Right and the Good in Jaina Ethics

Author(s): Kamalchand Sogani
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

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good as a means, this does not deprive duty of its importance in ethical life, just as health does not become unimportant by its being extrinsic good. The pursuance of Anuvratas for the householder and the Mahāvratas for the Muni may be regarded as dutiful actions.
Here it may be said that rightness or wrongness of an action does not depend upon the goodness or badness of consequences, but upon the motive or motives from which it is done. We can find references in Jaina ethical texts wherein good motives are given prime importance for the performance of action producing good consequences. So long as good motives issue in right action productive of good consequences, there is nothing wrong in accepting the dependence of rightness of action on good motive. Jaina ethics seems to tie good motives with the rightness of actions producing good consequences. Its conviction is that if there is good motive like kindness or charitable disposition, right actions are bound to occur. At one stage in man's moral evolution it may be possible; at ordinary man's level this may not happen. Since Jaina ethics, it seems to me, could not evenly face the problem arising from the fact that sometimes good dispositions are not able to produce right actions issuing in good consequences, it made rightness of action productive of good identical with good motive. But the point is that such actions are not so blameworthy as they would have been if they had been done from bad motives. No doubt the agent deserves praise for acting as he did, but the action is wrong.
Jaina ethics seems to confuse that to call an action morally praiseworthy is the same thing as to say that it is right, and to call it morally blameworthy is the same thing as to say that it is wrong. In point of fact these two judgements are not identical. It so often happens that a man may act wrongly from a good motive, i.e. conscientiousness may lead to fanatical cruelty, mistaken asceticism etc. and he may act rightly from a bad motive, for instance, feeling of revenge may be able to check certain criminal actions. However, in the former case we regard the actions as wrong, whereas in the latter we regard them as right. This means that the consideration of motives does not make any difference to
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