I don’t have any great answers for this, but my not very well thought-out response is to say that virtue ethics tends to be helpful (such as the ideas of stoicism, for which Massimo Pigliucci’s book is a decent introduction). I think about the kind of person I want to be, how I want others to see me, and so on.
There are some ways in which ideas of stoicism have some overlap with Buddhism (mainly Buddhist psychology) in the area of awareness of our reactions, what is/isn’t within our control, and recognizing the interconnectedness of things. However, but since I know so little about Buddhism I’m not sure to what extent my perception of this similarity is simply “western pop Buddhism.” My impression is that much of “western pop Buddhism” is focused on being calm and being cognizant of your locus of control (Alan Watts, Jack Kornfield, and everything derived from Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction[1]). As a white American guy who lived in China for a decade, I’m also very aware of and cautious of the stereotypes of westerners seeking “Eastern wisdom.”
If I push myself to be a little more concrete, I think that being considerate is really big in my mind, as is some type of striving for improvement. I generally find that moral philosophy hasn’t been much help in the minutia of day-to-day life (how do I figure out how much responsibility I have for this professional failure that I was involved in, at what point is it justified to stop trying in a relationship, how honest should I be when I discover something, how should I balance loyalty to a friend with each individual being responsible for their own actions, to what extent should I take ownership of someone choosing to react negatively to my words/actions, and so on).
I don’t have any great answers for this, but my not very well thought-out response is to say that virtue ethics tends to be helpful (such as the ideas of stoicism, for which Massimo Pigliucci’s book is a decent introduction). I think about the kind of person I want to be, how I want others to see me, and so on.
There are some ways in which ideas of stoicism have some overlap with Buddhism (mainly Buddhist psychology) in the area of awareness of our reactions, what is/isn’t within our control, and recognizing the interconnectedness of things. However, but since I know so little about Buddhism I’m not sure to what extent my perception of this similarity is simply “western pop Buddhism.” My impression is that much of “western pop Buddhism” is focused on being calm and being cognizant of your locus of control (Alan Watts, Jack Kornfield, and everything derived from Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction[1]). As a white American guy who lived in China for a decade, I’m also very aware of and cautious of the stereotypes of westerners seeking “Eastern wisdom.”
If I push myself to be a little more concrete, I think that being considerate is really big in my mind, as is some type of striving for improvement. I generally find that moral philosophy hasn’t been much help in the minutia of day-to-day life (how do I figure out how much responsibility I have for this professional failure that I was involved in, at what point is it justified to stop trying in a relationship, how honest should I be when I discover something, how should I balance loyalty to a friend with each individual being responsible for their own actions, to what extent should I take ownership of someone choosing to react negatively to my words/actions, and so on).
McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality was a pretty good critique of this.
Thanks Joseph! I’ll check out Massimo Pigliucci.
I like your concrete examples. Would be curious if other people have principles which guide how they act in response to those questions.