On On a Supposed Right to Tell Lies from Benevolent Motives Kant defends the Categorical Imperative from Benjamin Constant's argument (lying to save a man from assassination by a tyrannical regime.)

Kant defends the Imperative mostly through the idea that lying to a person is objectifying him into a means to an end, thus making free rational action impossible through the generalizations of the Imperative.

I have struggled with this for quite some time because Mahayana Buddhism allows you to lie to save any life, even that of an animal. It appears that in Buddhism language and reason are seen as less valuable than life itself.¹

The main difference between Buddhist and Kantian ethics lies on their metaphysical assumptions. For Kant, there is an objective, albeit eventually unreachable, underlying principle. In Buddhism, however, skepticism may come in handy as an ethical tool. We are not sure about the actions of others. Are they really free? We don’t know about anybody else, so we should always take the responsibility. It may sound rather strange that this seemingly arrogant stance comes from a tradition that puts such a high value on non-attachment to the self, nonetheless it seems that inescapable reasoning, within the Buddhist tradition, would be seem as the ultimate form of violence. So the Kantian and Buddhist may have some good discussion amongst themselves, even though it will be certainly complicated by the western Buddhist pseudo-kantian jargon, and by the very fact that philosophy as just a tool for language-driven problems to self-preserve is seen as the climax of the unethical.

If, as in Kant's own example, somebody ends dead by cause of the very lying we used to save him, this is, of course, bad action. Kant seems to be trying to find a safe structure of thought wherein all our considerations would be easily dropped and solved. Buddhism, on the other hand will say it is our responsibility to find the best result, and the best result is to see all things as lies. Truth is not positively construed, but what remains when all lies are exposed.

“Kant was of the opinion that man is his own law (autonomy) — that is, he binds himself under the law which he himself gives himself. Actually, in a profounder sense, this is how lawlessness or experimentation are established. This is not being rigorously earnest any more than Sancho Panza's self-administered blows to his own bottom were vigorous. ... Now if a man is never even once willing in his lifetime to act so decisively that [a lawgiver] can get hold of him, well, then it happens, then the man is allowed to live on in self-complacent illusion and make-believe and experimentation, but this also means: utterly without grace.”Kierkegaard

When we discuss what philosophy really is – and of course this is, some would say a bit ironically, one of the main topics on the field – we tend to think of it as a non-cultural feature of human thought. Not only this, but the main philosophical questions seem to arise when we are children and are still not completely grounded in our culture. Nonetheless, this may not be completely true. The philosophical questions children usually have arise together with the main feature of culture, language, and when we consider that the grammar of western languages is in deep relationship with most philosophical problems, then we have a chicken-and-egg problem.

In the same token we are led to analyze other cultures within the framework of our own language, developed with those very structures and problems. So what we call "philosophy" may be a cultural product, although this may not mean all of its results aren't universal. Particularly when we study a cultural phenomenon such as Buddhism, we seem to find many of the same patterns of organized thought we find in philosophy, and the idea that Buddhism has a philosophy, a psychology, a science of mind or something like that is pretty much prevalent among western oriental scholars.

I would dare to say philosophy is somewhat the antithesis of Buddhism. This does not mean Buddhist thought is unruly, or that Buddhism is a praise on irrationalism.² I believe the main feature of philosophy is the basic assumption that reality has at least some parts that can be completely understood³. So there's a basic belief that there is a "logos" operating in nature, and philosophy mostly doesn't take that as a subject of enquiry – if somebody starts the philosophical activity, it is with at least some faith something has a meaning (although we have, historically, achieved some anti-philosophy as the result of philosophy). From this perspective, the idea that reason is the main tool for leading a complete life is taken for granted, as is ordered discourse as the main method for establishing and verifying the soundness of whatever we think. Even if we think about empiricism, the discussion of how empirical data should be taken is of course discursive.

Although we have some fringe philosophical schools in ancient times that may have walked around this signification, philosophy nowadays is owned by academia, and in any living form sustains a similar approach. This is no surprise, since academia itself is a mainly philosophical project, and what survived, philosophically speaking, is the just strongest strains of thought – that is, the ones harder to dismiss.

Buddhism is a particularly tricky subject for any westerner that strives for precise terminology. When we talk about religion, we think God, maybe salvation, the Word of God, some kind of revelation. So many people strive to see the Buddha as a philosopher, since what he found out was not to be a revelation from somewhere else, but an analytical and methodological scrutiny of reality, complete with reasoning and empirical experiment (states of mind pursued with rigor and posture).

That is not altogether separate from truth, but the Buddha, and this is very important, didn't strive for some kind of meaning in experience. The whole project of philosophy is to achieve means of understanding at least one basic structure of reality, and most philosophy would add the capacity of clearly disclosing it through discourse (since thought and speech are basically the same). The Buddha taught "emptiness", and emptiness basically refers to the very fact that no basic structure of reality can be understood. This is for sure a discovery upon reality, but is it "philosophy"?

Of course Buddhism can take the term for itself, since in the popular view the two studies would seem very similar. A Buddhist would have to make clear, however, that his use of discourse is temporary. "Taking refuge" in discourse seems to be the biggest problem Buddhism would see in philosophy, that is, taking mental concatenations as a mean to lead a complete life is seem as absurd in the Buddhist perspective.

On the other hand, philosophers may see the Buddha, with his many-layered teaching, a bit of a sophist. Buddhism has a sort of pragmatist view on truth, since it is basically logically skeptic. Also, one of the main features of this particular kind of complete skepticism is the ability to dialogue with contradictory systems, and even using them as "skilful means" – which is maybe the very definition of sophistry.

What makes the dialog between philosophy and Buddhism difficult is mainly the embezzlement of western philosophy taxonomy to talk about Buddhist matters. "Phenomena", "wisdom", "mind", all have different meanings in different philosophies, and there comes Buddhism with its own agenda and takes the terms and makes its own. This is no problem for Buddhism itself, but for the dialog between philosophy and Buddhism, if it is at all desirable.

Buddhism, as philosophy, was not designed to be something tied to a culture. The idea that we as westerners have more difficulty in understanding Buddhism because of our culture is mistaken. The difficulty is the same, if it is correctly presented to us. One of the main problems Buddhism faces is the introduction of a mysticism of irrationality, that may occur when we hear terms such as "non-dual wisdom". Many things are beyond words that are quite ordinary, and there's nothing mystical about qualia (something like the taste of sugar, or color). But it seems many westerners may drop the intellectual pursuit of Buddhist doctrine with a bit of laziness excused by this sort of cheap mysticism or drop Buddhism altogether with irritation when faced with the idea of "non-conceptuality".

In fact, non-conceptuality is itself a paradox. We cannot thing about something being "beyond thought", because thought cannot grasp outside of itself. In other, simpler words, "beyond thought" is beyond thought! Of what we cannot speak, we must keep silence. But how Buddhism keeps all the time talking about the realm beyond thought, mystifying and irritating our western framework?

The fact that language is not where Buddhism dwells and breathes is the answer. All Buddhist doctrine is but a finger pointing to what really matters, and the main feature of such a language is pointing outside of itself. Philosophy, on the other hand, is all about the finger, and even to mention the possibility of something outside of it is outrageous.

The purest the language is, the more it is transcendental. Wittgenstein said logic is transcendental because it defined as something that must have absolutely no ground outside of itself. It lives in complete separation. Complete separation is the definition of non-existence in Buddhist terminology. Non-conceptuality and logic thus share a strange symmetry.

If morality is construed by rules, it has no value. That's the basic principle of understanding the nature of debate or competition. This may seem intelectual dishonesty, but is purely or mainly a question of reason and its limits. Ethics must be transcendental to the discourse.

In this way, any statement that would come to show an underlying principle of any sort would have to be immediately apprehended, and this is a kind of brainwashing, since we must surely doubt any statement. Some people get confused by the charity principle, and think that everything is worth to give a try. Simple respect is not to agree with any position while at the same time demonstrating at least unhappiness to any of them. This is how we should discuss.

The agreement is always a kind of aporia, which puts the mind at ease with itself, clear, well-directed and energic. Between those who have mastered even the grossest forms of rethoric and are able to find the right strategy to any language game, friendship belongs in the common ground of reality. Of course, we are always tempted to fell pray of the most normal of all entrapments of samsara: attachment to the ego, pride and envy.

When this happens, scepticism must once again be held. Analysis should be undertaken, tiresome games of mind till everything solves itself in hopelessness. And this of course can also be laughed at, and integrated.

The nature of not endangering others is being free in utter honesty. This way noboby neither ourselves can be blamed by the natural entrapments of delusion. This basic motivation is how we practive even while suffering all kinds of difficulties. Undertaking this purification is not only joyous, it is easy. Just let the Menads eat you. Nhammy.