Ayn Rand – THE VIRTUE OF SELFISHNESSTHEVIRTUEOFSEL.docx

Ayn Rand – THE VIRTUE OF SELFISHNESS
THE
VIRTUE
OF
SELFISHNESS
A New Concept of Egoism
by Ayn Rand
With Additional Articles
by Nathaniel Branden
A SIGNET BOOK
2
SIGNET
Published by the Penguin Group
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39 38 37 36 35
Copyright © 1961, 1964 by Ayn Rand
Copyright © 1962, 1963, 1964 by
The Objectivist Newsletter, Inc.
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If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware
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3
1. The Objectivist Ethics
by Ayn Rand
Since I am to speak on the Objectivist Ethics, I shall begin by
quoting its best
representative—John Galt, in Atlas Shrugged:
“Through centuries of scourges and disasters, brought about by
your code of morality,
you have cried that your code had been broken, that the
scourges were punishment for
breaking it, that men were too weak and too selfish to spill all
the blood it required. You
damned man, you damned existence, you damned this earth, but
never dared to question
your code. ... You went on crying that your code was noble, but
human nature was not
good enough to practice it. And no one rose to ask the question:
Good?—by what
standard?

“You wanted to know John Galt’s identity. I am the man who
has asked that question.
“Yes, this is an age of moral crisis. ... Your moral code has
reached its climax, the
blind alley at the end of its course. And if you wish to go on
living, what you now need is
not to return to morality ... but to discover it.”1
What is morality, or ethics? It is a code of values to guide
man’s choices and
actions—the choices and actions that determine the purpose and
the course of his life.
Ethics, as a science, deals with discovering and defining such a
code.
The first question that has to be answered, as a precondition of
any attempt to define,
to judge or to accept any specific system of ethics, is: Why does
man need a code of
values?
Let me stress this. The first question is not: What particular
code of values should man
accept? The first question is: Does man need values at all—and
why?
Is the concept of value, of “good or evil” an arbitrary human
invention, unrelated to,
underived from and unsupported by any facts of reality—or is it
based on a metaphysical
fact, on an unalterable condition of man’s existence? (I use the
word “metaphysical” to
mean: that which pertains to reality, to the nature of things, to
existence.) Does an
arbitrary human convention, a mere custom, decree that man

must guide his actions by a
set of principles—or is there a fact of reality that demands it? Is
ethics the province of
whims: of personal emotions, social edicts and mystic
revelations—or is it the province of
reason? Is ethics a subjective luxury—or an objective necessity?
In the sorry record of the history of mankind’s ethics—with a
few rare, and
unsuccessful, exceptions—moralists have regarded ethics as the
province of whims, that
is: of the irrational. Some of them did so explicitly, by
intention—others implicitly, by
default. A “whim” is a desire experienced by a person who does
not know and does not
care to discover its cause.
No philosopher has given a rational, objectively demonstrable,
scientific answer to the
question of why man needs a code of values. So long as that
question remained unan-
swered, no rational, scientific, objective code of ethics could be
discovered or defined.
The greatest of all philosophers, Aristotle, did not regard ethics
as an exact science; he
1 Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, New York: Random House, 1957;
New American Library, 1959.
Paper delivered by Ayn Rand at the University of Wisconsin
Symposium on “Ethics in Our Time” in
Madison, Wisconsin, on February 9, 1961.
9

based his ethical system on observations of what the noble and
wise men of his time
chose to do, leaving unanswered the questions of: why they
chose to do it and why he
evaluated them as noble and wise.
Most philosophers took the existence of ethics for granted, as
the given, as a historical
fact, and were not concerned with discovering its metaphysical
cause or objective valida-
tion. Many of them attempted to break the traditional monopoly
of mysticism in the field
of ethics and, allegedly, to define a rational, scientific,
nonreligious morality. But their
attempts consisted of trying to justify them on social grounds,
merely substituting society
for God.
The avowed mystics held the arbitrary, unaccountable “will of
God” as the standard of
the good and as the validation of their ethics. The neomystics
replaced it with “the good
of society,” thus collapsing into the circularity of a definition
such as “the standard of the
good is that which is good for society.” This meant, in logic—
and, today, in worldwide
practice—that “society” stands above any principles of ethics,
since it is the source,
standard and criterion of ethics, since “the good” is whatever it
wills, whatever it happens
to assert as its own welfare and pleasure. This meant that
“society” may do anything it
pleases, since “the good” is whatever it chooses to do because it
chooses to do it.

And—since there is no such entity as “society,” since society is
only a number of
individual men—this meant that some men (the majority or any
gang that claims to be its
spokesman) are ethically entitled to pursue any whims (or any
atrocities) they desire to
pursue, while other men are ethically obliged to spend their
lives in the service of that
gang’s desires.
This could hardly be called rational, yet most philosophers have
now decided to
declare that reason has failed, that ethics is outside the power of
reason, that no rational
ethics can ever be defined, and that in the field of ethics—in the
choice of his values, of
his actions, of his pursuits, of his life’s goals—man must be
guided by something other
than reason. By what? Faith—instinct—intuition—revela-
tion—feeling—taste—urge—wish—whim. Today, as in the past,
most philosophers agree
that the ultimate standard of ethics is whim (they call it
“arbitrary postulate” or “subjec-
tive choice” or “emotional commitment”)—and the battle is
only over the question or
whose whim: one’s own or society’s or the dictator’s or God’s.
Whatever else they may
disagree about, today’s moralists agree that ethics is a
subjective issue and that the three
things barred from its field are: reason—mind—reality.
If you wonder why the world is now collapsing to a lower and
ever lower rung of hell,
this is the reason.
If you want to save civilization, it is this premise of modern

ethics—and of all ethical
history—that you must challenge.
To challenge the basic premise of any discipline, one must
begin at the beginning. In
ethics, one must begin by asking: What are values? Why does
man need them?
“Value” is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. The concept
“value” is not a
primary; it presupposes an answer to the question: of value to
whom and for what? It
presupposes an entity capable of acting to achieve a goal in the
face of an alternative.
Where no alternative exists, no goals and no values are
possible.
I quote from Galt’s speech: “There is only one fundamental
alternative in the universe:
existence or nonexistence—and it pertains to a single class of
entities: to living organ-
isms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the
existence of life is not: it
depends on a specific course of action. Matter is indestructible,
it changes its forms, but it
10
cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces a
constant alternative: the
issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and
self-generated action. If an

organism fails in that action, it dies; its chemical elements
remain, but its life goes out of
existence. It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept
of ‘Value’ possible. It is
only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.”
To make this point fully clear, try to imagine an immortal,
indestructible robot, an
entity which moves and acts, but which cannot be affected by
anything, which cannot be
changed in any respect, which cannot be damaged, injured or
destroyed. Such an entity
would not be able to have any values; it would have nothing to
gain or to lose; it could
not regard anything as for or against it, as serving or
threatening its welfare, as fulfilling
or frustrating its interests. It could have no interests and no
goals.
Only a living entity can have goals or can originate them. And it
is only a living
organism that has the capacity for self-generated, goal-directed
action. On the physical
level, the functions of all living organisms, from the simplest to
the most complex—from
the nutritive function in the single cell of an amoeba to the
blood circulation in the body
of a man—are actions generated by the organism itself and
directed to a single goal: the
maintenance of the organism’s life.2
An organism’s life depends on two factors: the material or fuel
which it needs from the
outside, from its physical background, and the action of its own
body, the action of using
that fuel properly. What standard determines what is proper in

this context? The standard
is the organism’s life, or: that which is required for the
organism’s survival.
No choice is open to an organism in this issue: that which is
required for its survival is
determined by its nature, by the kind of entity it is. Many
variations, many forms of
adaptation to its background are possible to an organism,
including the possibility of
existing for a while in a crippled, disabled or diseased
condition, but the fundamental
alternative of its existence remains the same: if an organism
fails in the basic functions
required by its nature—if an amoeba’s protoplasm stops
assimilating food, or if a man’s
heart stops beating—the organism dies. In a fundamental sense,
stillness is the antithesis
of life. Life can be kept in existence only by a constant process
of self-sustaining action.
The goal of that action, the ultimate value which, to be kept,
must be gained through its
every moment, is the organism’s life.
An ultimate value is that final goal or end to which all lesser
goals are the means—and
it sets the standard by which all lesser goals are evaluated. An
organism’s life is its
standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that
which threatens it is the
evil.
Without an ultimate goal or end, there can be no lesser goals or
means: a series of
means going off into an infinite progression toward a
nonexistent end is a metaphysical

and epistemological impossibility. It is only an ultimate goal,
an end in itself, that makes
the existence of values possible. Metaphysically, life is the only
phenomenon that is an
end in itself: a value gained and kept by a constant process of
action. Epistemologically,
the concept of “value” is genetically dependent upon and
derived from the antecedent
2 When applied to physical phenomena, such as the automatic
functions of an organism, the term “goal-
directed” is not to be taken to mean “purposive” (a concept
applicable only to the actions of a con-
sciousness) and is not to imply the existence of any teleological
principle operating in insentient nature. I
use the term “goal-directed,” in this context, to designate the
fact that the automatic functions of living
organisms are actions whose nature is such that they result in
the preservation of an organism’s life.
11
concept of “life.” To speak of “value” as apart from “life” is
worse than a contradiction in
terms. “It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of
‘Value’ possible.”
In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can
be established between
ultimate ends or values and the facts of reality, let me stress
that the fact that living
entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values

and of an ultimate value
which for any given living entity is its own life. Thus the
validation of value judgments is
to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality. The fact that
a living entity is,
determines what it ought to do. So much for the issue of the
relation between “is” and
“ought.”
Now in what manner does a human being discover the concept
of “value”? By what
means does he first become aware of the issue of “good or evil”
in its simplest form? By
means of the physical sensations of pleasure or pain. Just as
sensations are the first step
of the development of a human consciousness in the realm of
cognition, so they are its
first step in the realm of evaluation.
The capacity to experience pleasure or pain is innate in a man’s
body; it is part of his
nature, part of the kind of entity he is. He has no choice about
it, and he has no choice
about the standard that determines what will make him
experience the physical sensation
of pleasure or of pain. What is that standard? His life.
The pleasure-pain mechanism in the body of man—and in the
bodies of all the living
organisms that possess the faculty of consciousness—serves as
an automatic guardian of
the organism’s life. The physical sensation of pleasure is a
signal indicating that the
organism is pursuing the right course of action. The physical
sensation of pain is a
warning signal of danger, indicating that the organism is

pursuing the wrong course of
action, that something is impairing the proper function of its
body, which requires action
to correct it. The best illustration of this can be seen in the rare,
freak cases of children
who are born without the capacity to experience physical pain;
such children do not
survive for long; they have no means of discovering what can
injure them, no warning
signals, and thus a minor cut can develop into a deadly
infection, or a major illness can
remain undetected until it is too late to fight it.
Consciousness—for those living organisms which possess it—is
the basic means of
survival.
The simpler organisms, such as plants, can survive by means of
their automatic
physical functions. The higher organisms, such as animals and
man, cannot: their needs
are more complex and the range of their actions is wider. The
physical functions of their
bodies can perform automatically only the task of using fuel,
but cannot obtain that fuel.
To obtain it, the higher organisms need the faculty of
consciousness. A plant can obtain
its food from the soil in which it grows. An animal has to hunt
for it. Man has to produce
it.
A plant has no choice of action; the goals it pursues are
automatic and innate,
determined by its nature. Nourishment, water, sunlight are the
values its nature has set it
to seek. Its life is the standard of value directing its actions.

There are alternatives in the
conditions it encounters in its physical background—such as
heat or frost, drought or
flood—and there are certain actions which it is able to perform
to combat adverse
conditions, such as the ability of some plants to grow and crawl
from under a rock to
reach the sunlight. But whatever the conditions, there is no
alternative in a plant’s
function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act
for its own destruction.
12
The range of actions required for the survival of the higher
organisms is wider: it is
proportionate to the range of their consciousness. The lower of
the conscious species
possess only the faculty of sensation, which is sufficient to
direct their actions and
provide for their needs. A sensation is produced by the
automatic reaction of a sense
organ to a stimulus from the outside world; it lasts for the
duration of the immediate
moment, as long as the stimulus lasts and no longer. Sensations
are an automatic
response, an automatic form of knowledge, which a
consciousness can neither seek nor
evade. An organism that possesses only the faculty of sensation
is guided by the pleasure-
pain mechanism of its body, that is: by an automatic knowledge
and an automatic code of

values. Its life is the standard of value directing its actions.
Within the range of action
possible to it, it acts automatically to further its life and cannot
act for its own destruction.
The higher organisms possess a much more potent form of
consciousness: they possess
the faculty of retaining sensations, which is the faculty of
perception. A “perception” is a
group of sensations automatically retained and integrated by the
brain of a living
organism, which gives it the ability to be aware, not of single
stimuli, but of entities, of
things. An animal is guided, not merely by immediate
sensations, but by percepts. Its
actions are not single, discrete responses to single, separate
stimuli, but are directed by an
integrated awareness of the perceptual reality confronting it. It
is able to grasp the
perceptual concretes immediately present and it is able to form
automatic perceptual
associations, but it can go no further. It is able to learn certain
skills to deal with specific
situations, such as hunting or hiding, which the parents of the
higher animals teach their
young. But an animal has no choice in the knowledge and the
skills that it acquires; it can
only repeat them generation after generation. And an animal has
no choice in the standard
of value directing its actions: its senses provide it with an
automatic code of values, an
automatic knowledge of what is good for it or evil, what
benefits or endangers its life. An
animal has no power to extend its knowledge or to evade it. In
situations for which its
knowledge is inadequate, it perishes—as, for instance, an

animal that stands paralyzed on
the track of a railroad in the path of a speeding train. But so
long as it lives, an animal
acts on its knowledge, with automatic safety and no power of
choice: it cannot suspend its
own consciousness—it cannot choose not to perceive—it cannot
evade its own
perceptions—it cannot ignore its own good, it cannot decide to
choose the evil and act as
its own destroyer.
Man has no automatic code of survival. He has no automatic
course of action, no
automatic set of values. His senses do not tell him automatically
what is good for him or
evil, what will benefit his life or endanger it, what goals he
should pursue and what
means will achieve them, what values his life depends on, what
course of action it
requires. His own consciousness has to discover the answers to
all these questions—but
his consciousness will not function automatically. Man, the
highest living species on this
earth—the being whose consciousness has a limitless capacity
for gaining
knowledge—man is the only living entity born without any
guarantee of remaining
conscious at all. Man’s particular distinction from all other
living species is the fact that
his consciousness is volitional.
Just as the automatic values directing the functions of a plant’s
body are sufficient for
its survival, but are not sufficient for an animal’s—so the
automatic values provided by
the sensory-perceptual mechanism of its consciousness are

sufficient to guide an animal,
but are not sufficient for man. Man’s actions and survival
require the guidance of concep-
13
tual values derived from conceptual knowledge. But conceptual
knowledge cannot be
acquired automatically.
A “concept” is a mental integration of two or more perceptual
concretes, which are
isolated by a process of abstraction and united by means of a
specific definition. Every
word of man’s language, with the exception of proper names,
denotes a concept, an
abstraction that stands for an unlimited number of concretes of
a specific kind. It is by
organizing his perceptual material into concepts, and his
concepts into wider and still
wider concepts that man is able to grasp and retain, to identify
and integrate an unlimited
amount of knowledge, a knowledge extending beyond the
immediate perceptions of any
given, immediate moment. Man’s sense organs function
automatically; man’s brain inte-
grates his sense data into percepts automatically; but the
process of integrating percepts
into concepts—the process of abstraction and of concept-
formation—is not automatic.
The process of concept-formation does not consist merely of

grasping a few simple
abstractions, such as “chair,” “table,” “hot,” “cold,” and of
learning to speak. It consists
of a method of using one’s consciousness, best designated by
the term “conceptualizing.”
It is not a passive state of registering random impressions. It is
an actively sustained
process of identifying one’s impressions in conceptual terms, of
integrating every event
and every observation into a conceptual context, of grasping
relationships, differences,
similarities in one’s perceptual material and of abstracting them
into new concepts, of
drawing inferences, of making deductions, of reaching
conclusions, of asking new
questions and discovering new answers and expanding one’s
knowledge into an ever-
growing sum. The faculty that directs this process, the faculty
that works by means of
concepts, is: reason. The process is thinking.
Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material
provided by man’s
senses. It is a faculty that man has to exercise by choice.
Thinking is not an automatic
function. In any hour and issue of his life, man is free to think
or to evade that effort.
Thinking requires a state of full, focused awareness. The act of
focusing one’s
consciousness is volitional. Man can focus his mind to a full,
active, purposefully directed
awareness of reality—or he can unfocus it and let himself drift
in a semiconscious daze,
merely reacting to any chance stimulus of the immediate
moment, at the mercy of his
undirected sensory-perceptual mechanism and of any random,

associational connections it
might happen to make.
When man unfocuses his mind, he may be said to be conscious
in a subhuman sense of
the word, since he experiences sensations and perceptions. But
in the sense of the word
applicable to man—in the sense of a consciousness which is
aware of reality and able to
deal with it, a consciousness able to direct the actions and
provide for the survival of a
human being—an unfocused mind is not conscious.
Psychologically, the choice “to think or not” is the choice “to
focus or not.”
Existentially, the choice “to focus or not” is the choice “to be
conscious or not.”
Metaphysically, the choice “to be conscious or not” is the
choice of life or death.
Consciousness—for those living organisms which possess it—is
the basic means of
survival. For man, the basic means of survival is reason. Man
cannot survive, as animals
do, by the guidance of mere percepts. A sensation of hunger
will tell him that he needs
food (if he has learned to identify it as “hunger”), but it will not
tell him how to obtain his
food and it will not tell him what food is good for him or
poisonous. He cannot provide
for his simplest physical needs without a process of thought. He
needs a process of
thought to discover how to plant and grow his food or how to
make weapons for hunting.
14

His percepts might lead him to a cave, if one is available—but
to build the simplest
shelter, he needs a process of thought. No percepts and no
“instincts” will tell him how to
light a fire, how to weave cloth, how to forge tools, how to
make a wheel, how to make
an airplane, how to perform an appendectomy, how to produce
an electric light bulb or an
electronic tube or a cyclotron or a box of matches. Yet his life
depends on such
knowledge—and only a volitional act of his consciousness, a
process of thought, can
provide it.
But man’s responsibility goes still further: a process of thought
is not automatic nor
“instinctive” nor involuntary—nor infallible. Man has to initiate
it, to sustain it and to
bear responsibility for its results. He has to discover how to tell
what is true or false and
how to correct his own errors; he has to discover how to
validate his concepts, his
conclusions, his knowledge; he has to discover the rules of
thought, the laws of logic, to
direct his thinking. Nature gives him no automatic guarantee of
the efficacy of his mental
effort.
Nothing is given to man on earth except a potential and the
material on which to
actualize it. The potential is a superlative machine: his

consciousness; but it is a machine
without a spark plug, a machine of which his own will has to be
the spark plug, the self-
starter and the driver; he has to discover how to use it and he
has to keep it in constant
action. The material is the whole of the universe, with no limits
set to the knowledge he
can acquire and to the enjoyment of life he can achieve. But
everything he needs or
desires has to be learned, discovered and produced by him—by
his own choice, by his
own effort, by his own mind.
A being who does not know automatically what is true or false,
cannot know
automatically what is right or wrong, what is good for him or
evil. Yet he needs that
knowledge in order to live. He is not exempt from the laws of
reality, he is a specific
organism of a specific nature that requires specific actions to
sustain his life. He cannot
achieve his survival by arbitrary means nor by random motions
nor by blind urges nor by
chance nor by whim. That which his survival requires is set by
his nature and is not open
to his choice. What is open to his choice is only whether he will
discover it or not,
whether he will choose the right goals and values or not. He is
free to make the wrong
choice, but not free to succeed with it. He is free to evade
reality, he is free to unfocus his
mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free
to avoid the abyss he
refuses to see. Knowledge, for any conscious organism, is the
means of survival; to a
living consciousness, every “is” implies an “ought.” Man is free

to choose not to be
conscious, but not free to escape the penalty of
unconsciousness: destruction. Man is the
only living species that has the power to act as his own
destroyer—and that is the way he
has acted through most of his history.
What, then, are the right goals for man to pursue? What are the
values his survival
requires? That is the question to be answered by the science of
ethics. And this, ladies and
gentlemen, is why man needs a code of ethics.
Now you can assess the meaning of the doctrines which tell you
that ethics is the
province of the irrational, that reason cannot guide man’s life,
that his goals and values
should be chosen by vote or by whim—that ethics has nothing
to do with reality, with
existence, with one’s practical actions and concerns—or that the
goal of ethics is beyond
the grave, that the dead need ethics, not the living.
Ethics is not a mystic fantasy—nor a social convention—nor a
dispensable, subjective
luxury, to be switched or discarded in any emergency. Ethics is
an objective, metaphysi-
15
cal necessity of man’s survival—not by the grace of the
supernatural nor of your

neighbors nor of your whims, but by the grace of reality and the
nature of life.
I quote from …
1
Before Ethics
Eric R. Severson
1
Chapter 3: Arjuna’s Plight
Meno refused his invitation to be initiated onto a contemplative
path, a decision that cost him his
life. But similar proposals have been answered differently in the
history of philosophy. When Socrates
invites Meno to become “initiated in the mysteries,'' he is,
perhaps unknowingly, echoing similar
invitations underway around planet earth. A century before
Socrates, in what is today northeastern India,
a man named Siddhārtha Gautama, eventually called Buddha,
was stirring the imagination of people
worlds apart. The wisdom of the Buddha, for thinking about

what comes “before ethics,” will consume
our attention in Chapter 7. In this chapter, my focus will be on
the Indian philosophical gem called the
Bhagavad Gita, a vivid and poetic song recorded by a
mysterious Indian wise man known as Vyasa. The
hero of the Gita is a man named Arjuna, a powerful warrior and
skillful leader. Like Meno, Arjuna is in
the midst of preparing himself for battle when he is beset by
philosophical questions posed to him. Like
Meno, Arjuna is stunned by these questions, which wash over
him and leave him paralyzed and
incapacitated. He says: “My being is paralyzed by faint-
heartedness.”2 Yet unlike Meno, Arjuna is
transformed by this encounter, and moves willingly into the
mysteries.
This chapter will tell the story of Arjuna and in the process,
draw wisdom from ancient and
modern Hindu philosophy. My purpose here is not to provide
any kind of exhaustive summary of this
story, nor to pose as an expert in the philosophies of ancient
India. Instead, I turn to this and other global
philosophical traditions for help with universal human questions
about how we might best prepare to

1 https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/ancient-egypt-
greek-chinese-indian-amerindian-74590051
2 Bhagavad Gita Discourse 2 number 7 [convert to translation
by Goerg Feuerstein]
2
think about human morality. The very fact that Western
philosophy has been the standard “starting point”
for ethical dialogue is already a concern. Additionally, I am
suspicious that Western ethical theory has
fallen into a series of traps, some of which Chinese, Indian,
Muslim, and African (along with many
others) philosophies might help Western thinkers avoid. In fact,
this chapter is merely an attempt to
provide a response to my friends and mentors who specialize in
Indian philosophy, and who have insisted
that there is much to be gained for considering the manner in
which Indian thinking leans into moral
questions. Much is surely to be gained in thinking about what
comes before ethics across cultural,
geographical, and philosophical boundaries. Sometimes

priorities may seem to converge, and at other
times the differences between these traditions will be stark. I
hope it becomes obvious that there is little to
be lost by exploring how various world philosophies prepare
people to think about ethics.
Here we turn to Arjuna’s plight because this story was meant,
all along, to invite readers to be
stunned and then allow the impact to reshape the way they live.
Though set in the context of war and the
choice to fight, run away, or do nothing, the Gita is designed to
function as a guide to all decisions, as a
mode of thinking contemplatively about the small and large
decisions that make up human living.3 It is
impossible to do justice to the Bhagavad Gita in this little
chapter, let alone the vast philosophical
tradition behind it. Still, it would be tragic to ignore this
significant global tradition as we think about how
we position ourselves before ethics. In the following chapter, I
will briefly summarize some key themes in
Indian philosophy which provide a framework for understanding
the story of the Gita. After describing
Arjuna’s moment of paralysis, I will explore the ethical
significance of this episode. I will provide several
meditations on the importance of this text for our purposes in

this volume, exploring the capacity of this
philosophical tradition to deal with complexity, ambiguity, and
the important tension between ethical
choices and the resulting outcomes.
Stunned by Dharma
Before discussing the philosophical significance of this ancient
text, I must first note a few
difficulties that have often prevented this text, and the Indian
philosophical tradition, from being routinely
considered alongside the ethical texts of the West. These
obstacles cannot be treated fully here but must
absolutely be part of any conversation that hopes to appeal to
non-Western traditions for thinking about
ethical issues. A massive, ancient philosophical tradition cannot
be summarized adequately in a few
pages, but a brief introduction to the Hindu concept of dharma –
the idea at the heart of ethics in this
3 Galvin Flood; Charles Martin (2013). The Bhagavad Gita: A
New Translation. W.W. Norton & Company. pp. xv–
xvi. ISBN 978-0-393-34513-1. (provide a quotation from these

pages reinforcing that point).
3
tradition – provides some important context for talking about
the Arjuna’s situation in the Bhagavad
Gita.4
First, this text challenges a number of the trappings of religious
mythology, and even theology
itself. Krishna, the primary dispenser of wisdom in the Gita, is a
deity, and Arjuna asks his ethical
questions in the only way he knows how. For Arjuna, ethical
decisions are made through attending to the
dharma, a concept rooted deeply in Hindu culture and religion.
These are true statements, but misleading.
People who read this text in the West often have a prior
familiarity with religious writings, and these
evoke conversations between mortals and immortals, between
people and deities. Readers familiar with
the Bible, the Torah, and the Qur’an have frequently
encountered stories where people talk to “God” and
in these traditions, the conversations are almost always between
a human being and an external “Other.”

The Prophet Mohammed, whose teachings founded Islam,
encountered God as extraordinarily different
and distinct from anything he had ever known.5 Moses had to
remove his shoes before walking in the
presence of God.6 Paul, first known as Saul, was struck
temporarily blind by his encounter with a vision
of Jesus.7 It would be natural for readers of the Gita who have
been conditioned to think in this way about
theophany (the visitations of human beings by a deity), but
something starkly different is underway in the
Hindu tradition.
Truth, indeed ultimate reality itself, is not something found
external to Arjuna. Krishna’s voice
and advice are part of an internal deliberation that relates to the
truth of all things. Gandhi, who tends to
interpret the Gita ethically rather than spiritually, suggests that
readers are to think of Krishna as
imaginary, as the voice of perfection.8 That which is true about
the universe, about “God” (that word itself
may not work across the divide between Western and Eastern
philosophy), is available through a deep
exploration of every person, every “self.” Though the beings of
this world appear to be distinct and
independent, they share a common being, an ultimate unity.

Though ancient Indian philosophy knew
nothing of the physics of the Big Bang, there are parallels
between this very ancient way of thinking
about the universe and scientific discoveries. All things were
once one, sharing a primordial,
undifferentiated, infinitely condensed unity. Every atom, before
it was even an atom, and including time
4 Gandhi said, of the Bhagavad Gita: “If all the other scritupres
were reduced to ashes, the seven hundred verses of
this imperishable booklet are quite enough to tell me what
Hinduism is and how one can live up to it.” Mahatma
Gandhi, The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Volume LI
(Ahmedabad: Navajivan, YEAR), 344.
5 Husayn Haykal, Muhammad (2008). The Life of Muhammad.
Selangor: Islamic Book Trust, 79–80 (FIND BOOK
and make citation, quotation).
6 In Exodus 3, Moses approaches a strange bush in the
wilderness that is burning but not consumed. God instructs
Moses: “Do not come near. Remove your shoes from your feet
because the place where you are standing is holy
ground.” Cite NRSV.
7 Acts 9:8-9 Cite NRSV
8 Mahatma Gandhi, The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi,
Volume XIV, 175.

4
itself, existed in that unity. All things that exist today consist of
matter that was once part of the
undifferentiated singularity. This is strikingly similar to the
ancient Hindu cosmology, which emphasized
the ultimate unity of all matter and meaning. This unity is
sometimes called Brahman, a word that simply
cannot be translated into English without significant distortion.
Brahman is all things, and God. Brahman
is the meaning, unity, and connectivity that still reverberates in
all things that exist, large and small.
Above all, Brahman indicates the harmonious unity that exists
beneath and beyond the chaos of
the world as we know it. For religion and philosophy in this
tradition, the nature and centrality of that
“center” to the universe is the heart of thinking and living.
Many Hindus wear a small, colored dot on
their forehead, called a bindi. This tiny dot represents that
center, the place of unity that is the history and
destiny of all things. The smudge of paint is simultaneously
indicative of the singularity of the individual
– the atman (self) – and the unity of that self with ultimate
reality. The analogy to the Big Bang theory is

again helpful. There is no point in searching for the “center” of
the universe, the “place” where the Big
Bang occurred; every point in the universe is the center, the site
of this original unity. Place, time, and
matter all originate in that singularity; we are all the center of
the universe. Likewise, the bindi is a
reminder, worn by millions of people today, that every person is
Brahman. Every being is the center, the
ultimate.
Yet despite this pre-original and ongoing unity, the world is
highly differentiated. We are
separated, quite distinctly, and our separation is both beautiful
and challenging. The unity between me
and a rock, you and this book, is not immediately evident.
Perhaps even more obvious is the separation
between enemies, between people intent on hurting one another.
Just as the explosion of the Big Bang led
to differentiated atoms, molecules, and living beings, the
diversification of the Hindu “One” into “Many”
is both beautiful and terrible. We can already detect what comes
before ethics in such a tradition; there is
a standing duty of human beings to pursue harmony, unity, good
will, and general benevolence. There is a
difference, though perhaps subtle, to think of ethical ideals as

aimed at harmony, rather than perfection, as
Plato might incline us.
Ethical questions are to be asked in light of this ultimate truth
about the universe. Arjuna has
found his life situated in a system that is oriented toward this
harmony, and now finds himself in an
incredibly difficult position. People, after all, are often unaware
of the unity that bind together all things,
and turn instead toward greed, separation, violence, and apathy.
The world is chaotic, and suffering
abounds, leading people to make decisions that lead to more
pain and separation. A shortsighted view of
the world makes passing problems seem massive, and in this
regard Hindu life depends on a deeply
meditative approach to life. A person who lives
contemplatively, meditatively, and intentionally will see
the bigger picture and make decisions that lead the world
toward peace. One expression of meditative
living is yoga, a practice that is sometimes distorted beyond
recognition in the Western world, in which it
5

has been mostly reduced to exercise in meditation and bodily
flexibility. Yoga can take many forms, but
always indicates a mode of living, moving, and being
contemplative and centered. Like boats floating on
a rough sea, we appear to exist in isolation and separation from
one another, and either band together for
survival or turn against one another in violence. Yoga, in this
analogy, is like diving beneath the waves of
chaos that cloud our judgment, and seeing the tranquility of the
ocean below, the reality that binds
together all things. Ethics in the Indian tradition therefore seeks
pathways toward unity and harmony that
are not clouded by shortsighted panic over individual situations.
Arjuna’s story must be understood in
light of this tension.
The true nature of every atman is found in unity, in Brahman,
but the diversity of our lives as
“selves” is profound. Our bodies look different, our skills and
abilities are suited for some tasks but not
others. We also find ourselves capable of doing great harm to
any harmony already present in the universe
and driven to do so by the pressures and sufferings surrounding
us. Each decision, from the miniscule to
the massive, either moves with the grain of the universe or

against it. Every action, every word, every
invention, every breath moves either toward harmony or against
it. These choices are guided by eternal
laws, called dharma, which provide the structure and basis for
both the particular and universal journey
toward the unity that is the true nature of all that exists. A
fundamental moral task there for confronts
every person: how do I fit into the world in which I find
myself? In many cases, the laws of dharma are
fairly obvious and straightforward; people should do the work
for which they are best suited. There may
be times in which we are pressed to do work for which we are
not particularly well suited by the overall
needs of the world. However, when we have choices, we should
lean toward that which makes us flourish
and the world around us flourish.
If sometimes we are pressed into work for which we are not
well suited, we sometimes find that
we desire duties for which we are not a harmonious fit. If I had
dreams of becoming a soccer goalie for
professional club, the path to that future would be ridiculously
improbable. I am a small man, 5’4” if I
stand up very straight, and not particularly good at jumping,
diving, or blocking fast-moving soccer balls.

I could spend every waking minute practicing, every spare
dollar on trainers and coaches, and every
ounce of my energy trying to become great at something for
which I am not well suited. This would be a
profound waste of energy, of course. Even if I were not well
past my athletic prime, there is nothing to be
done about my height, and no amount of training can overcome
athletic insufficiencies in my DNA. I’m
far better suited for other tasks in the world, such as working in
narrow mineshafts. There are people who
can, with exponentially less time and energy, become adept at
soccer skills. More seriously, many a
human life has been spent attempting to thrive in the wrong
setting, in roles or duties for which they are
poorly suited. Dharma is sometimes hidden and only apparent
after much contemplation and
experimentation. At other times, dharma is obvious.
6
A 2014 children’s book by Bridget Turner, You Can Be
Anything You Want to Be, seeks to help
liberate children from limitations that might keep kids from

fulfilling their potential.9 The book names
important components of human life that have been used to limit
the potential of children: disability,
family situations, race and ethnicity, along with environmental
and religious factors. But the book also
pushes a fable: “Do you know that you can do anything you put
your mind to and be anything you want
to be?”10 Such admonitions are well meaning, and often
designed to liberate children from oppressive
categories. Girls have, for far too long, been steered away from
advanced studies in mathematics, science
and engineering. Yet the simplistic “you can be anything you
wish” message is also a dangerous one.
Turner is wrong, plainly, and her words underscore a dangerous
myth. The notion of dharma resists this
notion that with enough hard work, success will always follow.
Sometimes hard work leads to failure;
sometimes the hardest working goalie is still too short to reach
the soccer ball. Dharma is a reminder that
in the midst of our precarious and brief lives there is something
profane about wasting energy trying to
fulfill absurd dreams. This much cannot, for the devotee of this
philosophical system, be doubted.11 At the
same time, the true view of the universe, and the place of any

one person in its harmony, is known to no
one.12 This leads to ambiguity and paradox, at times, which
are not necessarily “seen as faults to avoid
but more as mysteries to embrace and explore.”13 In the words
of Swami Vivekenanda, who was
instrumental in bringing Indian philosophy to the United States:
“Each one thinks his method is best.
Very good! But remember, it may be good for you.”14
There is a dharma, for instance, for every stage of life. Children
should not operate heavy
machinery, adults should not spend all day on playgrounds, and
the elderly should not be expected to do
heavy labor. Dharma changes, in every moment, with the
changing of the weather, the aging of bodies,
the wounds and scars we gather in life, and the shifting political
and familial duties. In all things, dharma
seeks harmony, and so the person who wishes to live well in
this tradition must have an exceedingly
flexible approach to their duties. A good choice in one
environment can be a catastrophically bad choice
when the conditions are different. Ethics, in this tradition, will
not be legalistic; dharma is fluid. Yet it
might be easy to reach a misunderstanding here, which is
common for Western readers of Hindu

philosophy. The idea of my dharma, of a particular “meaning of
life” for me, is also a distortion of the
9 Bridget Turner, You Can Be Anything You Want to Be
(Bloomington, IN: Archway Publishing, 2014).
10 Ibid, 6.
11 “[The person who is] unknowing and without faith and of
doubting self will perish. For the doubting self, there is
no happiness either in this world or the next.” Bhagavad Gita,
Goerg Feuerstein trans., 147, Lines 4.40. [convert]
12 Rather than presuming universal knowledge, the Gita
repeatedly advocated virtues such as “lack-of-pride,
unpretentiousness, nonharming, patience, uprightness, reverence
for the preceptor, purity, steadiness, self
restraint…” Bhagavad Gita, Goerg Feuerstein trans., 255, Lines
13.7.
13 Edward Viljoen, The Bhagavad Gita: The Song of God
Retold (New York: St. Martins, 2019), 76.
14 Swami Vivekanada, Collected Works, Volume 1 (Calcutta:
Advaita Ashrama, 1926), 470.
7
concept of duty in Indian thought. Sometimes Gandhi’s
interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita has been
critiqued for leaning too heavily on the implications of this

poetry on the application of these teachings
for individuals. J. T. F. Jordens claims that for Gandhi the Gita
is about “self control,” which means
“interpretations of the historical, academic or theological type
only skim the surface. The real task of the
interpreter becomes self-evident: it is to put the ethical code of
the Gita into effect in his own life.”15 This
does not mean Gandhi is wrong; it does mean we should be
careful about reading this text with merely
individual ethical formation in mind.
Dharma is certainly about what choices an individual person
makes in the world, but it would be
a mistake to think of it individualistically. It would be a waste
of my energy to train for a career as a
soccer goalie, but the real problem lies in the world I would
abandon in order to pursue that foolish goal.
The likelihood that somebody pays me to block soccer balls is
astronomically low and there are a number
of people who depend upon me to provide food and shelter.
Then, there is the time I would spend doing
things that help nobody and energy spent developing skills that
are not helpful to my family, to my
friends, to my colleagues. Dharma is not principally about each
person finding their own destiny or

individual fulfillment in the universe. Dharma is about the big
picture. Some portions of the big picture
are specific to each person, but other pieces are available for all
to see. One of those, for Arjuna and for
traditional interpretations of dharma, is family.
The Bhagavad Gita is the most famous excerpt from the massive
Hindu epic The Mahabharata.
Hinduism may very well be the most diverse of the world’s
religious traditions and Indian philosophy is
one expression of that diversity. There are, for instance, many
thousands of holy writings in Hinduism;
various Hindu groups gravitate toward different texts, different
deities, and diverse practices. In the midst
of this multiplicity, the Bhagavad Gita may very well stand
alone as the most universally celebrated.
Gerald James Larson, a scholar of Hindu philosophy, claims: “if
there is any one text that comes near to
embodying the totality of what it is to be a Hindu, it would be
the Bhagavad Gita."16 The popularity of
this text, though, has often led readers to overlook an important
decision made by Arjuna before the
verses of the Gita begin.
The story begins with a great deal of action already underway,

as is often the case with good
stories. Two armies are assembled, one significantly larger and
better armed. The smaller army is led by
Arjuna, a great archer and the prince of his people, known as
the Pandavas. The field of battle is empty,
15 J. T. F. Jordens, “Gandhi and the Bhagavadgita,” Modern
Indian Interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita, Robert
Minor, ed. (Albany: SUNY Press, 1986), 104.
16 Gerald James Larson, “The ‘Tradition Text’ in Indian
Philosophy for Doing History of Philosophy in India,” in R.
T. Ames, ed., The Aesthetic Turn: Reading Eliot Deutsch on
Comparative Philosophy (Peru, IL: Carus Publishing),
132.
8
waiting for a great war to begin. This war that is about to begin
was not inevitable; Arjuna had already
done a great deal to avoid it. Opposite his army, the Kauravas
are assembled, led by his cousins. The
Pandavas had been methodically squeezed out of their territory.
The powerful Kauravas had declined

Arjuna’s request that his people be allowed a small village in
which to dwell. In an act of genocidal greed,
the leader of the Kauravas, a man named Duryodhana, had
denied the Pandavas even a piece of land the
size of needlepoint: “I will not surrender to the Pandavas even
that much of land which may be covered
by the sharp point of a needle.”17 And so the cornered
Pandavas, facing genocide, had turned to Arjuna to
prevent their annihilation.
This is what makes the Bhagavad Gita brilliant; it positions
Arjuna between family members,
with genocide in the air, and places a bow in his hand. Family
members die no matter what he does. There
is no simple, clear duty that would guide him forward at this
point. Dharma pulls him in opposing
directions. The Gita is therefore a text built to help people
grapple with conflicts with the systems of
dharma. In fact, this text was composed in an era of great unrest
within Hinduism, as certain
manifestations of Hindu dharma were being called into question
by new generations. Particularly, the
laws of dharma had been used, from time immemorial, to
establish and support a caste (varna) system for
social organization. In this type of caste system, which is illegal

in India today but continues to exert
significant influence on social and political relations, the
channels for dharma are largely determined by
one’s birth. This means that the principle duties that one
performs in the world are largely determined by
gender, ethnicity, social, and economic situation of ones
parents. One can see some functional importance
to this practice, especially in its earliest history. Fathers who
were fishermen trained their children to fish,
and their whole family diet and schedule would revolve around
the practices that led to effective fishing.
If a child in a fisher-family decided she would prefer to train to
be a shoemaker rather than deal with fish,
this choice would push against the grain of the family dynamic.
Shoemaking requires different tools;
cobbler’s instruments are unlikely to coincide with tools
designed for fishing. Cobblers have particular
skills and tricks and abilities, and these would not be readily
available to the daughter of a fisherman. The
caste system came to structure which families, groups, and
ethnicities could provide religious and
political leadership. It determined which persons should take
military leadership, which persons should
carry away trash, who should deal with sewage, and who should

live in luxury. We should not be
surprised that scholars and leaders have soundly rejected this
system as a distortion of the concept of
dharma, and an abuse of the concept of varna in the Gita.18
People familiar with the legacy of racism and
17 Mahabharata, Book 5, Section LVIII [find best translation]
18 For instance, Vijay Kumar Saxena argues that: “Arjuna is
extremely concerned about the varna-admixture
(pollution of varna). It is necessary to understand why Arjuna is
giving so much emphasis on ‘varna-pollution.’
Varna these days is usually translated as caste but the existing
caste system, based on heritage and not attributes of
9
classism around the world should also be unsurprised that the
legacy of the caste system continues to
haunt societies around the world influenced by these practices.
From Paralysis to Action
Arjuna, knowing that he needs help, goes to see the wise and

powerful deity Krishna, who
simultaneously gives audience to Arjuna’s enemy,
Duryodhana.19 Krishna is not a king, but does have a
powerful army supporting him. He chooses neutrality in the
battle but offers two gifts for their use in the
war to come: his armies and his counsel. The armies and
weapons at his disposal are vast so when Arjuna
values Krishna’s wisdom over his power, Duryodhana is
surprised and pleased. Thinking Arjuna to be the
fool, he gladly takes the army of 10,000 soldiers over the mere
advice of Krishna. Duryodhana longs for
victory in war and seeks the advantages that lead to such an
outcome. Arjuna, he thinks, has chosen
foolishly by thinking that words of advice from Krishna might
have as much value as legions of well-
armed troops. The contrast with Meno is palpable; Meno left
Athens with troops, but no wisdom. Both
Duryodhana and Meno paid dearly for choosing power over
wisdom and contemplative action.
When the day arrives and the battle lines are formed, Arjuna
rides with his charioteer, who is
Krishna in disguise, for a moment of reflection before the war
begins. Like Meno, who before a great
battle stopped for a conversation with Socrates about what it

means to be virtuous, Arjuna paused. As he
looks across the battlefield, he sees the faces of his uncles, his
cousins, his teachers, his friends. This is
not a battle between a distant invader but a war between
relatives and friends. The people who will lie
dead on the field afterward are people he loves. “Arjuna said:
My dear Krishna, seeing my friends and
relatives present before me in such a fighting spirit, I feel the
limbs of my body quivering and my mouth
drying up.”20 Behind him and before him, Arjuna sees faces of
those he loves. There are no right answers
here; all choices lead to death. It is at this very moment in this
epic story that it becomes glaringly clear:
this is a story about ethics. After all, ethical reasoning is not an
adventure in thinking about morality when
there is no skin in the game. Arjuna must decide. And his
decision will lead to suffering. Indecision will
also lead to suffering. There is no road before him that neatly
moves through the minefield of suffering

nature, is very different from the ancient social
classification…” Saxena, Feel the Bhagavad Gita: A New
Interpretation (Bloomington, IN: Archway Publishing, 2016),
89. However, Saxena advocates against both the
modern and the ancient version of varna as the basis for social
organization. Sri Aurobindo writes: “[The Gita] lays
very little stress on the external rule and very great stress on the
internal law which the Varna system attempted to
put into regulated outward practice. And it is on the individual
and spiritual value of this law and not on its
communal and economic or …
A reading for Eric Severson’s Ethics course 1
Animal Liberation
Peter Singer
A few excerpts:
“Animal Liberation” may sound more like a parody of other
liberation movements than a
serious objective. The idea of “The Rights of Animals” actually
was once used to parody the

case for women’s rights. When Mary Wollstonecraft published
her Vindication of the Rights
of Women in 1792, her views were widely regarded as absurd,
and before long, an anonymous
publication appeared entitled A Vindication of the Rights of
Brutes. The author of this satirical
work (now known to have been Thomas Taylor, a distinguished
Cambridge philosopher) tried
to refute Mary Wollstonecraft’s arguments by showing that they
could be carried one stage
further. If the argument for equality was sound when applied to
women, why should it not be
applied to dogs, cats, and horses? …
When we say that all human beings, whatever their race, creed,
or sex, are equal, what is it
that we are asserting? Like it or not, we must face the fact that
humans come in different
shapes and sizes; they come with different moral capacities,
different intellectual abilities,
different amounts of benevolent feeling and sensitivity to the
needs of others, different

abilities to communicate effectively, and different capacities to
experience pleasure and pain.
In short, if the demand for equality were based on the actual
equality of all human beings, we
would have to stop demanding equality. …
The existence of individual variations that cut across the lines
of race or sex, however,
provides us with no defense at all against a more sophisticated
opponent of equality, one who
proposes that, say, the interests of all those with IQ scores
below 100 be given less
consideration than the interests of those with ratings over 100.
Perhaps those scoring below
the mark would, in this society, be made the slaves of those
scoring higher. Would a
hierarchical society of this sort really be so much better than
one based on race or sex? I think
not. But if we tie the moral principle of equality to the factual
equality of the different races or
sexes, taken as a whole, our opposition to racism and sexism
does not provide us with any
basis for objecting to this kind of inegalitarianism. …
Fortunately, there is no need to pin the case for equality to one

particular outcome of a
scientific investigation. … There is no logically compelling
reason for assuming that a factual
difference in ability between two people justifies any difference
in the amount of
consideration we give to their needs and interests. The principle
of the equality of human
beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among
humans: It is a prescription of
how we should treat human beings.
Jeremy Bentham, the founder of the reforming utilitarian school
of moral philosophy,
incorporated the essential basis of moral equality into his
system of ethics by means of the
formula: “Each to count for one and none for more than one.” In
other words, the interests of
every being affected by an action are to be taken into account
and given the same weight as
the like interests of any other being. …
It is an implication of this principle of equality that our concern
for others and our readiness to

consider their interests ought not to depend on what they are
like or on what abilities they may
possess. Precisely what our concern or consideration requires us
to do may vary according to
the characteristics of those affected by what we do: concern for
the well-being of children
growing up in America would require that we teach them to
read; concern for the well-being
of pigs may require no more than that we leave them with other
pigs in a place where there is
adequate food and room to run freely. But the basic element—
the taking into account of the
interests of the being, whatever those interests may be—must,
according to the principle of
equality, be extended to all beings, black or white, masculine or
feminine, human or
nonhuman.
Thomas Jefferson, who was responsible for writing the principle
of the equality of men into
the American Declaration of Independence, saw this point. It
led him to oppose slavery even
though he was unable to free himself fully from his
slaveholding background. He wrote in a

letter to the author of a book that emphasized the notable
intellectual achievements of Negroes
in order to refute the then common view that they have limited
intellectual capacities: “Be
assured that no person living wishes more sincerely than I do, to
see a complete refutation of
the doubts I myself have entertained and expressed on the grade
of understanding allotted to
them by nature, and to find that they are on a par with ourselves
… but whatever be their
degree of talent it is no measure of their rights. Because Sir
Isaac Newton was superior to
others in understanding, he was not therefore lord of the
property or person of others.”
Similarly, when in the 1850s the call for women’s rights was
raised in the United States, a
remarkable black feminist named Sojourner Truth made the
same point in more robust terms
at a feminist convention: “They talk about this thing in the
head; what do they call it?
[“Intellect,” whispered someone nearby.] That’s it. What’s that
got to do with women’s rights
or Negroes’ rights? If my cup won’t hold but a pint and yours
holds a quart, wouldn’t you be

mean not to let me have my little half-measure full?”
It is on this basis that the case against racism and the case
against sexism must both ultimately
rest; and it is in accordance with this principle that the attitude
that we may call “speciesism,”
by analogy with racism, must also be condemned. Speciesism—
the word is not an attractive
one, but I can think of no better term—is a prejudice or attitude
of bias in favor of the interests
of members of one’s own species and against those of members
of other species. It should be
obvious that the fundamental objections to racism and sexism
made by Thomas Jefferson and
Sojourner Truth apply equally to speciesism. If possessing a
higher degree of intelligence does
not entitle one human to use another for his or her own ends,
how can it entitle humans to
exploit nonhumans for the same purpose?
Many philosophers and other writers have proposed the
principle of equal consideration of
interests, in some form or other, as a basic moral principle; but

not many of them have
recognized that this principle applies to members of other
species as well as to our own.
Jeremy Bentham was one of the few who did realize this. In a
forward-looking passage written
at a time when black slaves had been freed by the French but in
the British dominions were
still being treated in the way we now treat animals, Bentham
wrote:
“The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may
acquire those rights which never
could have been withholden from them but by the hand of
tyranny. The French have already
discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a
human being should be
abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may
one day come to be
recognized that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin,
or the termination of the os
sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a
sensitive being to the same fate.
What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the
faculty of reason, or perhaps the
faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond

comparison a more rational, as
well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a
week or even a month, old.
But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The
question is not, Can they reason?
nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”
In this passage, Bentham points to the capacity for suffering as
the vital characteristic that
gives a being the right to equal consideration. … If a being
suffers, there can be no moral
justification for refusing to take that suffering into
consideration. No matter what the nature of
the being, the principle of equality requires that [his or her]
suffering be counted equally with
the like suffering—insofar as rough comparisons can be made—
of any other being. …
Racists violate the principle of equality by giving greater
weight to the interests of members of
their own race when there is a clash between their interests and
the interests of those of
another race. Sexists violate the principle of equality by

favoring the interests of their own
sex. Similarly, speciesists allow the interests of their own
species to override the greater
interests of members of other species. The pattern is identical in
each case.
Most human beings are speciesists. … [O]rdinary human
beings—not a few exceptionally
cruel or heartless humans, but the overwhelming majority of
humans—take an active part in,
acquiesce in, and allow their taxes to pay for practices that
require the sacrifice of the most
important interests of members of other species in order to
promote the most trivial interests
of our own species.…
Even if we were to prevent the infliction of suffering on animals
only when it is quite certain
that the interests of humans will not be affected to anything like
the extent that animals are
affected, we would be forced to make radical changes in our
treatment of animals that would
involve our diet, the farming methods we use, experimental
procedures in many fields of
science, our approach to wildlife and to hunting, trapping and
the wearing of furs, and areas of

entertainment like circuses, rodeos, and zoos. As a result, a vast
amount of suffering would be
avoided.
The Leviathan
Thomas Hobbes1
1651
CHAPTER XIII OF THE NATURAL CONDITION OF
MANKIND AS
CONCERNING THEIR FELICITY AND MISERY
NATURE hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and
mind as that, though there be
found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body or of
quicker mind than another, yet
when all is reckoned together the difference between man and
man is not so considerable as
that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to
which another may not pretend as
well as he. For as to the strength of body, the weakest has
strength enough to kill the strongest,
either by secret machination or by confederacy with others that
are in the same danger with
himself.

And as to the faculties of the mind, setting aside the arts
grounded upon words, and especially
that skill of proceeding upon general and infallible rules, called
science, which very few have
and but in few things, as being not a native faculty born with
us, nor attained, as prudence,
while we look after somewhat else, I find yet a greater equality
amongst men than that of
strength. For prudence is but experience, which equal time
equally bestows on all men in
those things they equally apply themselves unto. That which
may perhaps make such equality
incredible is but a vain conceit of one's own wisdom, which
almost all men think they have in
a greater degree than the vulgar; that is, than all men but
themselves, and a few others, whom
by fame, or for concurring with themselves, they approve. For
such is the nature of men that
howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty,
or more eloquent or more
learned, yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as
themselves; for they see their
own wit at hand, and other men's at a distance. But this proveth
rather that men are in that
point equal, than unequal. For there is not ordinarily a greater
sign of the equal distribution of
anything than that every man is contented with his share.
From this equality of ability ariseth equality of hope in the
attaining of our ends. And
therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which
nevertheless they cannot both enjoy,
they become enemies; and in the way to their end (which is
principally their own
conservation, and sometimes their delectation only) endeavour

to destroy or subdue one
another. And from hence it comes to pass that where an invader
hath no more to fear than
another man's single power, if one plant, sow, build, or possess
a convenient seat, others may
probably be expected to come prepared with forces united to
dispossess and deprive him, not
only of the fruit of his labour, but also of his life or liberty.
And the invader again is in the like
danger of another.
And from this diffidence of one another, there is no way for any
man to secure himself so
reasonable as anticipation; that is, by force, or wiles, to master
the persons of all men he can
1 Text in the public domain.
so long till he see no other power great enough to endanger him:
and this is no more than his
own conservation requireth, and is generally allowed. Also,
because there be some that, taking
pleasure in contemplating their own power in the acts of
conquest, which they pursue farther
than their security requires, if others, that otherwise would be
glad to be at ease within modest
bounds, should not by invasion increase their power, they would
not be able, long time, by
standing only on their defence, to subsist. And by consequence,
such augmentation of
dominion over men being necessary to a man's conservation, it
ought to be allowed him.

Again, men have no pleasure (but on the contrary a great deal of
grief) in keeping company
where there is no power able to overawe them all. For every
man looketh that his companion
should value him at the same rate he sets upon himself, and
upon all signs of contempt or
undervaluing naturally endeavours, as far as he dares (which
amongst them that have no
common power to keep them in quiet is far enough to make
them destroy each other), to extort
a greater value from his contemners, by damage; and from
others, by the example.
So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of
quarrel. First, competition;
secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory.
The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety;
and the third, for reputation. The
first use violence, to make themselves masters of other men's
persons, wives, children, and
cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a
word, a smile, a different opinion,
and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons
or by reflection in their kindred,
their friends, their nation, their profession, or their name.
Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a
common power to keep them all
in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such
a war as is of every man
against every man. For war consisteth not in battle only, or the
act of fighting, but in a tract of
time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently
known: and therefore the notion of

time is to be considered in the nature of war, as it is in the
nature of weather. For as the nature
of foul weather lieth not in a shower or two of rain, but in an
inclination thereto of many days
together: so the nature of war consisteth not in actual fighting,
but in the known disposition
thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary.
All other time is peace.
Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where
every man is enemy to every man,
the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other
security than what their own
strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In
such condition there is no place
for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and
consequently no culture of the earth; no
navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by
sea; no commodious
building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as
require much force; no
knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts;
no letters; no society; and
which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent
death; and the life of man, solitary,
poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
It may seem strange to some man that has not well weighed
these things that Nature should
thus dissociate and render men apt to invade and destroy one
another: and he may therefore,

not trusting to this inference, made from the passions, desire
perhaps to have the same
confirmed by experience. Let him therefore consider with
himself: when taking a journey, he
arms himself and seeks to go well accompanied; when going to
sleep, he locks his doors;
when even in his house he locks his chests; and this when he
knows there be laws and public
officers, armed, to revenge all injuries shall be done him; what
opinion he has of his fellow
subjects, when he rides armed; of his fellow citizens, when he
locks his doors; and of his
children, and servants, when he locks his chests. Does he not
there as much accuse mankind
by his actions as I do by my words? But neither of us accuse
man's nature in it. The desires,
and other passions of man, are in themselves no sin. No more
are the actions that proceed
from those passions till they know a law that forbids them;
which till laws be made they
cannot know, nor can any law be made till they have agreed
upon the person that shall make
it.
It may peradventure be thought there was never such a time nor
condition of war as this; and I
believe it was never generally so, over all the world: but there
are many places where they live
so now. For the savage people in many places of America,
except the government of small
families, the concord whereof dependeth on natural lust, have
no government at all, and live at
this day in that brutish manner, as I said before. Howsoever, it
may be perceived what manner
of life there would be, where there were no common power to
fear, by the manner of life

which men that have formerly lived under a peaceful
government use to degenerate into a civil
war.
But though there had never been any time wherein particular
men were in a condition of war
one against another, yet in all times kings and persons of
sovereign authority, because of their
independency, are in continual jealousies, and in the state and
posture of gladiators, having
their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another; that
is, their forts, garrisons, and
guns upon the frontiers of their kingdoms, and continual spies
upon their neighbours, which is
a posture of war. But because they uphold thereby the industry
of their subjects, there does not
follow from it that misery which accompanies the liberty of
particular men.
To this war of every man against every man, this also is
consequent; that nothing can be
unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice,
have there no place. Where there
is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no
injustice. Force and fraud are in war
the two cardinal virtues. Justice and injustice are none of the
faculties neither of the body nor
mind. If they were, they might be in a man that were alone in
the world, as well as his senses
and passions. They are qualities that relate to men in society,
not in solitude. It is consequent
also to the same condition that there be no propriety, no
dominion, no mine and thine distinct;
but only that to be every man's that he can get, and for so long
as he can keep it. And thus
much for the ill condition which man by mere nature is actually

placed in; though with a
possibility to come out of it, consisting partly in the passions,
partly in his reason.
The passions that incline men to peace are: fear of death; desire
of such things as are
necessary to commodious living; and a hope by their industry to
obtain them. And reason
suggesteth convenient articles of peace upon which men may be
drawn to agreement. These
articles are they which otherwise are called the laws of nature,
whereof I shall speak more
particularly in the two following chapters.
CHAPTER XIV
OF THE FIRST AND SECOND NATURAL LAWS, AND OF
CONTRACTS
THE right of nature, which writers commonly call jus naturale,
is the liberty each man hath to
use his own power as he will himself for the preservation of his
own nature; that is to say, of
his own life; and consequently, of doing anything which, in his
own judgement and reason, he
shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto.
By liberty is understood, according to the proper signification
of the word, the absence of
external impediments; which impediments may oft take away
part of a man's power to do
what he would, but cannot hinder him from using the power left

him according as his
judgement and reason shall dictate to him.
A law of nature, lex naturalis, is a precept, or general rule,
found out by reason, by which a
man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or
taketh away the means of
preserving the same, and to omit that by which he thinketh it
may be best preserved. For
though they that speak of this subject use to confound jus and
lex, right and law, yet they
ought to be distinguished, because right consisteth in liberty to
do, or to forbear; whereas law
determineth and bindeth to one of them: so that law and right
differ as much as obligation and
liberty, which in one and the same matter are inconsistent.
And because the condition of man (as hath been declared in the
precedent chapter) is a
condition of war of every one against every one, in which case
every one is governed by his
own reason, and there is nothing he can make use of that may
not be a help unto him in
preserving his life against his enemies; it followeth that in such
a condition every man has a
right to every thing, even to one another's body. And therefore,
as long as this natural right of
every man to every thing endureth, there can be no security to
any man, how strong or wise
soever he be, of living out the time which nature ordinarily
alloweth men to live. And
consequently it is a precept, or general rule of reason: that
every man ought to endeavour
peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot
obtain it, that he may seek and
use all helps and advantages of war. The first branch of which

rule containeth the first and
fundamental law of nature, which is: to seek peace and follow
it. The second, the sum of the
right of nature, which is: by all means we can to defend
ourselves.
From this fundamental law of nature, by which men are
commanded to endeavour peace, is
derived this second law: that a man be willing, when others are
so too, as far forth as for peace
and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down
this right to all things; and be
contented with so much liberty against other men as he would
allow other men against
himself. For as long as every man holdeth this right, of doing
anything he liketh; so long are
all men in the condition of war. But if other men will not lay
down their right, as well as he,
then there is no reason for anyone to divest himself of his: for
that were to expose himself to
prey, which no man is bound to, rather than to dispose himself
to peace. This is that law of the
gospel: Whatsoever you require that others should do to you,
that do ye to them. And that law
of all men, quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris.
To lay down a man's right to anything is to divest himself of the
liberty of hindering another
of the benefit of his own right to the same. For he that
renounceth or passeth away his right
giveth not to any other man a right which he had not before,

because there is nothing to which
every man had not right by nature, but only standeth out of his
way that he may enjoy his own
original right without hindrance from him, not without
hindrance from another. So that the
effect which redoundeth to one man by another man's defect of
right is but so much
diminution of impediments to the use of his own right original.
Right is laid aside, either by simply renouncing it, or by
transferring it to another. By simply
renouncing, when he cares not to whom the benefit thereof
redoundeth. By transferring, when
he intendeth the benefit thereof to some certain person or
persons. And when a man hath in
either manner abandoned or granted away his right, then is he
said to be obliged, or bound, not
to hinder those to whom such right is granted, or abandoned,
from the benefit of it: and that he
ought, and it is duty, not to make void that voluntary act of his
own: and that such hindrance is
injustice, and injury, as being sine jure; the right being before
renounced or transferred. So
that injury or injustice, in the controversies of the world, is
somewhat like to that which in the
disputations of scholars is called absurdity. For as it is there
called an absurdity to contradict
what one maintained in the beginning; so in the world it is
called injustice, and injury
voluntarily to undo that which from the beginning he had
voluntarily done. The way by which
a man either simply renounceth or transferreth his right is a
declaration, or signification, by
some voluntary and sufficient sign, or signs, that he doth so
renounce or transfer, or hath so
renounced or transferred the same, to him that accepteth it. And

these signs are either words
only, or actions only; or, as it happeneth most often, both words
and actions. And the same are
the bonds, by which men are bound and obliged: bonds that
have their strength, not from their
own nature (for nothing is more easily broken than a man's
word), but from fear of some evil
consequence upon the rupture.
Whensoever a man transferreth his right, or renounceth it, it is
either in consideration of some
right reciprocally transferred to himself, or for some other good
he hopeth for thereby. For it is
a voluntary act: and of the voluntary acts of every man, the
object is some good to himself.
And therefore there be some rights which no man can be
understood by any words, or other
signs, to have abandoned or transferred. As first a man cannot
lay down the right of resisting
them that assault him by force to take away his life, because he
cannot be understood to aim
thereby at any good to himself. The same may be said of
wounds, and chains, and
imprisonment, both because there is no benefit consequent to
such patience, as there is to the
patience of suffering another to be wounded or imprisoned, as
also because a man cannot tell
when he seeth men proceed against him by violence whether
they intend his death or not. And
lastly the motive and end for which this renouncing and
transferring of right is introduced is
nothing else but the security of a man's person, in his life, and
in the means of so preserving
life as not to be weary of it. And therefore if a man by words, or
other signs, seem to despoil
himself of the end for which those signs were intended, he is

not to be understood as if he
meant it, or that it was his will, but that he was ignorant of how
such words and actions were
to be interpreted.
The mutual transferring of right is that which men call contract.
There is difference between transferring of right to the thing,
the thing, and transferring or
tradition, that is, delivery of the thing itself. For the thing may
be delivered together with the
translation of the right, as in buying and selling with ready
money, or exchange of goods or
lands, and it may be delivered some time after.
Again, one of the contractors may deliver the thing contracted
for on his part, and leave the
other to perform his part at some determinate time after, and in
the meantime be trusted; and
then the contract on his part is called pact, or covenant: or both
parts may contract now to
perform hereafter, in which cases he that is to perform in time
to come, being trusted, his
performance is called keeping of promise, or faith, and the
failing of performance, if it be
voluntary, violation of faith.
When the transferring of right is not mutual, but one of the
parties transferreth in hope to gain
thereby friendship or service from another, or from his friends;
or in hope to gain the

reputation of charity, or magnanimity; or to deliver his mind
from the pain of compassion; or
in hope of reward in heaven; this is not contract, but gift, free
gift, grace: which words signify
one and the same thing.
Signs of contract are either express or by inference. Express are
words spoken with
understanding of what they signify: and such words are either of
the time present or past; as, I
give, I grant, I have given, I have granted, I will that this be
yours: or of the future; as, I will
give, I will grant, which words of the future are called promise.
Signs by inference are sometimes the consequence of words;
sometimes the consequence of
silence; sometimes the consequence of actions; sometimes the
consequence of forbearing an
action: and generally a sign by inference, of any contract, is
whatsoever sufficiently argues the
will of the contractor.
Words alone, if they be of the time to come, and contain a bare
promise, are an insufficient
sign of a free gift and therefore not obligatory. For if they be of
the time to come, as,
tomorrow I will give, they are a sign I have not given yet, and
consequently that my right is
not transferred, but remaineth till I transfer it by some other act.
But if the words be of the
time present, or past, as, I have given, or do give to be
delivered tomorrow, then is my
tomorrow's right given away today; and that by the virtue of the
words, though there were no
other argument of my will. And there is a great difference in the
signification of these words,

volo hoc tuum esse cras, and cras dabo; that is, between I will
that this be thine tomorrow,
and, I will give it thee tomorrow: for the word I will, in the
former manner of speech, signifies
an act of the will present; but in the latter, it signifies a promise
of an act of the will to come:
and therefore the former words, being of the present, transfer a
future right; the latter, that be
of the future, transfer nothing. But if there be other signs of the
will to transfer a right besides
words; then, though the gift be free, yet may the right be
understood to pass by words of the
future: as if a man propound a prize to him that comes first to
the end of a race, the gift is free;
and though the words be of the future, yet the right passeth: for
if he would not have his words
so be understood, he should not have let them run.
In contracts the right passeth, not only where the words are of
the time present or past, but also
where they are of the future, because all contract is mutual
translation, or change of right; and
therefore he that promiseth only, because he hath already
received the benefit for which he
promiseth, is to be understood as if he intended the right should
pass: for unless he had been
content to have his words so understood, the other would not
have performed his part first.
And for that cause, in buying, and selling, and other acts of
contract, a promise is equivalent to
a covenant, and therefore obligatory.

He that performeth first in the case of a contract is said to merit
that which he is to receive by
the performance of the other, and he hath it as due. Also when a
prize is propounded to many,
which is to be given to him only that winneth, or money is
thrown amongst many to be
enjoyed by them that catch it; though this be a free gift, yet so
to win, or so to catch, is to
merit, and to have it as due. For the right is transferred in the
propounding of the prize, and in
throwing down the money, though it be not determined to
whom, but by the event of the
contention. But there is between these two sorts of merit this
difference, that in contract I
merit by virtue of my own power and the contractor's need, but
in this case of free gift I am
enabled to merit only by the benignity of the giver: in contract I
merit at the contractor's hand
that he should depart with his right; in this case of gift, I merit
not that the giver should part
with his right, but that when he has parted with it, it should be
mine rather than another's. And
this I think to be the meaning of that distinction of the Schools
between meritum congrui and
meritum condigni. For God Almighty, having promised paradise
to those men, hoodwinked
with carnal desires, that can walk through this world according
to the precepts and limits
prescribed by him, they say he that shall so walk shall merit
paradise ex congruo. But because
no man can demand a right to it by his own righteousness, or
any other power in himself, but
by the free grace of God only, they say no man can merit
paradise ex condigno. This, I say, I
think is the meaning of that distinction; but because disputers

do not agree upon the
signification of their own terms of art longer than it serves their
turn, I will not affirm anything
of their meaning: only this I say; when a gift is given
indefinitely, as a prize to be contended
for, he that winneth meriteth, and may claim the prize as due.
If a covenant be made wherein neither of the parties perform
presently, but trust one another,
in the condition of mere nature (which is a condition of war of
every man against every man)
upon any reasonable suspicion, it is void: but if there be a
common power set over them both,
with right and force sufficient to compel performance, it is not
void. For he that performeth
first has no assurance the other will perform after, because the
bonds of words are too weak to
bridle men's ambition, avarice, anger, and other passions,
without the fear of some coercive
power; which in the condition of mere nature, where all men are
equal, and judges of the
justness of their own fears, cannot possibly be supposed. And
therefore he which performeth
first does but betray himself to his enemy, contrary to the right
he can never abandon of
defending his life and means of living.
But in a civil estate, where there a power set up to constrain
those that would otherwise violate
their faith, that fear is no more reasonable; and for that cause,
he which by the covenant is to
perform first is obliged so to do.

The cause of fear, which maketh such a covenant invalid, must
be always something arising
after the covenant made, as some new fact or other sign of the
will not to perform, else it
cannot make the covenant void. For that which could not hinder
a man from promising ought
not to be admitted as a hindrance of performing.
He that transferreth any right transferreth the means of enjoying
it, as far as lieth in his power.
As he that selleth land is understood to transfer the herbage and
whatsoever grows upon it; nor
can he that sells a mill turn away the stream that drives it. And
they that give to a man the
right of government in sovereignty are understood to give him
the right of levying money to
maintain soldiers, and of appointing magistrates for the
administration of justice.
To make covenants with brute beasts is impossible, because not
understanding our speech,
they understand not, nor accept of any translation of right, nor
can translate any right to
another: and without mutual acceptation, there is no covenant.
To make covenant with God is impossible but by mediation of
such as God speaketh to, either
by revelation supernatural or by His lieutenants that govern
under Him and in His name: for
otherwise we know not whether our covenants be accepted or
not. And therefore they that vow
anything contrary to any law of nature, vow in vain, as being a
thing unjust to pay such vow.
And if it be a thing commanded by the law of nature, it is not
the vow, but the law that binds

them.
The matter or subject of a covenant is always something that
falleth under deliberation, for to
covenant is an act of the will; that is to say, an act, and the last
act, of deliberation; and is
therefore always understood to be something to come, and
which judged possible for him that
covenanteth to perform.
And therefore, to promise that which is known to be impossible
is no covenant. But if that
prove impossible afterwards, which before was thought
possible, the covenant is valid and
bindeth, though not to the thing itself, yet to the value; or, if
that also be impossible, to the
unfeigned endeavour of performing as much as is possible, for
to more no man can be obliged.
Men are freed of their covenants two ways; by performing, or
by being forgiven. For
performance is the natural end of obligation, and forgiveness
the restitution of liberty, as being
a retransferring of that right in which the obligation consisted.
Covenants entered into by fear, in the condition of mere nature,
are obligatory. For example, if
I covenant to pay a ransom, or service for my life, to an enemy,
I am bound by it. For it is a
contract, wherein one receiveth the benefit of life; the other is
to receive money, or service for
it, and consequently, where no other law (as in the condition of
mere nature) forbiddeth the
performance, the covenant is valid. Therefore prisoners of war,
if trusted with the payment of

their ransom, are obliged to pay it: and if a weaker prince make
a disadvantageous peace with
a stronger, for fear, he is bound to keep it; unless (as hath been
said before) there ariseth some
new and just cause of fear to renew the war. And even in
Commonwealths, if I be forced to
redeem myself from a thief by promising him money, I am
bound to pay it, till the civil law
discharge me. For whatsoever I may lawfully do without
obligation, the same I may lawfully
covenant to do through fear: and what I lawfully covenant, I
cannot lawfully break.
A former covenant makes void a later. For a man that hath
passed away his right to one man
today hath it not to pass tomorrow to another: and therefore the
later promise passeth no right,
but is null.
A covenant not to defend myself from force, by force, is always
void. For (as I have shown
before) no man can transfer or lay down his right to save
himself from death, wounds, and
imprisonment, the avoiding whereof is the only end of laying
down any right; and therefore
the promise of not resisting force, in no covenant transferreth
any right, nor is obliging. For
though a man may covenant thus, unless I do so, or so, kill me;
he cannot covenant thus,
unless I do so, or so, I will not resist you when you come to kill
me. For man by nature
chooseth the lesser evil, which is danger of death in resisting,

rather than the greater, which is
certain and present death in not resisting. And this is granted to
be true by all men, in that they
lead criminals to execution, and prison, with armed men,
notwithstanding that such criminals
have consented to the law by which they are condemned.
A covenant to accuse oneself, without assurance of pardon, is
likewise invalid. For in the
condition of nature where every man is judge, there is no place
for accusation: and in the civil
state the accusation is followed with punishment, which, …
Dhammapada
The Buddha1
Chapter 1: Pairs
1. Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are
all m
ind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts
suffering follows him like the
wheel that follows the foot of the ox.
2. Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are
all mind-wrought. If with a
pure mind a person speaks or acts happiness follows him like
his never-departing shadow.
3. "He abused me, he struck me, he overpowered me, he robbed

me." Those who harbor such
thoughts do not still their hatred.
4. "He abused me, he struck me, he overpowered me, he robbed
me." Those who do not
harbor such thoughts still their hatred.
5. Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-
hatred alone is hatred appeased.
This is a law eternal.
6. There are those who do not realize that one day we all must
die. But those who do realize
this settle their quarrels.
7. Just as a storm throws down a weak tree, so does Mara
overpower the man who lives for the
pursuit of pleasures, who is uncontrolled in his senses,
immoderate in eating, indolent, and
dissipated.
8. Just as a storm cannot prevail against a rocky mountain, so
Mara can never overpower the
man who lives meditating on the impurities, who is controlled
in his senses, moderate in
eating, and filled with faith and earnest effort.
9. Whoever being depraved, devoid of self-control and
truthfulness, should don the monk's
yellow robe, he surely is not worthy of the robe.
10. But whoever is purged of depravity, well-established in
virtues and filled with self-control
and truthfulness, he indeed is worthy of the yellow robe.

1 Copyright 1996. Translated by Acharya
Buddharakkhita.
11. Those who mistake the unessential to be essential and the
essential to be unessential,
dwelling in wrong thoughts, never arrive at the essential.
12. Those who know the essential to be essential and the
unessential to be unessential,
dwelling in right thoughts, do arrive at the essential.
13. Just as rain breaks through an ill-thatched house, so passion
penetrates an undeveloped
mind.
14. Just as rain does not break through a well-thatched house, so
passion never penetrates a
well-developed mind.
15. The evil-doer grieves here and hereafter; he grieves in both
the worlds. He laments and is
afflicted, recollecting his own impure deeds.
16. The doer of good rejoices here and hereafter; he rejoices in
both the worlds. He rejoices
and exults, recollecting his own pure deeds.
17. The evil-doer suffers here and hereafter; he suffers in both

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