Kesarimalji Surana Abhinandan Granth

Author(s): Nathmal Tatia, Dev Kothari
Publisher: Kesarimalji Surana Abhinandan Granth Prakashan Samiti

Page 1236

Rightness of Action and Jaina Ethics
cannot be relied upon. The fact is that when one makes a moral judgement in particular situations, one implicitly commits one-self to make the same judgement in any similar situations.1 The merit of act-deontologism is that it takes into consideration the particularity of the situation. It advises us to look into the act as such. Besides, the weakness of rule-deontologism is that it occupies itself with the extreme rightness or wrongness of the rule without allowing any exceptions to it. It this case, fulfilment of duty may sometimes become fanaticism. Truth ought to be spoken even if the world has to face bad consequences.' The defect of this position in particular and deontologism in general is that they do not take account of the specific situations and goodness or badness of the consequences following from such circumstances. Actions cannot be right or wrong in vacuum. They always produce certain effects, either good or bad, and to be indifferent to effects is to ignore the verdicts of moral experience which is deeply rooted in the goodness or badness of human situation.
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As for Jaina ethics, it does not condemn the action of telling a lie to enemies, robbers and even to persons who ask questions when they have no right to ask. Under some exceptional circumstances, it is right to break a promise or to take something that belongs to another without his permission. Thus, no rule can be absolutely always right or wrong as the rule-deontologist prescribed. Mill rightly remarks, 'It is not the fault of any creed but of the complicated nature of human affairs that rules of conduct cannot be so framed as to require exception, and that hardly any kind of action can safely be laid down as either always obligatory or always condemnable." The merit of rule-deontolgism is that it gives proper importance to rules in moral life.
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After critically examining the deontological position from the point of view of Jaina ethics, we now proceed to discuss the position taken by the teleologist. Since teleologists have often been called utilitarians, we shall be regarding teleological position as utilitarian position.
(a) Act-utilitarians say that the rightness or wrongness of each action is to be determined by appealing to its goodness or badness of consequences and I ought to do an action in a situation which is likely to produce the maximum balance of good over evil in the universe. One ought not to tell the truth in a situation which is such as to cause maximum balance of evil over good by telling the truth.
(b) Rule-utilitarians hold that moral rules like truth-telling etc. are significant in life and our duty in a particular situation is to be decided by appeal to a rule. In this respect, they are like rule-deontologists but unlike deontologists they affirm that rules are to be framed on the basis of their effects on the universe as a whole. Thus rules have utilitarian basis and they must be selected, maintained, revised and replaced on this basis. Once rules are so framed they are to be followed even if it is known that they do not have the best possible consequences in certain particular cases.
1 Frankena: Ethics, p. 22 (Prentice Hall).
2 Mill: Utilitarianism, Chapter II, p. 28 (Everyman's Library, Ed. Newyork).
It may be noted here that Jaina ethics subscribes to the utilitarian basis of the judgements of right or wrong. Do not kill, Do not tell a lie, Do not hoard, Do not steal and Do not commit adultery-all these rules have as their basis the productivity of good consequence in the universe. However, Jaina Acaryas maintained that sometimes it is not the following of the rule that