Abstract
Both Stoic and Buddhist ethics are deeply concerned with the ethical dangers of attachment, including (i) the destructive consequences of overwhelming emotionality, brought on by attachment, both for oneself and others, (ii) the dangers to one’s agency posed by strongly held, but ultimately unstable, attachments, and (iii) the threat to virtuous emotional engagement with others caused by one’s own attachment to them. The first two kinds of moral danger – overwhelming emotionality and threatened agency – have informed Stoic models of detachment, as illustrated in their concepts of ataraxia (freedom from disturbance) and apatheia (freedom from strong emotionality). In this paper I draw on Buddhist texts to present a third model of detachment, which responds primarily to the third moral danger of attachment, the danger of not loving well. On this model, detachment enables and enhances proper love and compassion and is conceived of as a tool for virtuous emotional engagement. This model challenges some influential interpretations of Buddhist conceptions of detachment that reduce them to one of the Stoic models, either the extirpation of emotions or resilience to threat to agency.
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Notes
- 1.
I will not focus on the danger of unjustifiable partiality here. For more on this topic, see McRae (2013) .
- 2.
See Plotinus I.2.2 (13–18) ; I.2.3(20), I.2.6 (25–27); Sorabji (2000, 197)
- 3.
See discussion of Philo of Alexandria and Maimonides in Richard Sorabji, Emotions and Peace of Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, Chapter 25).
- 4.
Graver, p.51 ; Sorabji (2000) , p. 47–51; Diogenes Laertius Lives 7.116; Cicero Tusc. 4.12–13.
- 5.
Consider, for one example, Epictetus opening remarks to The Encheiridion that happiness is entirely in our control, so long as we use our reason well (Ch. 1). For more on this aspect of Stoic conceptions of the good life, see Irwin (“Virtue , Praise and Success: Stoic Responses to Aristotle ” (1990)).
- 6.
Also see Epictetus Discourses §2. See Nussbaum’s discussion (1998), Chapter 10.
- 7.
See Martha Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001) and Martha Nussbaum, Therapy of Desire : Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), especially Chapter 10; Margaret Graver , Stoicism and Emotion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).
- 8.
See Nussbaum’s discussion of the “argument from excess” in Therapy (1994) p. 396–398. It also possible for the Stoic to challenge Aristotelian moderation of emotion using the concept of no-self : If self is an illusion , then what sense can we make of the Aristotelian approach of cultivating the self through the moderation of emotion? There is some evidence that Seneca , in particular, may have had access to some Buddhist texts, or at least Buddhist ideas, particularly no-self (See Richard Sorabji , Self: Ancient and Modern Insights about Individuality , Life and Death (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), p. 41). I doubt this will turn out to be a successful line of argument for the Stoic , but it does reveal intriguing historical connections between Roman Stoic and Indian Buddhist thinkers (connections that I cannot, unfortunately, pursue here).
- 9.
See Galen PHP 4.2.12,24; 4.4.21, 23; 5.4.14; Sorabji (2000) , Chapter 3.
- 10.
The possible exception here is the Pyrrhonian school , or Pyrrhonist tradition, of skepticism .
- 11.
See Gisela Striker , “Ataraxia: Happiness as Tranquility,” The Monist 73, no. 1 (1990): 97–111.
- 12.
See Daniel Cozort , ““Cutting the Roots of Virtue :” Tsongkhapa on the Results of Anger,” Journal of Buddhist Ethics 2 (1195): 83–104.
- 13.
Tsongkhapa , and other Tibetan Buddhist philosophers , rely on the doctrine of the two truths – conventional and ultimate – in order to assert, for example, that there is no independently existing self while at the same time continue to speak meaningfully about the self, its cultivation, its ethical obligations , and its relationships with others. For more on the relationship between the two truths , see Cowherds (2011), Garfield (2010), Duckworth (2010) , Spackman (2014) .
- 14.
- 15.
This is a tricky point in Buddhist contexts, since there are obviously aspects of what we might call agency that are systematically challenged. See the discussion of moral agency in Jay Garfield, “What is it Like to be a Bodhisattva ? Moral Phenomenology in Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra ,” Smith Philosophy Department, February 8, 2011, http://www.smith.edu/philosophy/docs/garfield_bodhisattva.pdf (accessed October 20, 2014) and Emily McRae , “Emotions and Choice: Lessons From Tsongkhapa ,” Journal of Buddhist Ethics, April 2012.
- 16.
See Joel Marks , “Dispassion as an Ethical Ideal ,” in Emotions in Asian Thought, ed. Joel Marks, Roger Ames and Robert Solomon, 139–159 (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1995); David Wong , “The Meaning of Detachment in Daoism, Buddhism, and Stoicism ,” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy V, no. 2 (2006): 207–219.
- 17.
See Epictetus , Handbook ch.1
- 18.
There are some similarities between bodhicitta – the commitment to benefitting all members of the moral community – and the Stoic ideal of the cosmopolis, which, at least on some interpretations, includes the idea that our moral obligations are to all members of the moral community and not just members of our community or nation-state. There are important differences between the two concepts, however, such as who counts as a member of the moral community (all sentient beings or all rational beings?) and what the role of love and compassion is in achieving these ideals.
- 19.
See Garfield (2011) and Emily McRae , “Buddhist Therapies of the Emotions and the Psychology of Moral Improvement,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 32, no. 1 (April 2015).
- 20.
This is very common in Buddhist ethical texts . For one example, see the discussion of love and resentment in Buddhaghosa, The Path of Purification , trans. Bhikku Nanamoli (Colombo, Ceylon: R. Semage, 1956).
- 21.
See Rinpoche Patrul , The Words of My Perfect Teacher, trans. Padmakara Translation Group (San Francisco, CA: Harper Collins, 1994) , p. 213.
- 22.
See Emily McRae , “A Passionate Buddhist Life,” Journal of Religious Ethics 40, no. 1 (March 2012): 99–121.
- 23.
See Patrul Rinpoche (202–203) and Kamalasila’s discussion of equanimity in Stages of Meditation (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Press, 2001). Note that at a certain point in one’s meditation practice, one cultivates “objectless compassion” in which one’s compassion has no object because one is no longer bound by subject/object duality. This is different than taking an abstract object, such as “humanity,” as an object.
- 24.
- 25.
Khenpo Ngawang Pelzang also adds “and the attachment and aversion in others’ minds “but this does not seem to actually factor into the discussion that follows. See Khenpo Ngawang Pelzang, A Guide to the Words of My Teacher, trans. Padmakara Translation Group (Boston: Shambala, 2004), p.132.
- 26.
For more on the role of equanimity in cultivating impartiality , see McRae (2013) .
- 27.
Strictly speaking, there may be no category of “emotion ” in Buddhist philosophy of mind . See George Dreyfus , “Is Compassion an Emotion,” in Visions of Compassion , ed. Richard Davidson and Anne Harrington (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); Maria Heim , “Buddhism on the Emotions,” in Oxford Handbook of Religion and Emotion, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008); Emily McRae , “Buddhist Therapies of the Emotions and the Psychology of Moral Improvement,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 32, no. 1 (April 2015), forthcoming.
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McRae, E. (2018). Detachment in Buddhist and Stoic Ethics: Ataraxia and Apatheia and Equanimity. In: Davis, G. (eds) Ethics without Self, Dharma without Atman. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 24. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67407-0_3
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