjuna’s reluctance to fight is equally based on a sense of duty.
No. It is based on affiliation or oikeiosis.
In fact, he is eager to clarify that it is not consequences that he has in mind when he considers whether the war is right: “I do not long for victory,” he says, “nor for the kingdom nor yet for things of pleasure” (I.32), “I do not want to kill them, though they be killers, Madhusūdana, even for the sovereignty of the three worlds, let alone earth!” (I.35)—all of these being the best possible consequences that could come from war, from Arjuna’s point of view.
This is silly. The Hindu audience knows that Arjuna had refused the gift of chaksushi vidya though, if he ceased to be master of himself, it might vest in him. But such faery gifts can be mischievous. The dramatic tension in the Gita has to do with the way a bad outcome is averted so that the worst outcome is achieved- viz. Arjuna ending up killing his true eldest brother. Recall, there would have been no war had Karna disclosed the truth of his birth.
He is duty-bound—in fact, everyone is duty-bound—not to wage war on their teachers, elders, and brethren.
No. But the Pandavas would have been duty bound not to wage war on their true eldest brother- if that is what Karna wanted.
“For, Kṛṣṇa, were we to lay low our own folk, how could we be happy? And even if, bereft of sense by greed, they cannot see that to ruin a family is wickedness and to break one’s word a crime, how should we not be wise enough to shun this evil thing, for we clearly see that to ruin a family is wickedness” (I.37–39). Arjuna is not just expressing a preference, reluctant to face up to a rather unpleasant but (morally) necessary task—giving an honest opinion of an elderly aunt’s hideous hat, or telling the axe-wielding psychopath at the door where to find the kids.
Arjuna is expressing oikeiosis or the kin-selective altruism of the Price equation.
Arjuna counters Kṛṣṇa’s claim that it is his duty to fight with the counterclaim that it is equally, or more, his duty not to fight.
Only if he decides to become a Principal, rather than an Agent of his, supposed, eldest brother.
“We have no right to kill the sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra and their kin” (I.37).
There is no 'right to kill' though there may be an immunity for doing so.
Arjuna appeals to very general—universalisable—claims about what is to be done and not to be done.
No. He expresses his own feelings. The audience speculates whether this is because of the Gandharva's gift.
It is not his duty in particular, but everyone’s duty to refrain from waging war on one’s family and teachers.
No. Everybody has an immunity against being killed though this immunity is defeasible. It is foolish to say that a person has a duty to refrain from shitting on the head of their Mathematics tutor even if that is what inevitably happens.
Waging war on one’s family is not to be done—ever, by anyone.
No. It is licit to do so in self defense or because you have chosen a side in a properly regulated battle.
The point is cast in quite impersonal terms at I.40 ff., concluding with Arjuna’s dismay that “we have resolved to commit a great crime as we stand ready to kill family out of greed for kingship and pleasures” (I.45).
This is his subjective feeling. I may say it is a hideous crime to take as shit without having the correct motivation- viz. to advance the cause of Socioproctology- but this does not mean there is actually any such crime. My statement is imperative, not alethic.
And a few lines later, Arjuna says, “Better were it here on Earth to eat a beggar’s food than to slay [our] teachers” (II.5).11
Also, don't shit on their heads even if they are trying to teach you fucking Trigonometry.
Finally, in an argument typically invoked against consequentialists, Arjuna adds, “Besides, we do not know which is for us the better part, whether that we should win the victory or that they should conquer us” (II.6). Since both the actual consequences, and the relative value of various consequences is not something we can judge in advance (or perhaps at all), we must, in deciding what to do, stick to certain principles.
or personal preferences or subjective feelings.
If we still thought Kṛṣṇa was a deontologist, it might look now as if we’ve got two arch-Kantians on our hands, locked in dispute over just which maxim, in this particular instance, can in fact be willed universally without contradiction.
That maxim would be 'no maxim fits all cases. Let the one which has bigger salience swallow up all those which are lesser'. This is the Mimamsa maxim of 'matsanayaya'.
Such disputes can certainly arise, even in the Kantian moral world in which only the possible can be morally necessary;
We don't what is possible.
Kant’s description—or rather re-description—of moral dilemmas as the confl ict between a “ground” for action (Ross’s “prima facia duties”) and an actual reason (determining a moral duty) would make such a dispute, in certain circumstances, likely.
This is certainly true of judicial decisions but only because they are protocol bound in a particular manner. There is no reason that we should judge things in that manner unless we are actual judges or fulfilling a judicial capacity. Similarly, if we are acting as agents, we may be obliged to offer justifications which would not be required of us if we are principals. It is this which gives a spurious similarity to Krishna's canto & Kant's cant.
Sometimes, some thing has all the look of a moral duty, but it is not one.
It may be that all apparent moral duties are delusory or, at the least, purely subjective.
And it is natural to suppose that disputes would in such cases arise—what else could be the point of exercising public reason?
Solving collective action problems on the basis of superior Structural Causal Models. Not scolding each other or engaging in the moral equivalent of a cat fight.
Yet if we consider further the progression of the discussion between Arjuna and Kṛṣṇa, we have reason to doubt whether this is a battle between two deontologists over what is morally required,
there is no battle. Arjuna wants to receive instruction in Yoga from the Lord of Yoga. This is what he gets. The cherry on top is theophany.
reasons that go beyond our interpretation of the niṣkāma karma principle.
Which does not greatly matter. It's just the old chestnut that ' Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, Makes that and th' action fine'. You don't, like the Buddha, have to run away from your wife and baby son. You can stay at home, do your duty, and still achieve a like Liberation.
III. DIVINE COMMAND—A CAVEAT, AND RESTATEMENT OF THE PUZZLE In describing “Kṛṣṇa’s view” in the Mahābhārata, and particularly in the Bhagavadgītā, I shall be considering primarily the first few chapters of the discussion between Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna—I shall be considering, that is, those chapters in which there is something resembling a discussion.
This is foolish. By the time a Hindu is old enough to appreciate the Gita, they are thoroughly familiar with the story as a whole. In particular, they remember that a Gandharva had given the boon of 'chaksushi vidya'- the ability to picture anything you want in any way you want- to Arjuna who refused it. But the Gandharva didn't take it back...
In so doing, I will be setting aside several chapters in which something with perhaps more right to be called “Kṛṣṇa’s view” is developed. In order to explain why, I shall summarize the remainder of the Gītā, as it relates to the pressing question: Should Arjuna do battle against his wicked kin?
We know that isn't the real issue since Karna is the true eldest brother- if he wants to be. The question arises- does Kunti, or some other person in the know (e.g. Krishna) bear 'war guilt'? Also, shouldn't the Pandavas done 'oppo research' on their enemies during the course of which they would have discovered the secret of Karna's paternity? One may even say, they were deficient in that instinct by which one is bound to those near in blood. Perhaps, this was because there was some defect in their piety.
Kṛṣṇa’s first attempt to give Arjuna a reason to fight relies on the immortality and unparalleled value of the soul. The soul is eternal, and it alone has value—therefore, we should not fear killing someone, since after all we do his immortal soul no harm.
Krishna can't take the obvious course which is to say 'don't be so cock-sure! Bhimsha and Kripa can only die according to their own wish. Concentrate on keeping them from slaughtering your people. Victory or defeat is in the hands of God.' This is because Krishna has omniscience and knows that Arjuna, thanks to the Gandharva's gift, could gain a limited version of it, if he wishes to do so while 'asvamika'- i.e. not the master of himself (in which case the Gandharva's boon can vest).
“The wise are not sorry for either the living or the dead. Never was there a time when I did not exist, or you, or these kings, nor shall any of us cease to exist hereafter” (II.11–12).
Like the notion that none die save when their time has come, this reassures the warrior that, in reality, he is invulnerable, till Destiny decrees otherwise. The alternative involves shitting your pants.
Arjuna is rightly dissatisfied with this response to the problem. For even if it makes it the case that killing one’s kin, or anyone else, does not annihilate them, neither is it a strong argument in favor of such a course of action.
There is no 'strong argument' for killing one's kin or, even, shitting on the head of your Math tutor.
Arjuna notes that if the soul generally is supremely valuable, then far from giving reason to fight, Kṛṣṇa has given Arjuna reason to devote himself to the life of the mind. “If you think that the soul is loftier than the acts,” he asks, “then why do you command me to do a cruel deed?” (III.1)
It was Krishna's duty as a charioteer to keep up Arjuna's morale as a soldier. The alternative was to let the fellow shit his pants and run away.
Kṛṣṇa responds by introducing the principle of niṣkāma karma.
Only in the restricted context of a 'role-model' or target for Tardean mimetics. If the guy everybody imitates shows that he does something or wears something or eats something without any partiality or attachment to it, then it is de rigueur. It would be a faux pas to omit doing that thing.
And he grounds the value of detached action (at least in part) in the fact that this is the sort of action God engages in. “In the three worlds there is nothing that I need do,” says Kṛṣṇa, “nor anything unattained that I need to gain, yet action [is the element] in which I move” (III.22).
This is to jump the gun somewhat. Krishna does not reveal his divinity till the next chapter. Here, Krishna is merely saying that he is perfectly free and has no fear of Hell or desire for Heaven. But he is a role model. He does his duty so others will do theirs.
And further, Kṛṣṇa argues that while He has done the work of establishing the order of the universe (especially the social order), “I am the doer, [the agent]” and yet “[I am] the Changeless One who does not do [or act]. Actions never affect Me. I have no yearning for their fruits ... Knowing this the ancients too did act, though seeking release: so do you act as the ancients did in the days of old” (IV.13–15).
It turns out Krishna is the reincarnation of the guy who taught Yoga to the Vedic Rishis. What is interesting is that 'chatur varna' could be considered merely a delusional or subjective construct. In a mimetic context, it makes sense to make such a differentiation. The priests or spiritually minded will mimic the superior in one way. Barons and soldiers will do so in a different way. The middle class will take a third course. The servile class may adopt one or two features useful to them or within their means. But this is arbitrary type of classification. A slave may turn out to be a better General, or even a King, than those born into the purple. A priest may be a mindless drudge while a merchant- like the Vyadha- may possess the honeyed wisdom of the Vedas.
On examination, what Krishna appears unambiguous. He created the 'varna' caste system. If he is the only efficient cause, then the world is the way it is because God wants it that way.
चातुर्वर्ण्यं मया सृष्टं गुणकर्मविभागश: |तस्य कर्तारमपि मां विद्ध्यकर्तारमव्ययम् || 13||The argument seems to put together two common ideas: (1) God is self-suffi cient, and not in want of anything; and (2) to make ourselves as like God as possible is to make ourselves as good as possible.
That does not follow. There is an ambiguity in what Krishna says. But there is also ambiguity in what he shows by way of theophany. It may be that, because of the Gandharva's gift, Arjuna sees what he wants to see not directly through the boon but for a strategic reason (which Krishna knows but Arjuna does not) such that the possibility of its vesting causes the desired vision to be gratuitously granted.
In Kṛṣṇa’s view, since God acts without wanting to get anything out of it, so too should human beings act.
Only if they want to become Gods or, like Arjuna, are an incarnation of a particular God. We imitate what we want to become. Some day soon, I will win the coveted title of Miss Teen Tamil Nadu and will go on to become the second Jayalalitha.
This desireless acting is presented by Kṛṣṇa as a devotional act.
A peculiarity of Hinduism is that Gods pray to gods.
The appropriate attitude to take into deciding how to act is a devotional rather than an acquisitive one. Thus action is taken in the spirit of a sacrifice (IV.24–33).
Kurukshetra is a site of sacrifice- a bloody lustration or 'vishodhana'
But this, so far, is a purely procedural consideration—it indicates a rule for how to do what we do, not for what to do.
It is neither. It is a metaphor of a suggestive type. For there to be a 'rule'- i.e. a deontic injunction- something more is needed.
Again, Arjuna notices that this does not adequately address the question; it gives him no more reason to fight than not to fight.
No. Arjuna shows a genuine interest in Yoga- of which Krishna is the Lord. The dramatic structure here is familiar from childhood. A kid is feigning sickness so as not to go to school. Mum points out that though Trigonometry is taught there, there is also play-time. This is not a strong enough reason to go to school and so Mummy tells the story of the King who set out to battle a ferocious dragon but was confronted by a bhoojandi instead. You can imagine how that turned out! The kid is intrigued. He wants to know about bhoojandis. Mum says she will finish the story after he returns from school. It turns out Trigonometry isn't so bad.
Thus in Chapter VIII, he is still asking, “What is that which appertains to self? What, O best of men, are the works? What is that called which appertains to contingent beings? What is that which appertains to the divine?” (VIII.1).
Why do bhoojandis have no shadows? Oh. Their shadows failed Trigonometry and were sent away to boarding skool.
Kṛṣṇa’s advice seems to be, “Whatever you do, do it out of devotion to God, and not for personal profit.”
No. He says 'if you know me in a certain way you get a particular benefit'. इति मां योऽभिजानाति कर्मभिर्न स बध्यते. This is like saying 'if you have the right conception of Love, you will never be disappointed or betrayed in love' or 'the right conception of divinity itself saves from sin'.
But as far as that goes, it seems perfectly compatible with Arjuna dropping his weapons, and walking away from the fight—not in order to save his own life, nor in order to avoid killing his kin, but simply in the spirit of devotion.
But that's not what he really wants to do. The fact is, by this stage in the Gita, the issue of fighting or not fighting has become irrelevant. What we have is a story within a story which has its own momentum and narrative tension.
We might say, for example, that Arjuna is renouncing the battle-field glory, sacrificing it to Brahman, and thus his action—walking away from the battle—is a pure and good one.
If that's what he actually did, sure. The whole point about the Gita is that so long as you lurve God you are peachy.
Procedural constraints alone, where these are explained in terms of maintaining a certain mindset, cannot decide which of two actions ought to be done (devotionally). I do not mean to dismiss the claim that devotion as a virtue should have on us. But it does not answer Arjuna’s question, and at least for a spell, Arjuna realises this, and presses the point. We still need to know what works or deeds it is that God requires or recommends we do out of devotion to Him—unless He is equally happy with whatever we do, so long as we do it disinterestedly (in which case Arjuna would have no reason in particular to fight).
The dude likes fighting. That's reason enough.
CONCEPTIONS OF VIRTUE This line of thought is precisely the one that Kṛṣṇa follows in the Bhagavadgītā. For ultimately, the reason he gives Arjuna to fight is that He, Kṛṣṇa, is God—and He says, “Fight.”
But only because he has taken on a particular human duty. The obvious rejoinder is, 'if you are God, abolish Poverty and Illness and Death.'
This, of course, does give Arjuna a good reason to fight. When God truly shows Himself, and says, “Do X,” then we are rightly overwhelmed as Arjuna is, by awe and humility and devotion (XI.14, 34), and see incontrovertibly that X is to be done—for that is what God commands.
Not if God is a pal with whom we chat all the time. In that case, we are bound to say 'God, dude, just fucking turn the water into wine already.'
“Here I stand with no more doubts. I shall do as you say” (XVIII.73). Such a reason needs no further explanation, for a genuine divine command is pretty much the best reason there can be for an action, given the nature of God.
God is constantly suggesting to me that I get up in the middle of the night and eat all the chocolate eclairs I bought in order to hand around at the office tomorrow. Given the nature of man, God's commands are never reason enough not to do what you really really want.
But taking Kṛṣṇa as a character within a dialogue trying to determine what is right, and why, we are still left with a mystery on our hands.
Because that isn't how you should be taking him.
For divine command merely tells us what Arjuna ought to do, and why he is motivated to do it. But we still do not have an argument for why Arjuna should fight.
It's his job and he likes doing it.
Why, we still wonder, is Kṛṣṇa so determined that Arjuna should fight? Kṛṣṇa presumably knows that, whatever the outcome of the battle, it will involve near-universal devastation on all sides.
God wants to thin out the herd of Barons.
After all, Arjuna’s suggestion is not the cowardly one that he alone should skive off, save his own skin but leave the others to the dirty business of killing and dying. He wants rather that his side of the war as a whole should give up their just claim to the kingdom, thereby averting mass destruction of many innocent and worthy lives (I.31–39).
That is a matter he should take up with his brothers and their allies. Krishna is merely his charioteer.
Is Kṛṣṇa’s rejection of this suggestion simply wilful and wanton—He wants to see a good fight, and a good fight He will see?—or beyond our understanding?
No. He explains later on that he has a plan. He has decided that some of the warriors must die on that battlefield.
Perhaps it has not given us to peer into the mind of God, or to understand what makes something good and right, or bad and wrong. While this may ultimately be the best interpretation of the Gītā available to us, Kṛṣṇa does, at first, try to give Arjuna arguments, and reasons.
Because that is a duty he took on when accepting the role of Arjuna's charioteer.
And, in fact, even after Arjuna has seen and accepted Kṛṣṇa’s divinity, his dissatisfaction merely returns in a different form: Granted that we are to do what is commanded by God, how, Arjuna asks, do we reliably distinguish what is divine, or divinely commanded, from what is not?
By getting a theophany.
Thus after seeing Kṛṣṇa’s divine form, but before agreeing that his duty is to fi ght, Arjuna asks, “How may I know you, yogin, in my constant meditations? In what various modes of being may I meditate on you, my lord?” (X.17).
At a later point, Krishna reveals that uttering praise- even purely alethic and condign praise- of oneself is to slay oneself. Thus, Arjuna by his questions is forcing Krishna to kill himself as the korban or scapegoat who takes on the sin of others.
Looking at the many reasons Kṛṣṇa tries to give for pressing Arjuna to battle, we find a less capricious sort of explanation for why it is good and right that Arjuna lead his brothers into battle.
Arjuna's job is to kill Karna, or be killed by him. That was what Karna thought good and right and he was the actual eldest Pandava- if that's what he wanted to be. Also, there is a difference between telling a bloke you don't want to fight and actually quitting the battlefield. Moreover, what you say to your coach or confessor is privileged. Krishna could have pointed out that Arjuna's misgivings arose because Kurukshetra was a holy place not ordinarily to be profaned by the spilling of blood. However, this was God's plan- or Destiny- and who can fight Destiny?
For Arjuna, this will play itself out in the various ways in which “meditation on the self” can inform one of the right course of action.
But the 'right course of action' is bloody obvious here. Krishna is instructing Arjuna in Bhakti Yoga- which is why this is an important text for Vaishnavites.
IV. KṚṢṆA’S PARTICULARISM—SVADHARMA For all that certain modes of expression sound superficially like an impersonal universalism,
Theism is an impersonal universalism because God, as the sole efficient cause, is universal and is not a person.
both Arjuna and Kṛṣṇa acknowledge as morally relevant aspects of the situation that could only have extremely narrow application.
No. Neither are discussing morality. These guys are warriors not Bishops.
Thus the reasons given will sometimes be reasons personal to Arjuna.
Because they are personally given to Arjuna. That's how conversations work.
Thus if we look at the terms in which Kṛṣṇa casts his appeal to duty (dharma),
Dharma is translated as eusebia that is piety. Duty is not piety. There are pious observances traditional to particular vocations or ways of life. But one can change vocation or way of life. However there is a 'sadharan dharma' common to all. But one's 'vishesha' or specific dharma can override it.
they are not usually of the “Kantian,” universalisable kind, nor are all of them even loosely deontological (universal), or general principles or obligations. On the contrary, in svadharma (“one’s own duty,” or “one’s personal duty”) there is a notion of duty at work irreconcilable with a Kantian sort of duty.
i.e. duty as rationality- stuff which if you don't do, you are irrational, in the opinion of a stupid pedant.
Kṛṣṇa levels a whole battery of arguments against Arjuna’s unwillingness to fi ght. Some of these can be implied from the name-calling that is supposed to humiliate Arjuna into going into battle. For example, “Do not act like a eunuch, Pārtha, it does not become you! Rid yourself of this vulgar weakness of heart, stand up, enemy-burner!” (II.3) It is not fitting for Arjuna to act “unmanly”; perhaps it would be suitable for someone who was genuinely weak, ill-prepared, or accustomed to other sorts of tasks to back out of the battle. But none of these is true of Arjuna. Hesitation now, in the final hour, is specifically a “cowardice unseemly to the noble” (II.2).
But saying 'sod this for a game for soldiers' and striding off is fine. That's what Krishna's elder brother does. He himself is a non-combatant.
The final name Kṛṣṇa applies to Arjuna evokes the sort of quality that is properly his—“enemy-burner.” Naturally, in the context of epic verse, it is common for persons to be addressed by a multitude of names, many of them descriptive. But the choice of that description here emphasizes that it is of Arjuna’s character not to leave his enemies standing; and that it is unseemly for such a person as Arjuna is to walk away from the battle.
D'uh!
In Arjuna’s case, to walk away now would be to play the eunuch—
which he had done for a year
to act the role of someone he is not.
which he had done- as had all the Pandavas.
Recalling Arjuna to himself, as grounds for entering into the fray, does not just take the form of appealing to his particular personality, however. While Kṛṣṇa argues that killing is irrelevant, for the killed are not destroyed, he directs his argument specifically to Arjuna as having a certain place in society. Arjuna is the generic “strong-armed prince” (II.26). Twice, he is appealed to specifi cally as the “son of Kuntī” (“Kaunteya,” II.15, 88
Which reminds us that Karna is the senior most Kaunteya.
and twice as Pārtha, the son of Pṛthā (another of Kuntī’s names,17 II.21, II.42).
Prtha could also mean virgin. Like Christ, Arjuna is born to a virgin. But so is Karna.
As Kṛṣṇa moves from this argument into the niṣkāma karma doctrine, via an argument about the importance of “singleness of purpose” (II.41), Arjuna becomes the “scion of Kuru” (II.42), or literally “bull of the Kuru (clan/family/race).”18 Again, the claim is not that it is somehow extraordinary that Kṛṣṇa should call Arjuna by his patronymic, or in this case metronymic; rather that just these epithets are used here in order to recall to Arjuna his social situatedness—he has certain relations within a particular family, he is a son of just this woman and no other. This place he holds within a certain family, and particularly as the son of just this woman, has a claim on him. It is as the son of Kuntī that Arjuna should “rise up, resolved upon battle” (II.37).
Because that is what the senior most son of Kunti wants.
It is as the great hope for the honour of the Kuru race, as the bull of the Kurus, that he should be unhesitatingly resolved to act. In the same 35 couplets, before the “desireless action” doctrine is introduced (II.11–46), Kṛṣṇa three times addresses Arjuna as “Bhārata,” identifying him as a descendant of the universal monarch who gave his name to the people arrayed on both sides of the battle lines, thus calling attention to another aspect of Arjuna’s social identity (II.15, II.18, II.28), and perhaps recalling to him the expectations and mores peculiar to his people.
Bharata, son of Shakuntala, is the son denied by the father (who has forgotten he had espoused his mother). Smara- which means both love and memory- is linked to the forgetfulness by which knowledge of past lives is lost. An Ethics based on Karma has nothing to do with one based on a conception of Rationality which denies metempsychosis.
These epithets are finally accompanied by an explicit appeal to the values of his station. For Arjuna is a prince of the warrior class. And for him, it would be a great evil to live in shame, although it may not be a great evil for another sort of person: “for one who has been honored, dishonor is worse than death,” says Kṛṣṇa (II.34).
But the audience knows that there is a tradition in the family of the senior claimant giving up his birth-right.
“There is nothing more salutary for a kṣatriya than a lawful war. It is an open door to heaven” (II.31–32). It is appropriate to recall that Arjuna’s objection to fighting was that it must be unlawful to kill one’s kin, even if they have wronged you, humiliated you, dispossessed and tried to assassinate you.
But we know that, in this case, the war goes ahead only according to Karna's will.
By insisting that the battle now with the offending kinsmen is a lawful one, Kṛṣṇa implicitly recalls their offences. In arguing for war, Kṛṣṇa is arguing also that these offences committed against Arjuna and his brothers require punishment by Arjuna. Especially humiliating to Arjuna is the thought that, if he turns away from the battle now, people will not only say that he is a coward: his “illwishers will spread many unspeakable tales about [him], condemning [his] skill—and what is more miserable than that?” (II.36) Arjuna is the star pupil of the foremost archer of his time; his bow, Gāṇḍīva, is a gift from the Gods in honor to Arjuna’s skill.
Later when Yuddhishtra gets angry and accuses Arjuna of being a slacker, he demands possession of Gandiva. Arjuna had vowed to slay whoever tried to take the bow away from him. He has to kill Yuddhishtra but feels he must slay himself for doing so. Krishna says 'dharma is subtle. You guys don't know it.' The solution he proposes is that Arjuna make a condign criticism of his elder brother (thus inflicting 'social death' on him) before uttering condign praise of himself (thus killing himself in the same way).
From such renown and accomplishment, to be reduced to cowardly and incompetent in the mouths of men is insufferable. Moreover, in bringing these thoughts forward, Kṛṣṇa asserts that it is not wrong to take such “personal” considerations into account. It would mean something for Arjuna to turn away from battle, that it would not mean for an ordinary foot-soldier to do the same. And this difference in meaning must be taken into account as one of the real factors determining the rightness of a course of action.
Not by us because we know the whole story.
Thus one of the reasons why Arjuna should fight is that he has, through no choice of his own, the stature to act as an example to others.
Krishna gets Barbarik to kill himself because any coalition he joined would be victorious. This is an early example of 'backward induction'. Interestingly, this type of 'consequentialism' can generate a purely deontic calculus.
“For it was by acting alone that Janaka and others achieved success, so you too must act while only looking to what holds together the world. People do whatever the superior man does: people follow what he sets up as the standard” (III.20–21).
This is Tardean mimetics. The problem is that the inferior men can get together and pull down the superior dude.
These questions of station, of reputation and skill, of family, amount to “one’s own law”—svadharma.
No. One can defy one's 'kuladharma' or the duties of one's 'station'. It is fine to abandon your family and go off to the Himalayas to practice austerities.
They ground the duty or duties binding upon Arjuna in particular. He is not the exclusive author of his own law; the social order into which he was born, the place he was born into, the endowments with which he came to it, and even his personal history (where this refers only very partially to his own choices), wrote a “law” just for him. It is in virtue of these that he has a fate, or destiny, which is appropriate to him, and not merely the workings of a capricious but inexorable necessity.
Only if he chooses to stick to this position. Krishna says you can do what you like. No doubt, this will have consequences but so does doing nothing.
It is to his own, his proper, duty or law (svadharma) that Arjuna ought to look (II.31), and it is svadharma which he betrays in refusing to fight (II.33).20
Unless he decides to separate from his family and his profession in order to do something else.
It may be that to act contrary to duty involves an irremediable loss of self, of integrity or dignity. Or it may be that it is just plain wrong. It is not entirely clear from the arguments Kṛṣṇa gives;
No. It is as clear as daylight. Indeed, the thing is obvious. If you are a soldier, you have to fight unless you resign from the Army.
he suggests the latter rather than the former when he says of action motivated by self-interest: “From this interest grows desire, from desire anger;
the irony here is that Arjuna will kill his eldest brother while in grip of dark anger (Manyu). We might say this was Karna's desire. After all, there is an unfair element in Karna's slaying. If you are a great warrior, it is a comfort to know you were only defeated because your opponent did something underhand.
from anger rises delusion, from delusion loss of memory,
which is why most of us don't remember our past lives. Arjuna did not know he was the incarnation of Lord Indra.
from loss of memory the death of the spirit, and from the death of the spirit one perishes” (II.62–62).
Not 'spirit' but 'intelligence' (buddhi) बुद्धिनाशात्प्रणश्यति
I do not think it an accident that these frequent reminders of Arjuna’s social, and particular familial relations should so immediately precede the introduction of the argument for desireless action, nor that the resolution of the dilemma should lead directly into the considerations of the nature of the self for which the Bhagavadgītā is best known.
Krishna is reacting to Arjuna's Vishada by suggesting that his mind is clouded. The truth is warrior's tend to be meatheads. Obviously, when dueling with great warriors, your mind must be unclouded. You can't be worrying about what will happen to Aunty and Uncle.
I had suggested earlier (sec. I, p. 84) that there are two different ways we might understand the “improving” power of right motivation.
It is irrelevant. Some of the warriors are mercenaries or have only turned up because of FOMO. It is foolish to suggest that superior soldiers with an inferior motivation are bound to lose.
Right motivation might just be a good in itself;
Sadly, it is irrelevant when it comes to fighting. I may have a very good motivation for knocking out Tyson Fury. But it aint gonna happen.
or it might be something through which, and in virtue of which, we are able to properly assess our overall situation, and discern which relations, obligations, and potential consequences ought to weigh with us, and to what extent.
Sadly, right motivation won't make you smart in that manner. It also won't give you the ability to levitate.
Naturally, right motivation could be improving for both reasons, and the emphasis Kṛṣṇa puts on the devotional quality of action without a view to reward suggests the former rather more than the latter.
I suppose, motivation does matter- for some people. The American actor is depicted as being unable to hand the heroine her handbag without knowing their 'motivation'. The Director has to explain to them that they had a troubled childhood and a brief problem with substance abuse before finally being able to turn their life around. Currently, they are working in a Department Store so as to save up money for College. Thus, their motivation is to hand the handbag to the heroine so as not to get the sack.
But the appeal to family and position immediately preceding the introduction of desireless action returns explicitly, when it is realized that acting with a certain motivation, or quality of heart, cannot on its own determine which course of action one should (devotionally) embark upon. Thus after the explication of desireless action, and of the ultimate immortality of all beings, Arjuna still wonders what words and deeds are right. “What does one whose insight is firm say? How does he sit? How does he walk?” (II.54).
In other words, what are the outward and visible signs that one has attained a particular inward state.
Even was he to master the principle of acting devotionally, rather than for one’s own happiness, Arjuna still would need to know whether he should kill his kin “desirelessly” or walk, without desire, away from the battlefield.
But, if he needs to know this, the last person he should ask is his own charioteer because the job of the charioteer is to keep up the car-warrior's martial spirits. It's like asking a prostitute if you should have sex or should save your money.
Only Arjuna can decide to fight or walk away.
Proper motivation, as thus far understood, is not enough. In Kṛṣṇa’s own words: The wise man “has no reason at all to do anything or not to do anything” (III.18?).
Because he is self-sufficient. However, a wise man, like Krishna, may choose to take on certain duties quite gratuitously. Equally, one might say, that the enlightened person performs only supererogatory functions.
If, however, we couple the principle of acting without desire for reward with the injunction to attend to the self, Arjuna begins to get an answer to his question (III.1: “Why urge me to this fearful action?”). For although ultimately, the self which he should recognize is the eternal self which can be a part of the divine, for practical purposes, the immortal self of Arjuna is embodied and embedded in social life in a particular way. And it is looking to this complex self, or the self as it is implicated here and now, that Arjuna should consider the question of whether to enter the battle. “Even the man of knowledge,” as contrasted with the man of action (III.3), “behaves according to his nature” (III.33).
These aren't 'knock down' arguments. The whole point of the Gita is that it shows there is no 'natural' or 'absolute' deontic logic. However, as in intuitionistic logic there can be a 'witness'. Arjuna, given 'divine eyes', himself becomes that witness. In other words, previous philosophers failed to understand the Gita because mathematical logic in the West had not developed sufficiently. However, there can be no excuse for anyone born after 1920 or 1930 to repeat this type of nonsense about the Gita.
While the life of the mind may lead to correct insight and action, so too may the vita activa; and, although Kṛṣṇa does not say this explicitly, presumably what Arjuna is supposed to know about himself, when he comes to consider the question, is that he was born and bred for the active life.
That is irrelevant. Anybody can chose an active life regardless of how they were brought up.
All of Kṛṣṇa’s epithets and arguments up to this point have been reminding Arjuna of this.
They aren't knock down arguments. Only if Arjuna wants to remain a soldier- but one who won't show up for the battle just in case Uncleji or Auntyji would dislike the outcome.
Active engagement with worldly concerns belongs to him properly, while other types of worthwhile life do not. And it is for this reason that he would be doing wrong to walk away from the battle in meditative absorption. Kṛṣṇa again appeals to Arjuna’s particular obligations: “It is more salutary to carry out your own law poorly than another’s law well; it is better to die in your own law than to prosper in another’s” (III.35).
This is obvious. If you are hired to fix my toilet but choose to sing Bhaja Govindam instead, I will say you are a bad plumber on Yelp. I won't pay you and you will soon go out of business.
It is appreciation of a situation as a whole, with judgement unclouded by desire for profit (III.37–43), which provides one with the ability to discern what is the required action, here and now, from less worthy alternatives.
This isn't what the Gita says. Lust clouds the mind. Stop watching pornhub and your brain might start working properly. Nobody can 'appreciate the situation as a whole'. But, no question, if you stop wanking incessantly, you'll be able to understand you need to get a fucking job you miserable little shit.
Regarding a situation without concern for personal gain will allow one to see it clearly, and will resolve doubt (V.25).
In this case, hedge funds would hire saintly nuns to do portfolio choice. It simply isn't true that conquering lust or not caring about money gives one super powers.
“The knower of brahman who stands upon brahman is steady of spirit and harbors no delusions” (V.20).
But this does not mean he gains mental super-powers.
This perspective is attained by those who “have tamed their thinking and know themselves” (V.26).
Alas, knowing yourself doesn't mean you know whether the Mochizuki proof of the abc theorem is true or false.
And while knowing oneself will of course involve knowing oneself as related to God, it will also involve knowing oneself as related to one’s fellows, and as related to the whole order of creation (XI.1).
This is omniscience. Perhaps, as the Jains say, all beings will eventually attain this 'kevalya gyan'. However, that isn't what Krishna is saying. It is obvious that he is merely talking about how to overcome 'Vishada'.
V. DESTINY & INTEGRITY A closer consideration of the reasons Kṛṣṇa gives in the first part of the Gītā thus suggests that it is because Arjuna is just the person he is, with just the particular family, social status and history that he has, that it has become Arjuna’s duty to fight.
No. The real question is why Krishna does not take the obvious course which is to say 'the Kauravas have a bigger army. They have heroes like Bhishma and Drona who can't die save by their own will. Don't be so bloody cock-sure. Just say 'look, we are going to lose. I don't want to die in a doomed cause. Some people may taunt you. Let them do so. Go somewhere else, gather soldiers and conquer your own kingdom. If your brothers want to die, let them do so.'
The problem here is that Krishna knows (because he is omniscient) that Arjuna has an unvested boon of 'chaksushi vidya'. That is probably the reason he gained a vision of the horrific outcome of the war. Very often, the boon given by a demi-god or fairy turns out to be mischievous or counter-productive. If you grew up on stories of this sort, this is what you suspect as you listen to the unfolding of the epic over successive nights in your village.
To be sure, Kṛṣṇa is not arguing in terms of what will please Arjuna or make him, or anyone else, happy—in this sense, his argument is no more consequentialist than it is Kantian. Rather, Kṛṣṇa seems to think that duties are generated in idiosyncratic ways,
nonsense! They are generated by oikeiosis, paideia, aptitude and employment. This is 'common knowledge'. Krishna wasn't a stupid pedant teaching worthless shite to credential craving cretins.
depending upon the particular relations in which individuals stand to one another,
Nobody knows what those relations are
and depending upon the irreducibly particular past which shapes a person and a situation into the individual he, she or it is.
This is nonsense. There is nothing 'irreducible' about our past. Any repentant sinner can change it.
When Kṛṣṇa enjoins Arjuna to “look to your own law (svadharma)” (II.31), he resembles nothing so much as a moral particularist.
No. Krishna never resembles a shithead teaching stupid nonsense. Any moral principle is defensible by anybody and in any way at all. It is a different matter that it is defeasible- i.e some stronger, or more expedient, principle may prevail.
This is in keeping with what B. K. Matilal
a cretin
has said in defense of Kṛṣṇa’s “deviousness” throughout the Mahābhārata.
I am welcome to say that God fucking hates me because he gave me a tiny dick. Nobody needs to defend God from the charge that he has a particular animus against me. Anyway, it is my tiny brain which I should be complaining about.
21 Kṛṣṇa is not unprincipled, if by that one means unscrupulous or wanton. He has a keenly developed sense of what is to be done
No doubt, the author will also say that Jesus had good bowel control. Personally speaking, I shit myself the moment anybody starts nailing me to a cross. But, surely, Jesus's bowel control is not the chief thing we remember from our reading of the Gospels.
—it is uncompromising, he feels himself bound by it, and difficult though it may be to articulate in advance, the constraints on what is and is not to be done are fully captured neither in consequentialist, nor in deontological terms.
Which is why only stupid pedants teaching nonsense talk in those terms.
Justice must be done, and that means that oaths must be kept and the greedy punished;
No. The folk theorem of repeated games applies. Provided there is a way of keeping track of an agent's actions, 'reputational effects' or direct consequences- e.g. getting stabbed if you break a contract- are enough.
Justice is merely a service industry. A stationary bandit may provide it if a profit can be made thereby. However, the greedy are not punished unless they actually break a contract or a law.
honest Yudhiṣṭira must lie,
No. He chooses to do so. The legal principle here is 'exigent circumstances' or 'Apadh Dharma'. But the fact that a principle is defeasible, does not mean it is not defensible.
thus betraying himself
that is merely a manner of speaking
in order to save his brothers and kingdom, just as he had betrayed his brothers and wife through gambling them
there was no betrayal. He was entitled to gamble them away provided they did not object. His wife did and so the outcome of the dice game was set aside. One reason for this was that the wife's father was a great King. He could claim the throne on the basis of the right of his (at that time unborn) grandson whom he could adopt by 'putrika putra'.
and their kingdom away. And Arjuna, foremost archer, bearer of Gāṇḍīva, embracer of battle and of role, must fight.
Unless he really doesn't want to. No doubt, this lady could say he was betraying himself or sodomizing himself by chopping off his own head and shoving it up his arse.
CONCEPTIONS OF VIRTUE Thus the sort of particularism I attribute to Kṛṣṇa
Because you are stupid. Krishna, like other learned Hindus, knew that principles which normally apply are defeasible under exigent circumstances- i.e. Apadh Dharma is sound law.
—and to Arjuna insofar as he is responsive to the arguments Kṛṣṇa gives, rather than merely to the fact that it is god giving them—is as distinct from “hard case” particularism
There is no 'hard case' here. A soldiers job is to fight. He may resign or run away because he does not want to be killed. But, in that case, he won't be paid or he will lose his martial reputation.
as it is from “Sartrean particularism.”
which is baroque nonsense
On the one hand, one might make the weak claim that there are some cases of moral judgement for which there is, and can be, no universal rule.
There can be a defeasible universal rule for anything at all- including the duty to shit on the head of your Trigonometry teacher. I explained this to the Head Master. Sadly, he felt he had a duty to beat me till my bottom was bloody.
There are hard cases, and these hard cases show us that morality is not always a matter of universally applicable principles, but is sometimes one of personal judgement.
Judgments are made by persons. A universally applicable principle might be defeated by a one which is equally applicable but stronger, in the circumstances. Is there some indefeasible principle which always applies in every situation. Probably. But it may be trivial.
As I have been describing it, all judgements about what is to be done should, according to Kṛṣṇa, be made with a view to “one’s own law.”
Unless you outsource the thing to a smarter dude.
But this should not be confused with the view that morality is merely a matter of personal judgement—with heavy weight on the word “personal.”
Morality concerns persons. But persons are not 'mere' persons. What a person can do or become is not known to us. It does not depend on what persons have been or have done in the past
The extreme of this line of thought is frequently taken to be Sartre, who seems to claim that decisions generally are at once constructive of and expressive of who we are as persons—and that is pretty much all there is to be said on the matter of rightness and wrongness.
The man was a hysterical fool. He was pretending that decisions made by people like him, in the Resistance, affected the outcome of the War. He was wrong. France was liberated by Churchill and FDR, though, no doubt, for his own selfish reasons, Stalin too played a role.
The problem with Existentialism is that existentialists can be killed- or if not killed then denied tenure- with the result that Existentialism disappears. But this would also happen if the Academy stopped catering to the terminally stupid.
The only standards of success and failure applicable are those used for evaluating the degree to which we “stand behind” our decision, fully and sincerely endorse what we do and therefore who we are, without self-deceit.
Very true. If only Sartre had 'stood behind' a decision to defeat the Nazis rather than surrender to them, Hitler's thugs would never have occupied Paris.
This is not quite the kind of personhood that Kṛṣṇa’s particularism implies or is interested in.
Krishna makes clear that he is not a particularist. He takes on even the sins of shitheads like me.
The person who is the locus of individually tailored obligations is not primarily something one constructs through one’s actions, but something constructed socially, historically, and to a certain extent “objectively.”
People aren't constructed. Those who pretend they are should be required to construct a nice girl friend for me.
One is born a prince, or one is not, and certain things follow or not accordingly.
The probability of somethings following may be greater. But that is correlation not causation.
One’s elder brother is
Karna, not Yuddhishtra in Arjuna's case
a scrupulously honest compulsive gambler (not an ideal combination) or not, and one’s teacher has or has not attempted to assassinate and defraud one of one’s kingdom.
Who is the author thinking of? Drona? He didn't assassinate or defraud anybody.
Finally, this prince of a great kingdom has seen his wife publicly humiliated by one’s cousins, or he has not.
Five princes saw this.
But if he has, and if his exile has been endorsed by the archery teacher of whom he was the star pupil, and if he twice followed his brother in an attempt to regain the throne, if he learned avidly and excelled all others in the skills appropriate to a warrior, ... and so on, then certain things are his duty that a deontologist could never have imagined in advance.
All this is irrelevant. Arjuna's duty, so long as he remains with his family, is to do as Yuddhishtra commands. The irony is that it is actually Karna's command that he is obeying.
True, like Bhima- who was ready to separate from his family and just go kill all the Kauravas himself- Arjuna could have pursued an individual project of revenge. But then, he could have beaten the shit out of Yuddhishtra the moment he took up the dice. What we have here is 'revealed preference'. But that has nothing to do with duty.
Out of the immense weight of the detail of who one is, a destiny arises—the obligation to respond to and enact the future fitting for such a past,
Arjuna has no such obligation while he remains with his family. We may say he had a duty to beat the shit out of Yuddhishtra and make himself a universal Emperor. But that is merely our opinion.
the behavior and characteristics integral to and befitting who one has become.
There may be 'thymotic' characters in Iron Age epics of whom we may say 'it is right and fitting that this great hero should conquer the Earth'.
This might resemble, if anything, the Stoic view of individual duty being determined by our four personae —our rational nature, our natural endowments, the careers
Oikeosis is based on oikos and is related to economia which is Artha. Nothing wrong in that. Equally, there is nothing wrong with binding yourself by a 'terrible' (Bhishma) vow. But that sort of 'akreibia' can have evil consequences- e.g. the birth of Draupadi and Shikhandini which, one may say, was the true cause of the downfall of the Kauravas. In particular, Draupadi's mocking of her brother-in-law when he visited Indraprastha is mentioned as the original cause of the war.
we have chosen, and the positions we occupy by chance.
No. By karma- at least in the MhB.
But it should be clear that the grounds which generate obligations, and determine virtues, should not be restricted to “roles”;
Nothing 'generates' obligations or determines virtues. Anybody who believes otherwise should be required to generate an obligation on the part of all Super-Models to sleep with me.
Arjuna’s kṣatriya persona is only one aspect of the situation which determines that his path lies in the battle ahead,
it determines nothing. Balram was a Kshatriya. He refused to fight. Nobody thought any less of him.
and it is an aspect still not sufficiently well-described to be fully determining.
This silly woman is looking for 'determinism' in the Social Sciences. If such a thing exists, there would be no need for law courts or markets or Schools or Colleges.
This, I suggest, is how we should understand the force of Kṛṣṇa’s appeal to svadharma, as opposed to, say kuladharma (duty peculiar to the family) or varṇāśramadharma (duty peculiar to class).
because you can choose to separate from your family or class.
The fact that Arjuna has consistently taken on, or embodied in a specific way, what it means to be a warrior, through his own choices and actions, figures in making it meaningful that Arjuna fight this battle, in a way it is not necessarily meaningful for the “generic” kṣatriya.
Nonsense! A Kshatriya can choose not to fight in a particular battle. It is not the case that there is some particular way of being a warrior such that choices available to warriors are denied to you. This is because 'warrior' is merely an intension with a particular extension. It isn't an intrinsic quality. One may say of a particular mathematician that there was only one way she could prove a particular theorem. But history shows this isn't really true. A constructivist may give a non constructive proof while continuing to search for a constructive one.
Moreover, the way Arjuna has been treated (what has been done to him) and the expectations others have of him also play a role in determining whether it is his duty to fight here and now.
No. It is irrelevant. He is eligible to fight and he has been picked to fight but he can decide not to.
Thus, when hermit Utaṇka criticises Kṛṣṇa for failing to avert the war, Kṛṣṇa explains that it was out of his hands. “It is impossible,” he says, “to transgress destiny (diṣṭam) by either intelligence or might” (MBh. 14.LII.16).
This does not mean there might not be another way to transgress it. Anyway, in an Occasionalist universe Destiny is whatever God wants it to be.
Utaṇka is beside himself with outrage at this excuse: “Since, though able, Kṛṣṇa, you did not rescue those foremost ones of Kuru’s race ... I shall, without doubt, curse you! Since you did not forcibly compel them to forebear ... I shall, filled with wrath, denounce a curse on you” (MBh. 14.LII.20–21).
If that is his Destiny let him do so.
Before revealing his divine identity, and that it would be therefore very imprudent for Utaṇka to lay a curse on him, Kṛṣṇa apologizes for having been unable to avert the war (MBh. 14.LII.23).
In other words, God is nice. He doesn't get a kick out of watching dudes butcher each other.
Since we see Kṛṣṇa in the Gītā bending over backwards to persuade Arjuna to enter the fray,
because that was the duty he took on. The fact that a guy may have some other reason to perform his duty does not change the fact that the 'big reason' (matsanayay) for doing it was that it was his duty.
we might be tempted to see Kṛṣṇa’s appeal to fate and his apologies after the fact as disingenuous.
Professors of shite subjects are tempted to say stupid things.
But if destiny is something constructed socially,
it would be meaningless. Why not suggest that Death is constructed socially?
through the combination of one’s actions and characteristic with the values and social system, as well as the character and acts of others (Yudhiṣṭhira’s gambling; Duryodhana’s mercilessness; Droṇa’s disrespect for moral teaching
why is this lady so angry with Drona? The poor fellow was just an archery teacher. Oh. Right. He was a Brahmin. Brahmins are very evil.
), then once the characters have declared themselves, within the context in which their actions take one very specific significance, the die is cast.
No it isn't. Had Barbarik joined the battle, the outcome would have been different.
As Kṛṣṇa explains it, “When I live in the order of the Nāgas, I then act as a Nāga, and when I live in the order of the Yakshas or that of Rākshasas, I act after the manner of that order. Born now in the order of humanity, I must act as a human being. I begged them (the Kauravas) piteously. But stupefied as they were and deprived of their senses, they refused to accept my words. I frightened them, filled with wrath, referring to some great danger. But once more I showed them my usual (human) form.
So the Kauravas too were granted a theophany but that didn't soften their hearts or change their minds.
Possessed as they were of unrighteousness, and enveloped by their proper time, all of them have been righteously slain in battle, and have without doubt gone to Heaven” (MBh. 14.LIII.18–21). There are modes and manners appropriate to each form of life, and persons within that form of life are constrained by these. They draw the most general circle around what can and ought to be done.
It is obvious that the sort of body you have constrains you. One may say 'should' implies 'could', but we don't really know what we can or can't do.
Here, Kṛṣṇa specifically attributes the inevitability of the war to the obstinancy of the Kauravas. There must be many such reasons, culminating indirectly in the duty of Arjuna to fight.
No. They are irrelevant. Either Arjuna severs ties with his family and quits the army or he fights. In the latter case, we may say he is doing his duty. In the former case we say he considers his only duty is to himself.
Even Kṛṣṇa cannot make the meaning of the lives of each of the persons involved something other than what all the characters and social elements of all jointly combine to make it.
But Karna could. The fact that a particular bloke can't achieve something doesn't mean somebody else mightn't be able to do so.
Although the obligations falling to Arjuna are specific to him,
No. He has the same obligation as other soldiers. True, he may be assigned military duties on the basis of his special skills. But the obligation remains the same- viz. to fight with might and main and obey the chain of command.
they are none the less obligations for that. And although they are his duty in virtue of his past, his circumstances, his station and relations to others, including his skilfulness in arms, they are not in any way necessarily his personal wishes.
Unless that is precisely what they are. We feel Arjuna is a happy warrior. He likes fighting. He is good at it. Incidentally, Bhima- and even Draupadi- had spoken against going to war because of all the harm it would cause.
What it becomes his duty to do in virtue of who he is, is not at all what he would choose to be his duty, and not at all what he would want to do, or can even fully comprehend as right and justified, so long as he thinks in absolute terms, without reference to things that are true of him in particular and no one else.
Nonsense! This isn't a story about a sensitive poet who dislikes the profession of soldier but has been forced into it by his Daddy.
It is his objectively constructed identity,
If it was 'objectively constructed' there must be some way to create or clone another Arjuna. This lady is refusing even to construct a nice g.f for me. Why is she being so mean? Alternatively, she may be merely bullshitting when she speaks of 'objectively constructed identities'.
including his current circumstances, together with his past choices (e.g., to try in the first place to regain for his elder brother
his eldest brother is Karna. One question is why Arjuna doesn't see, when he sees all things in the Visvarupa, that Kunti gave away Karna. The answer may be that the Gandharva's boon was that he could see only what he wanted to see, not what he didn't.
the throne that was rightfully his) which compels certain things to be his duties, and ultimately his destiny.
Nonsense! Kunti tells Karna that his duty is to lead the Pandavas (because the son born before marriage belongs to the husband- unless the son rejects that role). Karna isn't having any of it. Arjun too could walk away if that is what he really wanted to do. No doubt, stupid academics teaching worthless shite may want to pretend that everything personal or social is constructed. This means we should have a Manhattan project for the Social Sciences. Instead of Armies to defeat our enemies we could just re-engineer them so that they bugger each other to death. Come to think of it, the US tried that in the late Sixties with 'Project Camelot'. It failed immediately though some MK-Ultra nutters continued to get funding till Carter put in Admiral Turner to clean house at the CIA.
And thus he needs persuading to begin the war that marks the beginning of the end of the Mahābhārata; and thus when Kṛṣṇa persuades him, he does so by reference to “duties” and “law”—not to ends, but also not to impersonal principles, or maxims.
Krishna fails to persuade Arjuna. Deontic logic, like mathematical logic, can't simultaneously deliver categoricity as well as completeness. However, there can be a witness for intuitionistic or Gentzen type logic. But even the witnesses of theophany- Vishvarupa- can reject it or forget all about it.
Kṛṣṇa’s argument relies on an appeal to who Arjuna is.
But it fails. Why can't this silly lady see this? If she had kept abreast with mathematical logic, she would know why a non-trivial Kantian deontic logic must be arbitrary, incomplete or inconsistent. This is because a deontic logic too has a mathematical representation. True, for any particular purpose, we can find good enough 'univalent foundations'. But they are non-unique- i.e. not categorical. Indeed, they are unlikely to even have 'naturality' or 'canonicity' though the reason why this is so may be subtle and not easy to discover.
His insistence is that Arjuna act according to his character, as well as with understanding of how he fits into an overall structure of a well-ordered universe.
Arjuna chose Krishna as his charioteer at the high price of giving up the Yadava army to the enemy. In the Gita, Krishna does his duty as a charioteer. Since stupid people don't recall that Arjuna had an unvested boon of chaksushi vidya (which by Indian law could vest if he himself became asamika (i.e. not master of himself by reason of insanity or 'vishada') they completely misunderstand the drama and the pathos of the Gita.
It is, in a sense, an appeal to Arjuna’s integrity. But it is in maintaining his integrity that Arjuna will participate in a war of ghastly destruction.
No. He can say 'I'm joining Balram, your elder brother, for a nice drink of wine. Go scold him, if you like scolding so much'.
Should we say then that the lesson of the Mahābhārata, and of the Bhagavadgītā in particular, is that sometimes one ought to act out of character?
No. It would not be true. Balram acts in a characteristic way. He is a more rustic demi-god whose weapon is a plough. Arjun is a happy 'shoot 'em up' warrior.
Perhaps integrity is not so important after all, and Kṛṣṇa is positively wicked in his exhortation of Arjuna to act according to his values, and according to the expectations that are on him (III.29).28 95
Jesus was very naughty for not demanding the banning of dicks even though dicks cause RAPE!
But integrity will not be so easily dismissed, and I think to focus on the rightness or wrongness of Kṛṣṇa’s action here distracts from this larger point to be got from the Gītā; and similarly to focus merely on whether Arjuna should in fact (in some impersonal sense) fight, distracts from at least one lesson we might take from his relation to the action of the Mahābhārata.
That lesson is, having a great charioteer is really useful for a car-warrior. Karna's charioteer was a relative of the younger Pandavas and didn't like Karna.
Lots of people who read (or listened) to the MbH belonged to the warrior class. They imbibed lessons about the need for esprit de corps, the maintenance of morale, and the need to have an 'exit strategy' from particular battle tactics- e.g. chakravyuha.
Implicit in Kṛṣṇa’s motivations for urging Arjuna to fight, and slightly more explicit in the reasons he gives Arjuna, is a recognition of the central role of integrity in ethical thinking.
If Professors of that stupid shite had any integrity, they would resign and retrain as toilet cleaners.
Without integrity as a virtue—a fundamental virtue—any moral code, and any world based on such a moral code, will fall apart.
That is not the lesson of history. A very corrupt and hypocritical regime can become hegemonic. One with great integrity may perish because it keeps doing stupid shit.
For this reason, it may even be more correct to regard integrity as the precondition of any virtue,
if people don't fart they will explode and thus lack bodily integrity. Thus if we regard integrity as the precondition of any virtue, we would be obliged to regard farting as its even more fundamental precondition.
rather than as a virtue in its own right to be fitted in among others.
Only if farting is a virtue in its own right.
Full integrity requires in this case a thorough-going commitment to the virtues and values of the heroic code of the warrior.
No. Bhishma has integrity. Warriors are supposed to sire sons. He won't do so. It simply isn't the case that a great general has to be a carbon copy of the military ideal. He may choose to dress in a slovenly fashion and fail to show due deference to his superiors or to the War Minister.
Unless Arjuna and his brothers, and his kin on the opposing side, follow through completely in their endorsement of, and adherence to, this heroic code, we will not get a critique of that code, and we will be tempted to mis-locate the problem.
The code was simply 'fight if you want to. If you want to become an ascetic, or a Brahmin, or a farmer, or a dancing master- do so by all means. If anyone gives you back-chat shit on their heads or tell them to fuck the fuck off.' Warriors can get away with doing that. Me, not so much.
If Arjuna had walked away from the battle, more people would have survived—some of them wicked, some of them innocent, and some of them heroic according to the values and expectations embedded in the social world of the Mahābhārata.
We don't know that. Maybe Krishna would have got Barbarik to enroll with the Pandavas by pointing out that they must be the weaker side.
And had he walked away, we might criticize his act as weak or cowardly;
unless he made it a point to hunt down and shit on those who did so
we might praise the act as wise and self-sacrificing. The act of Arjuna walking away would be the focus of a debate of whether what he did was ignoble or a noble foregoing of his own glory.
Nobody gives a fart about 'debates'.
But we would not be forced to question whether the glory itself is a good that Arjuna sacrificed; we would not be forced to question whether the whole code that demands, or would demand, wholesale slaughter in order to be fully lived, is itself the culprit.
These cretins might as well decide to ban dicks because dicks cause RAPE! Why is Biden refusing to undergo gender reassignment surgery? For evil to triumph it is sufficient that good men don't chop off their dicks.
In apportioning praise and blame within the Mahābhārata, and within the schema of values it represents, each side of the bloody war comes off as well—and as badly—as the other.
The MhB is a great story. That's why we read it. Nobody gives a fuck what these cretins think.
But only because of this, and because the extreme bloodiness of the battle
nice warriors should give each other kisses and cuddles. Nasty warriors shoot arrows at each other. This is because of dicks. Cut them off immediately!
is a necessary consequence of the heroic code,
nothing is the necessary consequence of any code whatsoever. That's not how codes work.
a battle that becomes necessary within the values according to which each of the characters has conducted his life, and within the moral–social climate which prevails—only because the devastation is the inevitable consequence of the demands of dharma as understood by all concerned, can the story as a whole operate as a critique of the whole system of values.
Did you know that Arjuna had a dick? Dicks cause RAPE! Only because of dicks, trillions of innocent bahishkrit peeps were senselessly slaughtered by Neo-Liberalism. Modi sud rejin!
Because Arjuna lives, and so many die, adhering to the demands implied by a certain moral climate and order can his story itself stand as a critique of that moral climate.
A moral climate where dicks are not chopped off immediately is very evil and complicit in Neo-Liberalism, Islamophobia and body shaming.
Still, it must be a great comfort for any NATO soldier who survived the war on Terror to be told that his story is a critique of a particular moral climate. Prince Harry is one such soldier. To escape England's horrible climate, he moved to California. Now all he needs to do is to chop off his dick for Professors of shite subjects to hold him up as a moral exemplar.
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