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It is alright that good is definable as the experience in tune with Ahimsā, but it may be asked, what is Ahimsā? Now the question, what is Ahimsa, in the value-world is like the question, what is 'being' in the factual world? Just as 'being' is understandable through the particular examples of things like pen, table, book, etc. so also Ahimsa is understandable through the particular examples of Ahimsā, like non-killing, non-exploitation, non-enmity, non-cruelty, etc. When it is so easily understandable through examples, the craving for the definition of Ahimsa is pedantry serving no-purpose. Ahimsa can be taught by examples, just as in arithmetic 2 + 2 = 4 can be taught to a child with the help of an example, two balls + two balls = four balls, and gradually the child learns to do big sums without examples. In the same way Ahimsa can be understood gradually. The argument of understandability cannot be adduced in the case of Subha without definition. For understanding Śubha a definition is a necessity, but the similar necessity does not exist for Ahimsa in view of the above mentioned facts.
The above definition of good or Subha presented by the Jaina thinkers avoids the two extremes of naturalism and non-naturalism, subjectivism and objectivism which are the present-day meta-ethical trends. According to naturalism moral terms like 'good' or 'right' can be reduced to empirical terms of psychology, biology, sociology, etc. For instance, good means actually desired by oneself or by people generally, or what tends to further human survival or what makes for social stability. The defects of these definitions are (a) they reduce ethics to a branch of natural science, thus robbing it of its autonomy; (b) they do not leave any place for 'ought' experience since they refer only to what is. Frankena' is right when he says 'when we are making
Spiritual Awakening (Samyagdarśana) and Other Essays
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