AGENDA
- Presentation groups
- Annotation RR for next time
- Animals in Indian thought
- Look at presentation instructions
- Get into groups and introduce yourselves
- We will use the same groups for discussions
- Look at RR instructions
- You will access the article for annotation through the assignment
Animals in Western Thought vs. Animals in Classical Indian Thought
Goal
- Understand a different, contrasting tradition
- Thereby understand our own tradition better
Western tradition: how are humans different from animals?
- Aristotle: humans have reason, virtue; animals have "analogs" (not the same!) and do have souls, perception, feeling
- Descartes: humans have thought, souls, consciousness; all animals are mere machines
- Kant: humans have reason, morality, self-awareness; all animals lack any of these things but have apparent similarities so cruelty to animals will lead to cruelty to people
- Bentham: humans have reason; animals lack reason but they can suffer and that's all that matters morally
"Illuminating Community: Animals in Classical Indian Thought"
- Amber Carpenter – professor of Greek and Indian philosophy at Yale/Singapore.
- Classical Indian Thought = hundreds of authors over a period of about 2400 years (starting 5th century bce)
- trends, changes, can be inconsistent
- Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism – religion or philosophy?
- Article is not about beliefs or practices today today but may shed light on them
Your questions---
- Some are requests for clarification
- Some express doubts
Page 1-3
1. COMMUNITY NOT DIFFERENCE. In classic Indian thought, there's no obsession with the difference between humans and animals. Animals are not a "kind."
2. DHARMA. To the extent it comes up, humans are distinguished not by reason, but by dharma (p. 2). However, this isn't strict.
- p. 2-3.:What is dharma? Does Indian thought say just humans have it? Can animals have it?
Page 3-7
3. REBIRTH. People can be reborn as animals and animals can be reborn as people. So animals are not just in the background of our lives.
- p. 4-5. Also see p. 8.
4. AHIMSA. Rebirth is part of the reason why vegetarianism became part of dharma to some degree, but virtue of ahimsa is a more important reason. Ahimsa=non-violence.
- Questions about this on p. 6.
5. ANIMALS NOT A KIND. Rules about how we treat animals don't apply to all animals as a kind, but to particular species and individuals. Each animals is not "just an animal" but a specific animal.
p. 7-10
6. REBIRTH. It's worse to be reborn as an animal.
- p. 8: Lots of questions about rebirth and animals having/not having dharma.
7. KARMA. Your rebirth depends on your actions in life. You can be punished with animal rebirth. An animal can be rewarded with human rebirth. That means animals actually do have dharma do some degree!
p. 10-14
8. VEGETARIANISM. An ideal partly because of rebirth (you wouldn't want to eat your grandmother!) and partly because of virtue of ahimsa (non-violence).
- p. 10-11, 12: lots of questions about eating animals
p. 14-18
9. ANIMAL FABLES. Classical Indian literature is full of morally instructive animal stories and talking animals. We can learn from the way animals live.
- p. 15 question about fables
Not in article:
10. HINDU GODS. Can reside in animal or part-animal bodies (their "vehicle"). Example: Ganesh.
11. SACRED COWS. All animals are not equal in the Hindu view. Cows are sacred so beef-eating is worse than other kind of meat-eating. Monkeys also considered sacred.
12. CASTE. Obligations concerning animals depend on a person's caste and have partly to do with personal purity.