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JAINA ETHIES AND THE META-ETHICAL TRENDS
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naturalism. The statement that Subha is an experience in tune with Abimsā accepts value in the world as related to consciousness and leaves room for 'ought' experience. For example, to say that kindness is an experience in tune with Ahimsā implies that we ought to be kind. Besides, that experience is not of the type 'liked by me' or 'approved by me' and so is not subjective or reducible to feeling but possesses an objective character, and at the same time this experience is not simple, unanalysable but complex and analysable, and therefore definable as has been explained above.
The second and third meta-ethical questions that draw our attention are :(2) What is the nature of normative judgements of ethics? Or what is the nature of ethical judgements (obligatory and value) according to the Jaina ? (3) What is their justification ?
Let me now state the second question more clearly. There have been recognised three kinds of knowledge : (1) Knowledge of facts, as this flower is yellow; (2) Knowledge of necessity, as 7 +5 = 12 and (3) Knowledge of value, as A was a good man or murder is wrong. 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.? The upholders of the former view are known as non-cognitivists (emotivists). When we say that Himsā 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 congnitivists, the ethical judgement, 'Hiinsă 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 in asmuch-as, according to them, ethical judgements are identified with feeling, emotions etc. Here the position taken by the Jaina 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 cannot be separated. By implication we can derive from the Tattvārthastrā5 that the path of goodness can be traversed through knowledge (Jõāna) and feeling and activity. Amộtacandra says that first of all knowledge of right j..16
