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Post by inavalan on Feb 7, 2022 16:04:24 GMT -5
It is presumptuous to believe and to emphatically claim that something can't be understood, or it can't be put in words. You can only state that you can't! Ironically, his use of " Hintergedanke" is an example that proves this point. The translation is simply " ulterior motive", but he made it seem something obscure or ineffable. This is like, I have an "ulterior motive" to show my finger, and claim (even to myself) that it can't be understood, and even I (who I am so smart that I can understand it, my finger) can't describe it in words (in spite of being such a wordy guy) ...  Masses of followers, in awe, accept being inferior and consequently being told about a truth that they can't comprehend ... And the prize is: they start believing that they too grasp that truth that can't be comprehended, nor can be expressed in words, and start explaining it emphatically to non-believers. This is reminds also of Taleb's "black swan": you've never seen it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Well, the only presumption in what can't be put into words is the concept of the ineffable, which simple puts one on notice. As far as the notion of something that intellect can't grasp, there's an interesting metaphor for this, say, trying to teach calculus to a cat. Anyone who "accepts being inferior" has missed the pointing entirely and is fixating on a misinterpretation. Notice how Watts refers to the apprehension as in the back of everyone's mind. This is the unknown known, that everyone already "knows". It is a simple, subtle commonality, and there is a very great and genuine humility in the realization, as it is the birthright of even those who scoff at the notion. It is not an achievement, nor a reward for hard work, and as such can never put one above or below another, and anyone who tells you otherwise hasn't yet realized it. No. AW's position, and others', is elitist (not in the "good" way ....), and unarguable. The fact that "you can't" doesn't demonstrate that "nobody can". It is simple induction, not complete. Your further argument is on the same lines. You have no way to prove neither to yourself, nor to others, that it isn't your delusion. Spreading it to others that can't or don't choose for themselves, is not right. If you added the disclaimer "in my opinion", or "I believe that", or inferred it somehow, it would be something else. The fact that you believe so, doesn't make it so. |
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Post by laughter on Feb 7, 2022 18:02:54 GMT -5
Well, the only presumption in what can't be put into words is the concept of the ineffable, which simple puts one on notice. As far as the notion of something that intellect can't grasp, there's an interesting metaphor for this, say, trying to teach calculus to a cat. Anyone who "accepts being inferior" has missed the pointing entirely and is fixating on a misinterpretation. Notice how Watts refers to the apprehension as in the back of everyone's mind. This is the unknown known, that everyone already "knows". It is a simple, subtle commonality, and there is a very great and genuine humility in the realization, as it is the birthright of even those who scoff at the notion. It is not an achievement, nor a reward for hard work, and as such can never put one above or below another, and anyone who tells you otherwise hasn't yet realized it. No. AW's position, and others', is elitist (not in the "good" way ....), and unarguable. The fact that "you can't" doesn't demonstrate that "nobody can". It is simple induction, not complete. Your further argument is on the same lines. You have no way to prove neither to yourself, nor to others, that it isn't your delusion. Spreading it to others that can't or don't choose for themselves, is not right. If you added the disclaimer "in my opinion", or "I believe that", or inferred it somehow, it would be something else. The fact that you believe so, doesn't make it so. Oh, well I'll be the first to admit that there's no proving this realization in the terms it seems to me that you're interested in. It's not intellectually defensible, and follows no logical framework. But your argument that Watts is elitist is a misinterpretation of what he's saying, and ignores the bald fact that noone here is going to try to convince you that this realization makes them better than you.  And, you'll have to spell it out for me how you believe the philosophical facet of what I've written about ineffability and the limitations of intellect are incorrect. That the ineffable is ineffable is a simple tautology, and to reiterate, the value in the tautology is to put the intellectual mind on notice of that on which intellect has no bearing. Every form has limitations - which is the way that every form is defined, by way of boundaries and characteristics. Note, that characteristics can always be expressed as exclusionary factors. The metaphor of teaching calculus to a cat was a simple way of illustrating the limitations that define intellect. |
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Post by inavalan on Feb 7, 2022 19:27:34 GMT -5
No. AW's position, and others', is elitist (not in the "good" way ....), and unarguable. The fact that "you can't" doesn't demonstrate that "nobody can". It is simple induction, not complete. Your further argument is on the same lines. You have no way to prove neither to yourself, nor to others, that it isn't your delusion. Spreading it to others that can't or don't choose for themselves, is not right. If you added the disclaimer "in my opinion", or "I believe that", or inferred it somehow, it would be something else. The fact that you believe so, doesn't make it so. Oh, well I'll be the first to admit that there's no proving this realization in the terms it seems to me that you're interested in. It's not intellectually defensible, and follows no logical framework. But your argument that Watts is elitist is a misinterpretation of what he's saying, and ignores the bald fact that noone here is going to try to convince you that this realization makes them better than you. And, you'll have to spell it out for me how you believe the philosophical facet of what I've written about ineffability and the limitations of intellect are incorrect. That the ineffable is ineffable is a simple tautology, and to reiterate, the value in the tautology is to put the intellectual mind on notice of that on which intellect has no bearing. Every form has limitations - which is the way that every form is defined, by way of boundaries and characteristics. Note, that characteristics can always be expressed as exclusionary factors. The metaphor of teaching calculus to a cat was a simple way of illustrating the limitations that define intellect. As often happens, we discuss different points. My point was about the impossibility of AW knowing that there is something that can't be known, and that that something can't be put in words. This is because you can't know that others don't know. I also said that whatever you know, you can't be sure that it isn't a delusion. You discussed other points, and argue with concepts I don't subscribe to, and I don't care to argue about. I accept that you may disagree on my points, but I believe you're wrong on that. I thought that the metaphor was a jab at Reefs ... As a metaphor, it has no connection to the points in discussion, it actually may even have an elitist slant ... The calculus is a crutch, in the big scheme of things. The cat doesn't need to understand calculus, and you have no idea what a cat understands, do you? By the way, if a woman is flipping a coin, and she tells you she just had ten tails is a row, what would you bet will be next, and why? Don't jump on it ... |
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Post by laughter on Feb 8, 2022 1:35:53 GMT -5
Oh, well I'll be the first to admit that there's no proving this realization in the terms it seems to me that you're interested in. It's not intellectually defensible, and follows no logical framework. But your argument that Watts is elitist is a misinterpretation of what he's saying, and ignores the bald fact that noone here is going to try to convince you that this realization makes them better than you. And, you'll have to spell it out for me how you believe the philosophical facet of what I've written about ineffability and the limitations of intellect are incorrect. That the ineffable is ineffable is a simple tautology, and to reiterate, the value in the tautology is to put the intellectual mind on notice of that on which intellect has no bearing. Every form has limitations - which is the way that every form is defined, by way of boundaries and characteristics. Note, that characteristics can always be expressed as exclusionary factors. The metaphor of teaching calculus to a cat was a simple way of illustrating the limitations that define intellect. As often happens, we discuss different points. My point was about the impossibility of AW knowing that there is something that can't be known, and that that something can't be put in words. This is because you can't know that others don't know. I also said that whatever you know, you can't be sure that it isn't a delusion. You discussed other points, and argue with concepts I don't subscribe to, and I don't care to argue about. I accept that you may disagree on my points, but I believe you're wrong on that. I thought that the metaphor was a jab at Reefs ... As a metaphor, it has no connection to the points in discussion, it actually may even have an elitist slant ... The calculus is a crutch, in the big scheme of things. The cat doesn't need to understand calculus, and you have no idea what a cat understands, do you? By the way, if a woman is flipping a coin, and she tells you she just had ten tails is a row, what would you bet will be next, and why? Don't jump on it ... Well, I was trying to engage you on the philosophical shadow of Alan's pointing. You morph slightly away from my challenge, which is that ineffability puts you on notice of what words cannot express, and that anything known is a form, and so as limited as the means by which it is known. This is not falsified by your idea that you cannot know what other's know, regardless of the veracity of that idea. What anyone knows is what they know, but the unknown will always be the greater infinity of the dichotomy between known and unknown, simply by the way that these two notions define one another. As there is a limitation, there is what lies beyond that limitation. The metaphor simply demonstrates one particular example of this sort of limitation, no it had nothing to do with the grinning kitty.  |
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Post by Reefs on Feb 8, 2022 5:41:09 GMT -5
Pointers - Non-duality and the problem of language (1)
AW: As is so often the way, what we have suppressed and overlooked is something startlingly obvious. The difficulty is that it is so obvious and basic that one can hardly find the words for it. The Germans call it a Hintergedanke, an apprehension lying tacitly in the back of our minds which we cannot easily admit, even to ourselves. The sensation of “I” as a lonely and isolated center of being is so powerful and commonsensical, and so fundamental to our modes of speech and thought, to our laws and social institutions, that we cannot experience selfhood except as something superficial in the scheme of the universe. I seem to be a brief light that flashes but once in all the aeons of time—a rare, complicated, and all-too-delicate organism on the fringe of biological evolution, where the wave of life bursts into individual, sparkling, and multicolored drops that gleam for a moment only to vanish forever. Under such conditioning it seems impossible and even absurd to realize that myself does not reside in the drop alone, but in the whole surge of energy which ranges from the galaxies to the nuclear fields in my body. At this level of existence “I” am immeasurably old; my forms are infinite and their comings and goings are simply the pulses or vibrations of a single and eternal flow of energy. The difficulty in realizing this to be so is that conceptual thinking cannot grasp it. It is as if the eyes were trying to look at themselves directly, or as if one were trying to describe the color of a mirror in terms of colors reflected in the mirror. Just as sight is something more than all things seen, the foundation or “ground” of our existence and our awareness cannot be understood in terms of things that are known. We are forced, therefore, to speak of it through myth—that is, through special metaphors, analogies, and images which say what it is like as distinct from what it is. At one extreme of its meaning, “myth” is fable, falsehood, or superstition. But at another, “myth” is a useful and fruitful image by which we make sense of life in somewhat the same way that we can explain electrical forces by comparing them with the behavior of water or air. Yet “myth,” in this second sense, is not to be taken literally, just as electricity is not to be confused with air or water. Thus in using myth one must take care not to confuse image with fact, which would be like climbing up the signpost instead of following the road. Alan Watts, The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, Chapter 1 It is presumptuous to believe and to emphatically claim that something can't be understood, or it can't be put in words. You can only state that you can't! Ironically, his use of " Hintergedanke" is an example that proves this point. The translation is simply " ulterior motive", but he made it seem something obscure or ineffable. This is like, I have an "ulterior motive" to show my finger, and claim (even to myself) that it can't be understood, and even I (who I am so smart that I can understand it, my finger) can't describe it in words (in spite of being such a wordy guy) ... Masses of followers, in awe, accept being inferior and consequently being told about a truth that they can't comprehend ... And the prize is: they start believing that they too grasp that truth that can't be comprehended, nor can be expressed in words, and start explaining it emphatically to non-believers. This is reminds also of Taleb's "black swan": you've never seen it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Actually, the original meaning of Hintergedanke in German is rather neutral. It just means having something at the back of your mind while you are busy doing something else. And if you wanted to convey the meaning of ulterior motive, you'd probably use the plural form anyway, not the singular form as Alan did. So I'd say Alan is quite correct here. This is not about inferiority, this is about the map and the territory. The map may describe the territory and fit your needs, but the map is not the territory and shouldn't be confused with the territory. Yes, similar to the Zhuangzi story of the frog and the sea turtle, the little frog is only familiar with his little well and his little mind can't even fathom that something like the ocean could even exist; there is something we call non-conceptual knowing, which is prior to any concepts, and therefore cannot be inferred intellectually, by using concepts - it's the unthinkable and the unimaginable. It's where mind/intellect hits a wall, as you keep demonstrating here. |
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Post by Reefs on Feb 8, 2022 11:09:13 GMT -5
Pointers - Non-duality and the problem of language (2)
AW: To go anywhere in philosophy, other than back and forth, round and round, one must have a keen sense of correlative vision. This is a technical term for a thorough understanding of the Game of Black-and-White, whereby one sees that all explicit opposites are implicit allies—correlative in the sense that they “gowith” each other and cannot exist apart.
This, rather than any miasmic absorption of differences into a continuum of ultimate goo, is the metaphysical unity underlying the world. For this unity is not mere one-ness as opposed to multiplicity, since these two terms are themselves polar. The unity, or inseparability, of one and many is therefore referred to in Vedanta philosophy as “non-duality” (advaita) to distinguish it from simple uniformity.
True, the term has its own opposite, “duality,” for insofar as every term designates a class, an intellectual pigeonhole, every class has an outside polarizing its inside. For this reason, language can no more transcend duality than paintings or photographs upon a flat surface can go beyond two dimensions. Yet by the convention of perspective, certain two-dimensional lines that slant towards a “vanishing-point” are taken to represent the third dimension of depth. In a similar way, the dualistic term “non-duality” is taken to represent the “dimension” in which explicit differences have implicit unity.
Alan Watts, The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, Chapter 6
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Post by Reefs on Feb 9, 2022 8:50:42 GMT -5
Pointers - Non-duality and the problem of language (3)
AW: It is not at first easy to maintain correlative vision. The Upanishads describe it as the path of the razor’s edge, a balancing act on the sharpest and thinnest of lines. For to ordinary vision there is nothing visible “between” classes and opposites.
If the choice must be either white or black, must I so commit myself to the white side that I cannot be a good sport and actually play the Game of Black-and-White, with the implicit knowledge that neither can win? Or is all this so much bandying with the formal relations between words and terms without any relation to my physical situation?
To answer the last question affirmatively, I should have to believe that the logic of thought is quite arbitrary—that it is a purely and strictly human invention without any basis in the physical universe. […]To sever the connections between human logic and the physical universe, I would have to revert to the myth of the ego as an isolated, independent observer for whom the rest of the world is absolutely external and “other.”
If, on the other hand, self and other, subject and object, organism and environment are the poles of a single process, THAT is my true existence. As the Upanishads say, “That is the Self. That is the real. That art thou!”
But I cannot think or say anything about THAT, or, as I shall now call it, IT, unless I resort to the convention of using dualistic language as the lines of perspective are used to show depth on a flat surface. What lies beyond opposites must be discussed, if at all, in terms of opposites, and this means using the language of analogy, metaphor, and myth.
The difficulty is not only that language is dualistic, insofar as words are labels for mutually exclusive classes. The problem is that IT is so much more myself than I thought I was, so central and so basic to my existence, that I cannot make it an object. There is no way to stand outside IT, and, in fact, no need to do so. For so long as I am trying to grasp IT, I am implying that IT is not really myself. If it were possible, I am losing the sense of it by attempting to find it. This is why those who really know that they are IT invariably say they do not understand it, for IT understands understanding—not the other way about. One cannot, and need not, go deeper than deep!
Alan Watts, The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, Chapter 6
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Post by Reefs on Feb 10, 2022 10:54:11 GMT -5
Pointers - Non-duality and the problem of language (4)
AW: But the fact that IT eludes every description must not, as happens so often, be mistaken for the description of IT as the airiest of abstractions, as a literal transparent continuum or undifferentiated cosmic jello. The most concrete image of God the Father, with his white beard and golden robe, is better than that. Yet Western students of Eastern philosophies and religions persistently accuse Hindus and Buddhists of believing in a featureless and gelatinous God, just because the latter insist that every conception or objective image of IT is void. But the term “void” applies to all such conceptions, not to IT.
Yet in speaking and thinking of IT, there is no alternative to the use of conceptions and images, and no harm in it so long as we realize what we are doing. Idolatry is not the use of images, but confusing them with what they represent, and in this respect mental images and lofty abstractions can be more insidious than bronze idols.
Yet we can still awaken the sense that all this, too, is the self—a self, however, which is far beyond the image of the ego, or of the human body as limited by the skin. We then behold the Self wherever we look, and its image is the universe in its light and in its darkness, in its bodies and in its spaces. This is the new image of man, but it is still an image. For there remains—to use dualistic words—“behind,” “under,” “encompassing,” and “central” to it all the unthinkable IT, polarizing itself in the visible contrasts of waves and troughs, solids and spaces. But the odd thing is that this IT, however inconceivable, is no vapid abstraction: it is very simply and truly yourself.
In the words of a Chinese Zen master, “Nothing is left to you at this moment but to have a good laugh!” As James Broughton put it:
This is It
and I am It
and You are It
and so is That
and He is It
and She is It
and It is It
Alan Watts, The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, Chapter 6
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Post by Reefs on Feb 19, 2022 5:12:56 GMT -5
The highest kind of Buddha
AW: The highest kind of buddha is in a certain way a non-buddha. The highest kind of buddha is like an ordinary person. This comes out clearly in various tendencies in Zen.
A superb expression of Zen poetry is derived from the Chinese poet Layman Pang, who says:
Wondrous action,
supernatural power,
chopping wood and carrying water.
That is a little bit too religious for Zen taste, however. Preferable is Basho’s famous poem:
The old pond;
a frog jumps in.
Plop.
“Plop” is the best English translation for the Japanese mizu no oto, which means, literally, “the water’s sound.” That is a very high-style Zen poem, because it has nothing in it about religion.
There is another poem by Basho that says:
When the lightning flashes,
how admirable,
he who does not think life is fleeting.
The flash of lightning is a Buddhist cliche for the transiency of the world, that life goes by and disappears as fast as a flash of lightning. How admirable, the poet is saying, not to be trapped by a cliche.
One might say that the highest kind of religious or spiritual attainment shows no sign that it is religious or spiritual. As a metaphor for this, there is in Buddhism the idea of the tracks of birds in the sky. Birds do not leave tracks, and so the way of the enlightened man is like the tracks of a bird in the sky. As a Chinese poem says:
Entering the forest,
he does not disturb a blade of grass.
Entering the water,
he does not make a ripple.
In other words, there is no sign about the spiritually advanced to indicate that they are self-consciously religious. Nor are they self-conscious about giving the world no sign of their advanced spiritual state.
The true bodhisattva does not leave a track of any kind, either by being overtly religious or by being overtly nonreligious.
Alan Watts, Buddhism - the Religion of No-Religion, Chapter 3
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Post by Reefs on Feb 21, 2022 0:18:22 GMT -5
Spiritual Ox-herding
AW: Some of you have seen the paintings of the Ten Stages of Spiritual Ox-herding. There are two sets of these paintings: a heterodox sequence and an orthodox. In the heterodox sequence, as the man catches the ox, the ox becomes progressively whiter, until in the end it disappears altogether. The last picture is of an empty circle. But the orthodox set of paintings does not end with the empty circle. The image of the empty circle is followed by two others. After the man has attained the state of emptiness—the state of no attachment to any spiritual or psychological or moral crutch—there follow two more steps. The first is called “Returning to the Origin.” It is represented by a tree beside a stream. The last is called “Entering the City With Gift-bestowing Hands.” It shows a picture of the Buddha Putai, in Japanese known as Hotei, who has an enormous belly, big ears, and carries around a colossal bag. What do you think his bag has in it? Trash, wonderful trash. Everything that children love. Things that everybody else has thrown away, and thought of as valueless, this Buddha collects and gives away to children. The saying is, “He goes on his way without following the steps of the ancient sages. His door is closed”—that is, the door of his house—“and no glimpses of his interior life are to be seen.”
In other words, when you erect a building, you have to put all kinds of scaffolding up. This shows that building is going on. When the building is complete, however, the scaffolding is taken down. The scaffolding is religion. To open a door, as they say in Zen, you may need to knock on it with a brick. But when the door is open, you do not carry the brick inside. Similarly, to cross a river you need a boat, but when you have reached the other side, you do not pick up the boat and carry it across the land on your back. The brick, the boat, the scaffolding, all represent religious technology, or method, and in the end these are all to disappear. The saint will not be found in church. However, do not take what I say literally. The saint can perfectly readily go to church without being sullied by church. It is ordinary people who too frequently come out of church stinking of religion.
Alan Watts, Buddhism - the Religion of No-Religion, Chapter 3
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Post by Reefs on Feb 23, 2022 5:19:14 GMT -5
Too much Zen
AW: A disciple once asked a great Zen master, “Am I making progress?”
He said, “You’re doing all right, but you have a trivial fault.”
“What is that?”
“You have too much Zen.”
“Well,” the student said, “when you’re studying Zen, don’t you think it’s very natural to be talking about it?”
The master said, “When it is like an ordinary conversation, it is much better.”
Another monk who was standing by, listening to this exchange, said to the master, “Why do you so dislike talking about Zen?”
The master replied, “Because it turns one’s stomach.”
What did he mean when he said that it is better to talk about Zen when it is like an ordinary, everyday conversation? When the old master Joshu was asked, “At the end of the present epoch of history, when everything will be destroyed in fire, one thing will remain. What will it be?” Joshu replied, “It’s windy again this morning.”
In Zen when you are asked a question about religion you reply in terms of the secular. When you are asked about something secular, you reply in terms of religion: “What is the eternal nature of the self?” “It is windy again this morning.”
When a student asked his master to hand him a knife, the master handed it to him blade first. The student said, “Please give me the other end.” “What would you do with the other end?” the master asked. Do you see? The disciple started out with the ordinary and suddenly found himself involved in a metaphysical problem. But if he’d started out with the metaphysical, he would have found himself involved with the knife.
Alan Watts, Buddhism - the Religion of No-Religion, Chapter 3
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Post by Reefs on Apr 23, 2023 23:11:22 GMT -5
This one is excellent...
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Post by Reefs on Aug 27, 2023 1:10:18 GMT -5
The Bhagavad Gita (1) – The Scene
AW: The Bhagavad Gita, or Bhagavad the Lord, Gita the song – The Song of the Lord. The scene with which the book opens is a battlefield, the field of Kuru, where a young prince by the name of Arjuna is riding in his chariot and Sri Krishna, the incarnation of Vishnu is his charioteer.
As the opposing armies face each other and the battle is about to begin, Arjuna is faint in heart, oppressed with the senselessness of this struggle and of internecine warfare. And the Gita says in the first chapter, he was overcome with great compassion and uttered this in sadness...
A: My mouth is dry, my body trembles, my bow slips from my hand. Uncles, cousins and nephews and Drana my teacher, they are all there. I can't bring death to my own family. My resolution is gone. I can't defend myself. I will wait here for death.
K: What is this mad and shameful weakness? Stand up and fight!
A: I'm in anguish. I can't see where my duty lies.
(He's telling Arjuna that victory and defeat are the same. He's urging him to act but not to reflect on the fruit of the act. He says to him seek detachment, fight without desire.)
A: You say “forget desire, seek detachment”, yet you urge me to battle, to massacre.
K: Don't withdraw into solitude. Renunciation is not enough. You must act. Yet action mustn't dominate you. In the heart of action you must remain free from all attachment. There's another intelligence, beyond the mind.
Primarily, Arjuna's objection to taking part in war is a sentimental one. He is unwilling to fight in the battle, because of his depressed emotions in regard to slaying his kinsmen, or as we would say, in regard to slaying one's fellow man.
If one would be a pacifist because one is merely squeamish, and is the kind of person, of whom one would say, ‘well he couldn't even hurt a fly’, then surely there is something phony about such pacifism, because it is sentimental.
This does seem to be the origin of objection and this is why Krishna says in effect, ‘Your objection to slaying is a fear of slaying, a squeamishness to slay; and because of this, you do not have a genuine objection to slaying; if you refrain from taking part in battle because you are frightened of so doing, or because you are sentimental, you are not the kind of person who really has a right to abstain from battle.’
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Post by Reefs on Aug 27, 2023 3:30:01 GMT -5
The Bhagavad Gita (2) – Motivated Action
AW: Now why does he say this? The reason is that to the Hindu mind, one who abstains from what might be an evil action through fear, has not really liberated himself from evil. Krishna would say that so long as our conduct is motivated by fear on the one hand, or by desire on the other, we are incapable of performing a truly moral action. Only those actions are truly moral, which are unmotivated. Because, if you are motivated to do good by fear, your good may under other circumstances be evil.
This is the case with Arjuna. He wants to refrain from war for the same reason for which many other people would engage in war. Many people engage in war because they're afraid and not at all because they hate.
The world situation at the present time might be said to be a situation of mutual fear, where the only reason why someone might start a war would be for fear of the other side starting it first. After all we all know now that modern warfare is something in which neither side wins. It is then fear more than anything else, fear that the other fellow should send the bombs over first is what starts a war. And thus, you see, fear is no deterrent to war at all.
The principle which he enunciates is to act without attachment to the fruits of action. To do what you have to do without seeking either evil or good from it. Now, this is simply another way of saying to act without motive.
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Post by Reefs on Aug 27, 2023 21:13:21 GMT -5
The Bhagavad Gita (3) – Unmotivated Action
AW: It seems, of course, from our point of view, impossible that a human being should act without motive. In our Western way of thinking about ethics, we judge the quality of an action by the quality of the motive. And the whole notion of an action without a motive at all seems to be extraordinarily foreign to us.
But as a matter of fact, if there is no such thing as an action without motive, there is no such thing as a free or moral action. Because so long as we have a motive, our actions are not actions, they're simply reactions.
Surely it's obvious that our motives are determined by our conditioning, by our environment, our heredity, our social structure. They give us motives and these motives of the past determine the way in which we act.
Now it's my motive for doing good is for the sake of some sort of a reward, – whether it's in the ancient sense of going to heaven or the modern sense of being a real person or a regular guy, or whether it's fearing the ancient sense of going to hell or in the modern sense of being a cad – I act motivatedly and therefore the things which I do by way of moral action are not actually free.
If, as we in the West have rather inconsistently but nevertheless rightly insisted, a moral man must be a free man, a free man must be an unmotivated man.
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