Of mental health and medical models
The concept of mental health – and even more so its converse of mental illness – has become ubiquitous in the modern West, and it deserves serious examination by philosophers. Many, probably most,...
View ArticleThe goods of lay life
I return today to my correspondence with Justin Whitaker on the Sigālovāda Sutta, taking off from his response to my previous post. The question at issue between us, I think, is what constitutes a good...
View ArticleAre we taking up the suttas’ view of household life?
Justin Whitaker has made a second defence of the Sigālovāda Sutta, and it’s time for another response on my end. As a recap, we are debating the value of the Sigālovāda as a guide to lay Buddhist...
View ArticleThe Sigālovāda’s vicious mean
The Sigālovāda Sutta might be my least favourite sutta in the Pali Canon. There is relatively little that the Pali texts say on “ethics” in a modern Western sense of interpersonal action-guiding; much...
View ArticleHealth, wealth, time, and their purposes
Sandro Galea, the dean of BU’s School of Public Health, recently wrote a wonderful (free) Substack post reflecting on the nature of health in the pandemic and post-pandemic era. I’m writing about...
View ArticleRejecting Śāntideva’s ethical revaluation
The key goal of my dissertation was to understand Śāntideva’s thought as it was and how it could be applied in a contemporary context. Now, for my book, I want to actually apply Śāntideva’s thought,...
View ArticleThe Mary Ellen Carter and the secret of happiness
I originally wrote this week’s post in a handwritten journal at age 21, more than half my life ago, in 1997 – possibly before at least a few of my readers were born. It was a reflection on my travels...
View ArticleWould eternal life be meaningless?
I now conclude my series of comments on Martin Hägglund’s stimulating and fascinating This Life. My final point of disagreement with Hägglund has to do with a theoretical possibility: eternal life....
View ArticleDefending the removal of suffering
It is typically the case that more can be said in disagreement than agreement. In the case of Martin Hägglund’s This Life, I think paying attention to those realms of disagreement is particularly...
View ArticleFreedom and the good life
Following from his distinction between freedom and necessity, Martin Hägglund tells us that “The rational aim, then, is to reduce the realm of necessity and increase the realm of freedom.” (223) The...
View ArticleThis Life: The work of a lover of wisdom
Martin Hägglund’s This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom, published in 2019, has already become a minor academic sensation – being reviewed in the New Yorker and Guardian as well as being the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How the Grinch found eudaimonism
Last week my wife and I re-watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas! – the original Chuck Jones cartoon, not the later remakes. As we talked about it, I realized that that Christmas special, and the...
View ArticleWhen virtue is not in our control
I’ve been thinking a lot on a recent exchange I had with Seth Segall, in the comments on my post about terminology to use for karma. Seth’s comment specified a distinction that is important elsewhere...
View ArticleIs the eudaimonist proposition true?
Evan Thompson’s critique of my eudaimonistic and probabilistic approach to karma has two prongs: that it is not really karma, and that it doesn’t work on its own terms. I addressed the first criticism...
View ArticleA book on how virtue helps us flourish
I’d like to now envision the book I am working on. This post is something like a proposal for the book, both to clarify my thoughts on it and (more importantly) to hear yours. As I write it I keep in...
View ArticleTheodicy is not the core of karma
I will close out this latest round of replies to Evan Thompson with a recap: It is simply not the case that karma “is fundamentally about” why bad things happen to good people (or vice versa). To try...
View ArticleKarma: eschatology, theodicy, or eudaimonism?
In my previous post I discussed how Evan Thompson and I may agree in principle that not all innovations to a tradition are legitimate. The real question, then, is how applicable the accusation of...
View ArticleBecoming good through repetition
I recently attended a remote presentation by Boston University students about how to thrive in the COVID-19 setting. One student rightly stressed the importance of creating good habits and structure....
View ArticleResponses on humanity, rebirth, and a minimalist model
Seth Zuihō Segall wrote a helpful response to my review of his Buddhism and Human Flourishing. Seth’s1 response makes four points, groupable in two categories that correspond to the division of my...
View ArticleNaturalizing Buddhism and other traditions
In the previous three posts I aimed to show, contra Evan Thompson’s response, that the philosophical core of the karma doctrine does not have to do with explaining why bad things happen to good...
View Article![BLACKPINK – DEADLINE – EP [iTunes Plus M4A]](http://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Video211/v4/de/b3/b1/deb3b1d4-ba28-22e8-2428-ef97617b2a4b/90d54d743002a6d66308f217cd867947_Preview_Image_Intermediate_nonvideo_sdr_426725135_2574858051.png/316x316bb.webp)
