Freedom From Responsibility: Agent-Neutral Consequentialism and the Bodhisattva Ideal
In Rick Repetti (ed.), Buddhist Perspectives on Free Will. New York: Routledge. pp. 92-105 (2016)
Abstract
This paper argues that influential Mahāyāna ethicists, such as Śāntideva, who allow for moral rules to be proscribed under the expediency of a compassionate aim, seriously compromise the very notion of moral responsibility. The central thesis is that moral responsibility is intelligible only in relation to conceptions of freedom and human dignity that reflect a participation in, and sharing of, interpersonal relationships. The central thesis of the paper is that revisionary strategies, which seek to explain agency in event-causal terms, set the stage for moral epiphenomenalism. On the view I defend here, an effective compatibilist solution to the problem of reconciling freedom of the will and determinism depends on expanding, rather than eliminating, the complex register of factors that underpin the experiential aspects of our moral life.Author's Profile
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Citations of this work
Reasons and Conscious Persons.Christian Coseru - forthcoming - In Andrea Sauchelli (ed.), Derek Parfit’s Reasons and Persons: An Introduction and Critical Inquiry. London: Routledge. pp. 160-186.
What Do Buddhists Think about Free Will?Rick Repetti - 2017 - In Jake H. Davis (ed.), In A Mirror Is for Reflection: Understanding Buddhist Ethics, edited by Jake Davis. New York, USA: Oxford University Press. pp. 257-275.
Buddhist Meditation and the Possibility of Freedom.Rick Repetti - 2016 - Science, Religion and Culture 2 (2):81-98.