18. Morality and Will

It is dangerous to make sweeping statements about the huge mass of Indian literature, but I think that most Buddhist and Brahmanic systems assume that morality is merely a means of obtaining happiness[67] and is not obedience to a categorical imperative or to the will of God.  Morality is by inference raised to the status of a cosmic law, because evil deeds will infallibly bring evil consequences to the doer in this life or in another.  But it is not commonly spoken of as such a law.  The usual point of view is that man desires happiness and for this morality is a necessary though insufficient preparation.  But there may be higher states which cannot be expressed in terms of happiness.

The will receives more attention in European philosophy than in Indian, whether Buddhist or Brahmanic, which both regard it not as a separate kind of activity but as a form of thought.  As such it is not neglected in Buddhist psychology:  will, desire and struggle are recognized as good provided their object is good, a point overlooked by those who accuse Buddhism of preaching inaction[68].

Schopenhauer’s doctrine that will is the essential fact in the universe and in life may appear to have analogies to Indian thought:  it would be easy for instance to quote passages from the Pitakas showing that tanha, thirst, craving or desire, is the force which makes and remakes the world.  But such statements must be taken as generalizations respecting the world as it is rather than as implying theories of its origin, for though tanha is a link in the chain of causation, it is not regarded as an ultimate principle more than any other link but is made to depend on feeling.  The Maya of the Vedanta is not so much the affirmation of the will to live as the illusion that we have a real existence apart from Brahman, and the same may be said of Ahamkara in the Sankhya philosophy.  It is the principle of egoism and individuality, but its essence is not so much self-assertion as the mistaken idea that this is mine, that I am happy or unhappy.

There is a question much debated in European philosophy but little argued in India, namely the freedom of the will.  The active European feeling the obligation and the difficulties of morality is perplexed by the doubt whether he really has the power to act as he wishes.  This problem has not much troubled the Hindus and rightly, as I think.  For if the human will is not free, what does freedom mean?  What example of freedom can be quoted with which to contrast the supposed non-freedom of the will?  If in fact it is from the will that our notion of freedom is derived, is it not unreasonable to say that the will is not free?  Absolute freedom in the sense of something regulated by no laws is unthinkable.  When a thing is conditioned by external causes it is dependent.  When it is conditioned by internal causes which are part of its own nature, it is free.