Right and the Good in Jaina Ethics

Author(s): Kamalchand Sogani
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

Page 19

definable as has been explained above .. The second question of meta-ethics that draws our attention is : What is the nature of ethical judgements according to the Jaina ethics ? The question under discussion reduces itself to this. Are ethical judgements expressive of any cognitive content in the sense that they may be asserted true or false ? Or do they simply express emotions, feelings, etc ? When we say that Hiṁsā is evil, are we making a true or false assertion or are we experiencing simply a feeling ? Or are we doing both ? According to the cognitivists, the ethical judgement, 'Hiṁsā is evil is capable of being objectively true and thus moral knowledge is objective, whereas the non-cognitivists deny both the objectivity of assertion and knowledge inasmuch as, according to them, ethical judgements are identified with feeling, emotions etc. Here the position taken by the Jaina ethics seems to me to be this that though the statement, 'Himsā' is evil'is objectively true, yet it cannot be divested of the feeling element involved in experiencing the truth of the statement. In moral life knowledge and feeling can not be separated. By implication we can derive from the Tattvārthasūtra that the path of goodness can be traversed through knowledge (Jnana) and feeling and activity. Thus the conviction of the Jaina ethics is that the knowledge of good and right is tied up with our feelings and that in their absence we are ethically blind. In fact, our feelings and knowledge are so interwoven that we have never a state of mind in which both are not present in some degree. so the claims of cognitivists and non-cognitivists are onesided and antagonistic to the verdict of experience. Blanshard33 rightly remarks, “Nature may spread before us the richest possible banquet of good things, but if we can look at them only with the eye of reason, we shall care for none of these things; they will be alike insipid. There would be no knowledge of good and evil in a world of mere knowers, for where there is no feeling, good and evil would be unrecognisable". Again ‘a life that directs itself by feeling even of the most exalted kind will be like a ship without a rudder'. Thus the nature of ethical judgement according to the Jaina ethics is cognitive-affective. “The achievement of good is a joint product
14