Critique of the Conventional: The Cessation of Volition and Buddhist Dualism of the Person

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This chapter focusses in depth on the Buddhist trope-theoretic dualism of the person, especially as this interactionist account pertains to the properties of persons salient for killing, in particular the obviation of hostile volitions. The account provides an overview of Buddhist anti-physicalism of the person, especially with regard to soteriology and the post-mortem continuity of the mental, in which volitional formations (saṃskāras) are directly implicated in the perpetuation of illusory views of self and so the karmic propensity for rebirth. These views are contrasted with consensus physicalist views that underwrite contemporary secular and scientific materialism. Buddhist post-mortem continuity is described especially as it pertains to the bearer of volitions. Having examined the causal dualism obtaining between psychophysical tropes (dhammas/dharmas), a Buddhist objection is raised against the possibility of the final extirpation, if not local obviation, of hostile volitions as the inherently mental objects of lethal acts. This determines this generic case of killing as partially deluded, which along with its epistemic failure is considered in more broadly normative terms. This Buddhist critique of the ‘doxastic account’ of killing given in Chap. 7 therefore highlights a concern for the epistemic adequacy between reasons and the causal efficacy of acts serving the Buddhist telos of the awakening from conventional (as well as ultimate) ignorance. A failure of this larger project, moreover, marks a failure of moral progress insofar as karma obtains only between mental causal functions, and not the physical ones entailed in the killing of otherwise innocent sentient bodies.