Altruism in the Charnel Ground: Śāntideva and Parfit on Anātman, Reductionism and Benevolence

Abstract

In the eighth chapter of his Introduction to the Practices of Awakening (Bodhicaryāvatāra) the eighth-century Indian Buddhist monk Śāntideva appeals to the nonexistence of any enduring self as a premise in his argument that we ought to commit to impartial benevolence. A striking feature of this argument is that it appears in a chapter that is largely comprised of meditations designed to develop disenchantment with samsara, including a set of forty verses in which Śāntideva imagines himself in a charnel ground contemplating rotting corpses. In this essay I employ comparative philosophy to illustrate how these meditative verses establish an important premise of Śāntideva’s argument. I begin by drawing a comparison between Śāntideva’s text and Derek Parfit, who in Reasons and Persons argues that if we accept reductionism about personal identity, we ought to be less concerned about our future well-being. Next I summarize a powerful response to Parfit by Susan Wolf that claims normative implications do not follow from Parfit’s reductionism. This objection, I argue, also applies to Śāntideva. Although her argument is probably effective against Parfit, in the final section I explain how Buddhist claims about impermanence and suffering provide a response to Wolf. In other words, the Bodhicaryāvatāra’s verses on the dissatisfactions of ordinary life do philosophical work that strengthens the force of Śāntideva’s argument.