SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
BOOKS
Madhyamaka Metaphysical Indefinitism: Neither One Nor Many
In Progress | Under contract with Oxford University Press
Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophers defend a thoroughgoing anti-foundationalism. Yet, their positive picture of the structure of reality defies categorization among the standard models on offer in contemporary metaphysics. Utilizing Śrīgupta’s (c. seventh century) anti-foundationalist neither-one-nor-many argument taken together with his account of conventional reality, I develop an interpretation of the Madhyamaka ontological dependence structure, which I call “metaphysical indefinitism,” make a case for its coherence, and identify its payoffs, including its capacity to accommodate developments in scientific explanation.
Introduction to Reality: Śrīgupta's Tattvāvatāravṛtti
Harvard Oriental Series, forthcoming
This monograph includes a study of the Commentary on the Introduction to Reality (Tattvāvatāravṛtti) by the Indian Madhyamaka Buddhist philosopher, Śrīgupta, together with a Tibetan critical edition and annotated translation of this text, which has never before been available in English. In this work, Śrīgupta advances the “neither-one-nor-many argument,” which sets out to prove that all things lack ontological independence, and by implication, that everything depends for its existence on something else. I present a reconstruction and analysis of the argument, showing how Śrīgupta rejects the possibility of ontological independence by way of rejecting the possibility of mereological simples, both material and immaterial. Śrīgupta's other important philosophical contributions are brought to light, including his influential threefold criterion for conventional reality and his argument for the possibility of conceptual enlightened cognition, which is standardly supposed to be non-conceptual.
ARTICLES
"Nāgārjuna and Vasubandhu on the Principle of Sufficient Reason"
Asian Journal of Philosophy, 3, no. 19 (2024): 1–28; doi.org/10.1007/s44204-024-00142-1
Canonical defenders of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), such as Leibniz and Spinoza, are metaphysical foundationalists of one stripe or another. This is curious since the PSR—which says that everything has a ground, cause, or explanation—in effect, denies fundamental entities. In this paper, I explore the apparent inconsistency between metaphysical foundationalism and approaches to metaphysical system building that are driven by a commitment to the PSR. I do so by analyzing how Indian Buddhist philosophers arrive at both foundationalist and anti-foundationalist positions motivated by implicit commitments to different versions of the PSR. I begin by introducing the Buddhist Principle of Dependent Origination (pratītyasamutpāda) as a proto-PSR that is restricted to causal explanation. Next, I show how Vasubandhu’s Sautrāntika Abhidharma metaphysics is shaped by a qualified commitment to both causal and metaphysical grounding versions of the PSR. I then reveal how Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka metaphysics is driven by an unrestricted and exceptionless commitment to causal and metaphysical grounding versions of the PSR. Finally, I consider how Nāgārjuna’s account may put him in a unique position to respond to a common contemporary objection to the PSR from necessitarianism. I conclude by addressing a competing interpretation on which Nāgārjuna is best understood as an anti-rationalist rather than an uber-rationalist, as I characterize him.
"A Case Against Simple-Mindedness: Śrīgupta on Mental Mereology"
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, published online 2023; doi.org/10.1080/00048402.2023.2226687
There’s a common line of reasoning which supposes that the phenomenal unity of conscious experience is grounded in a mind-like simple subject. To the contrary, Mādhyamika Buddhist philosophers like Śrīgupta (seventh–eighth century) argue that any kind of mental simple is incoherent and thus metaphysically impossible. Lacking any unifying principle, the phenomenal unity of conscious experience is instead an unfounded illusion. In this paper, I present an analysis of Śrīgupta’s "neither-one-nor-many argument" against mental simples and show how his line of reasoning is driven by a set of implicit questions concerning the nature of and relation between consciousness and its intentional object. These questions not only set the agenda for centuries of intra-Buddhist debate on the topic, but they are also questions to which any defender of unified consciousness or a simple subject of experience arguably owes responses.
“An Appearance-Reality Distinction in an Unreal World”
Analysis 82, no. 1 (2022): 114–130; doi.org/10.1093/analys/anab085
For an author-meets-critic symposium on Jan Westerhoff’s The Non-existence of the Real World (Oxford 2020), with reply from Westerhoff.
Jan Westerhoff defends an account of thoroughgoing non-foundationalism that he calls “irrealism,” which is implicitly modeled on a Madhyamaka Buddhist view. In this paper, I begin by raising worries about the irrealist’s account of human cognition as taking place in a brain-based representational interface. Next, I pose first-order and higher-order challenges to how the irrealist—who defends a kind of global error theory—can sensibly accommodate an unlocalized appearance-reality distinction, both metaphysically and epistemologically. Finally, although Westerhoff insists that irrealism itself is not an ontological theory and that the irrealist’s rejection of absolutely general quantification precludes his commitment to any ultimately true theories, I propose strategies inspired by the Svātantrika commentarial tradition of Madhyamaka for how the irrealist might develop a lightweight account of unrestricted quantification that could be used to advance a lightweight ultimately true theory. This, I suggest, may allow the irrealist to (i) preserve a commitment to an unlocalized appearance-reality distinction, (ii) underwrite a distinction between ordinary veridical states and metaphysically accurate epistemic states, and (iii) provide an explanation for the massive error that he claims characterizes ordinary cognition.
Download Published Paper Here
"No Unity, No Problem: Madhyamaka Metaphysical Indefinitism”
Philosophers' Imprint 21, no. 31 (2021): 1–24; hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.3521354.0021.031
According to Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophers, everything depends for its existence on something else. But what would a world devoid of fundamentalia look like? In this paper, I argue that the anti-foundationalist “neither-one-nor-many argument” of the Indian Mādhyamika Śrīgupta commits him to a position I call “metaphysical indefinitism.” I demonstrate how this view follows from Śrīgupta’s rejection of mereological simples and ontologically independent being, when understood in light of his account of conventional reality. Contra recent claims in the secondary literature, I clarify how the Madhyamaka metaphysical dependence structure is not a straightforward infinitism since it does not honor strict asymmetry or transitivity. Instead, its dependence relations are irreflexive and extendable, admitting of dependence chains of indefinite (though not actually infinite) length and dependence loops of non-zero length. Yet, the flexible ontology of Śrīgupta's Madhyamaka can accommodate a contextualist account of asymmetry and support a revisable theory of conventional truth, delivering significant payoffs for the view, including the capacity to accommodate developments in scientific explanation.
Download Published Paper Here
"The Truth about Śrīgupta’s Two Truths: Longchenpa’s 'Lower Svātantrikas' and the Making of a New Philosophical School"
Journal of South Asian Intellectual History 3, no. 2 (2021): 185–225; doi:10.1163/25425552-12340024
Longchen Rabjampa (1308–64), a scholar of the Tibetan Buddhist Nyingma tradition, presents a novel doxographical taxonomy of the so-called Svātantrika branch of Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophy, which designates the Indian Mādhyamika Śrīgupta as the exemplar of a Svātantrika sub-school according to which appearance and emptiness are metaphysically distinct. This paper compares Longchenpa’s characterization of this “distinct-appearance-and-emptiness” view with Śrīgupta’s own account of the two truths. I expose a significant disconnect between Longchenpa’s Śrīgupta and Śrīgupta himself and argue that the impetus for Longchenpa’s doxographical innovation originates not in Buddhist India, but within his own Tibetan intellectual milieu, tracing back to his twelfth-century Sangpu Monastery predecessors, Gyamarwa and Chapa.
Download Penultimate Draft Here
"Somethings and Nothings: Śrīgupta and Leibniz on Being and Unity" with Jeffrey K. McDonough
Philosophy East and West 70, no. 4 (2020): 1022-1046; doi:10.1353/pew.2020.0074
This paper argues that Śrīgupta and Leibniz accept similar metaphysical principles concerning unity, aggregates, and being. It then shows how, from those shared principles, Śrīgupta and Leibniz arrive at similar conclusions concerning the reality of ordinary bodies and radically different conclusions about fundamental ontology.
CHAPTERS IN EDITED VOLUMES
"Chomden Reldri on Dharmakīrti's Examination of Relations"
Histories of Tibet: Essays in Honor of Leonard W. J. van der Kuijp, Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, edited by Kurtis R. Schaeffer, Jue Liang, and William A. McGrath, 283–305. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2023.
Dharmakīrti’s (c. seventh century) Examination of Relations (Sambandhaparīkṣā) is unique in the Indian Buddhist canon for its being the only extant root text devoted entirely to the topic of the ontological status of relations. But the core thesis of this treatise—that relations are only nominally real—is in prima facie tension with another claim that is central to Dharmakīrti’s epistemology: that there exists some kind of “natural relation” (svabhāvapratibandha) that reliably underwrites inferences. Understanding how Dharmakīrti can consistently rely on natural relations to prop up his presentation of inferential reasoning while at the same time advancing an anti-realist account of relations is critical for making sense of his system of logic and epistemology, which came to be nearly universally adopted in Tibetan Buddhism cutting across traditions. Chomden Rikpé Reldri (1227–1305), who was perhaps the most prolific commentator on logic and epistemology in the history of Tibetan philosophy, composed two texts commenting on the Examination of Relations, neither of which have received any scholarly attention to date. In this paper, I provide an introduction to Chomden Reldri’s two commentaries and consider how they may illuminate Dharmakīrti’s text and also what they reveal about the understanding of Dharmakīrti’s account of relations in early Tibetan scholasticism. I then present a translation of Dharmakīrti’s Examination of Relations together with Chomden Reldri’s commentary, Annotations and Topical Outline of the Examination of Relations (’Brel pa brtag pa’i mchan dang sa bcad gnyis).
Download Penultimate Draft Here
"Śāntarakṣita: Climbing the Ladder to the Ultimate Truth"
The Routledge Handbook of Indian Buddhist Philosophy, edited by William Edelglass, Pierre-Julien Harter, and Sara L. McClintock, 463–379. New York: Routledge, 2022.
This chapter presents an overview of the life, work, and philosophical contributions of Śāntarakṣita (c. 725–788), who is known for his synthesis of Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka with elements of the Dignāga-Dharmakīrti tradition of logic and epistemology. His two most important independent treatises, the Compendium of True Principles (Tattvasaṃgraha) and the Ornament of the Middle Way (Madhyamakālaṃkāra), are characterized by an emphasis on the indispensable role of rational analysis on the Buddhist path as well as serious and systematic engagement with competing Buddhist and non-Buddhist schools of thought. Śāntarakṣita employs a pedagogical-rhetorical device of provisionally adopting what he deems to be successively more rational views to reject less rational ones. Using this approach, in the Ornament of the Middle Way, he recommends a gradual path to arrive at an understanding of the Madhyamaka ultimate truth by incorporating Yogācāra idealist ontology into his presentation of conventional truth. In this same text, he presents an influential iteration of the neither-one-nor-many argument for the Madhyamaka ultimate truth, the emptiness of intrinsic nature—i.e., the universal negation of ontologically independent being—leaving a lasting and significant impact on both Indian and Tibetan Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophy.
Download Penultimate Draft Here
BOOK REVIEW
Review of Jonathan Stoltz’s Illuminating the Mind: An Introduction to Buddhist Epistemology (Oxford 2021), Journal of Buddhist Philosophy, 5 (2023): 94–98. doi.org/10.1353/jbp.2019.a919586
PUBLIC PHILOSOPHY
“What's Wrong with Anger?”
Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Winter 2022 Edition, vol. vol. 32, no. 2. Adapted from "Śāntideva on Etiological Analysis as a Palliative for Anger," a talk given at the 2021 Holberg Symposium on "Fear and Anger in Public Life: A Challenge for the Humanities," in honor of 2021 Holberg Laureate Martha C. Nussbaum. https://tricycle.org/magazine/shantideva-anger
The Buddhist philosopher Śāntideva (7th–8th c.) recruits metaphysical analyses of causation and agency to argue against the utility and rationality of retributive anger. He prescribes the use of etiological inquiry to engender an understanding of a wrongdoer's causal history as a prerequisite for determining an apt response to wrongs. In this article, I detail how classical scholastic Buddhist definitions of anger preclude its being either intrinsically or instrumentally good for our own or others' welfare. I then reconstruct Śāntideva's argument for the utility of compassion as a "substitute attitude" for anger and detail his prescribed strategy for moving from anger to compassion. Along the way, I address the potential objections that anger is necessary (i) for detecting the moral value of an action and (ii) as a motivator to confront injustice. Finally, I consider how Śāntideva’s case against first-personal anger may be extended to the public domain in a way that calls for an “empathy-first” approach to injustice.
Download Online Version Here
Madhyamaka Metaphysical Indefinitism: Neither One Nor Many
In Progress | Under contract with Oxford University Press
Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophers defend a thoroughgoing anti-foundationalism. Yet, their positive picture of the structure of reality defies categorization among the standard models on offer in contemporary metaphysics. Utilizing Śrīgupta’s (c. seventh century) anti-foundationalist neither-one-nor-many argument taken together with his account of conventional reality, I develop an interpretation of the Madhyamaka ontological dependence structure, which I call “metaphysical indefinitism,” make a case for its coherence, and identify its payoffs, including its capacity to accommodate developments in scientific explanation.
Introduction to Reality: Śrīgupta's Tattvāvatāravṛtti
Harvard Oriental Series, forthcoming
This monograph includes a study of the Commentary on the Introduction to Reality (Tattvāvatāravṛtti) by the Indian Madhyamaka Buddhist philosopher, Śrīgupta, together with a Tibetan critical edition and annotated translation of this text, which has never before been available in English. In this work, Śrīgupta advances the “neither-one-nor-many argument,” which sets out to prove that all things lack ontological independence, and by implication, that everything depends for its existence on something else. I present a reconstruction and analysis of the argument, showing how Śrīgupta rejects the possibility of ontological independence by way of rejecting the possibility of mereological simples, both material and immaterial. Śrīgupta's other important philosophical contributions are brought to light, including his influential threefold criterion for conventional reality and his argument for the possibility of conceptual enlightened cognition, which is standardly supposed to be non-conceptual.
ARTICLES
"Nāgārjuna and Vasubandhu on the Principle of Sufficient Reason"
Asian Journal of Philosophy, 3, no. 19 (2024): 1–28; doi.org/10.1007/s44204-024-00142-1
Canonical defenders of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), such as Leibniz and Spinoza, are metaphysical foundationalists of one stripe or another. This is curious since the PSR—which says that everything has a ground, cause, or explanation—in effect, denies fundamental entities. In this paper, I explore the apparent inconsistency between metaphysical foundationalism and approaches to metaphysical system building that are driven by a commitment to the PSR. I do so by analyzing how Indian Buddhist philosophers arrive at both foundationalist and anti-foundationalist positions motivated by implicit commitments to different versions of the PSR. I begin by introducing the Buddhist Principle of Dependent Origination (pratītyasamutpāda) as a proto-PSR that is restricted to causal explanation. Next, I show how Vasubandhu’s Sautrāntika Abhidharma metaphysics is shaped by a qualified commitment to both causal and metaphysical grounding versions of the PSR. I then reveal how Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka metaphysics is driven by an unrestricted and exceptionless commitment to causal and metaphysical grounding versions of the PSR. Finally, I consider how Nāgārjuna’s account may put him in a unique position to respond to a common contemporary objection to the PSR from necessitarianism. I conclude by addressing a competing interpretation on which Nāgārjuna is best understood as an anti-rationalist rather than an uber-rationalist, as I characterize him.
"A Case Against Simple-Mindedness: Śrīgupta on Mental Mereology"
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, published online 2023; doi.org/10.1080/00048402.2023.2226687
There’s a common line of reasoning which supposes that the phenomenal unity of conscious experience is grounded in a mind-like simple subject. To the contrary, Mādhyamika Buddhist philosophers like Śrīgupta (seventh–eighth century) argue that any kind of mental simple is incoherent and thus metaphysically impossible. Lacking any unifying principle, the phenomenal unity of conscious experience is instead an unfounded illusion. In this paper, I present an analysis of Śrīgupta’s "neither-one-nor-many argument" against mental simples and show how his line of reasoning is driven by a set of implicit questions concerning the nature of and relation between consciousness and its intentional object. These questions not only set the agenda for centuries of intra-Buddhist debate on the topic, but they are also questions to which any defender of unified consciousness or a simple subject of experience arguably owes responses.
“An Appearance-Reality Distinction in an Unreal World”
Analysis 82, no. 1 (2022): 114–130; doi.org/10.1093/analys/anab085
For an author-meets-critic symposium on Jan Westerhoff’s The Non-existence of the Real World (Oxford 2020), with reply from Westerhoff.
Jan Westerhoff defends an account of thoroughgoing non-foundationalism that he calls “irrealism,” which is implicitly modeled on a Madhyamaka Buddhist view. In this paper, I begin by raising worries about the irrealist’s account of human cognition as taking place in a brain-based representational interface. Next, I pose first-order and higher-order challenges to how the irrealist—who defends a kind of global error theory—can sensibly accommodate an unlocalized appearance-reality distinction, both metaphysically and epistemologically. Finally, although Westerhoff insists that irrealism itself is not an ontological theory and that the irrealist’s rejection of absolutely general quantification precludes his commitment to any ultimately true theories, I propose strategies inspired by the Svātantrika commentarial tradition of Madhyamaka for how the irrealist might develop a lightweight account of unrestricted quantification that could be used to advance a lightweight ultimately true theory. This, I suggest, may allow the irrealist to (i) preserve a commitment to an unlocalized appearance-reality distinction, (ii) underwrite a distinction between ordinary veridical states and metaphysically accurate epistemic states, and (iii) provide an explanation for the massive error that he claims characterizes ordinary cognition.
Download Published Paper Here
"No Unity, No Problem: Madhyamaka Metaphysical Indefinitism”
Philosophers' Imprint 21, no. 31 (2021): 1–24; hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.3521354.0021.031
According to Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophers, everything depends for its existence on something else. But what would a world devoid of fundamentalia look like? In this paper, I argue that the anti-foundationalist “neither-one-nor-many argument” of the Indian Mādhyamika Śrīgupta commits him to a position I call “metaphysical indefinitism.” I demonstrate how this view follows from Śrīgupta’s rejection of mereological simples and ontologically independent being, when understood in light of his account of conventional reality. Contra recent claims in the secondary literature, I clarify how the Madhyamaka metaphysical dependence structure is not a straightforward infinitism since it does not honor strict asymmetry or transitivity. Instead, its dependence relations are irreflexive and extendable, admitting of dependence chains of indefinite (though not actually infinite) length and dependence loops of non-zero length. Yet, the flexible ontology of Śrīgupta's Madhyamaka can accommodate a contextualist account of asymmetry and support a revisable theory of conventional truth, delivering significant payoffs for the view, including the capacity to accommodate developments in scientific explanation.
Download Published Paper Here
"The Truth about Śrīgupta’s Two Truths: Longchenpa’s 'Lower Svātantrikas' and the Making of a New Philosophical School"
Journal of South Asian Intellectual History 3, no. 2 (2021): 185–225; doi:10.1163/25425552-12340024
Longchen Rabjampa (1308–64), a scholar of the Tibetan Buddhist Nyingma tradition, presents a novel doxographical taxonomy of the so-called Svātantrika branch of Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophy, which designates the Indian Mādhyamika Śrīgupta as the exemplar of a Svātantrika sub-school according to which appearance and emptiness are metaphysically distinct. This paper compares Longchenpa’s characterization of this “distinct-appearance-and-emptiness” view with Śrīgupta’s own account of the two truths. I expose a significant disconnect between Longchenpa’s Śrīgupta and Śrīgupta himself and argue that the impetus for Longchenpa’s doxographical innovation originates not in Buddhist India, but within his own Tibetan intellectual milieu, tracing back to his twelfth-century Sangpu Monastery predecessors, Gyamarwa and Chapa.
Download Penultimate Draft Here
"Somethings and Nothings: Śrīgupta and Leibniz on Being and Unity" with Jeffrey K. McDonough
Philosophy East and West 70, no. 4 (2020): 1022-1046; doi:10.1353/pew.2020.0074
This paper argues that Śrīgupta and Leibniz accept similar metaphysical principles concerning unity, aggregates, and being. It then shows how, from those shared principles, Śrīgupta and Leibniz arrive at similar conclusions concerning the reality of ordinary bodies and radically different conclusions about fundamental ontology.
CHAPTERS IN EDITED VOLUMES
"Chomden Reldri on Dharmakīrti's Examination of Relations"
Histories of Tibet: Essays in Honor of Leonard W. J. van der Kuijp, Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, edited by Kurtis R. Schaeffer, Jue Liang, and William A. McGrath, 283–305. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2023.
Dharmakīrti’s (c. seventh century) Examination of Relations (Sambandhaparīkṣā) is unique in the Indian Buddhist canon for its being the only extant root text devoted entirely to the topic of the ontological status of relations. But the core thesis of this treatise—that relations are only nominally real—is in prima facie tension with another claim that is central to Dharmakīrti’s epistemology: that there exists some kind of “natural relation” (svabhāvapratibandha) that reliably underwrites inferences. Understanding how Dharmakīrti can consistently rely on natural relations to prop up his presentation of inferential reasoning while at the same time advancing an anti-realist account of relations is critical for making sense of his system of logic and epistemology, which came to be nearly universally adopted in Tibetan Buddhism cutting across traditions. Chomden Rikpé Reldri (1227–1305), who was perhaps the most prolific commentator on logic and epistemology in the history of Tibetan philosophy, composed two texts commenting on the Examination of Relations, neither of which have received any scholarly attention to date. In this paper, I provide an introduction to Chomden Reldri’s two commentaries and consider how they may illuminate Dharmakīrti’s text and also what they reveal about the understanding of Dharmakīrti’s account of relations in early Tibetan scholasticism. I then present a translation of Dharmakīrti’s Examination of Relations together with Chomden Reldri’s commentary, Annotations and Topical Outline of the Examination of Relations (’Brel pa brtag pa’i mchan dang sa bcad gnyis).
Download Penultimate Draft Here
"Śāntarakṣita: Climbing the Ladder to the Ultimate Truth"
The Routledge Handbook of Indian Buddhist Philosophy, edited by William Edelglass, Pierre-Julien Harter, and Sara L. McClintock, 463–379. New York: Routledge, 2022.
This chapter presents an overview of the life, work, and philosophical contributions of Śāntarakṣita (c. 725–788), who is known for his synthesis of Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka with elements of the Dignāga-Dharmakīrti tradition of logic and epistemology. His two most important independent treatises, the Compendium of True Principles (Tattvasaṃgraha) and the Ornament of the Middle Way (Madhyamakālaṃkāra), are characterized by an emphasis on the indispensable role of rational analysis on the Buddhist path as well as serious and systematic engagement with competing Buddhist and non-Buddhist schools of thought. Śāntarakṣita employs a pedagogical-rhetorical device of provisionally adopting what he deems to be successively more rational views to reject less rational ones. Using this approach, in the Ornament of the Middle Way, he recommends a gradual path to arrive at an understanding of the Madhyamaka ultimate truth by incorporating Yogācāra idealist ontology into his presentation of conventional truth. In this same text, he presents an influential iteration of the neither-one-nor-many argument for the Madhyamaka ultimate truth, the emptiness of intrinsic nature—i.e., the universal negation of ontologically independent being—leaving a lasting and significant impact on both Indian and Tibetan Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophy.
Download Penultimate Draft Here
BOOK REVIEW
Review of Jonathan Stoltz’s Illuminating the Mind: An Introduction to Buddhist Epistemology (Oxford 2021), Journal of Buddhist Philosophy, 5 (2023): 94–98. doi.org/10.1353/jbp.2019.a919586
PUBLIC PHILOSOPHY
“What's Wrong with Anger?”
Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Winter 2022 Edition, vol. vol. 32, no. 2. Adapted from "Śāntideva on Etiological Analysis as a Palliative for Anger," a talk given at the 2021 Holberg Symposium on "Fear and Anger in Public Life: A Challenge for the Humanities," in honor of 2021 Holberg Laureate Martha C. Nussbaum. https://tricycle.org/magazine/shantideva-anger
The Buddhist philosopher Śāntideva (7th–8th c.) recruits metaphysical analyses of causation and agency to argue against the utility and rationality of retributive anger. He prescribes the use of etiological inquiry to engender an understanding of a wrongdoer's causal history as a prerequisite for determining an apt response to wrongs. In this article, I detail how classical scholastic Buddhist definitions of anger preclude its being either intrinsically or instrumentally good for our own or others' welfare. I then reconstruct Śāntideva's argument for the utility of compassion as a "substitute attitude" for anger and detail his prescribed strategy for moving from anger to compassion. Along the way, I address the potential objections that anger is necessary (i) for detecting the moral value of an action and (ii) as a motivator to confront injustice. Finally, I consider how Śāntideva’s case against first-personal anger may be extended to the public domain in a way that calls for an “empathy-first” approach to injustice.
Download Online Version Here