Gier on Hindu Virtue Ethics Nick Gier has posted Hindu Virtue Ethics. Here is a taste:
Following an aesthetics of virtue, I will propose that the Hindu virtues are personal creations that are, as Aristotle maintains, “relative to us,” and that strictly deontological or utilitarian readings of the ethics of the Hindu epics are not supported. In the first section I will discuss the different roles that rules and virtues play in our moral lives, and I will demonstrate that the virtues have axiological priority. The second section will present the outlines of an aesthetics of virtue, which I will explicate in terms of Confucius and Gandhi. Drawing heavily on Matilal, I argue, in the third section, that there are good reasons to read the Hindu epics as a virtue ethics. Matilal offers some wonderful insights about the true nature of karma and I, in the fourth section, combine these with my own discoveries about Buddhism to offer a non-fatalistic interpretation of the motto “character is destiny.” Finally, Matilal’s acute observations about Krishna gives me the link that I needed for a Hindu virtue aesthetics in the fifth and final section.