Buddhism is the Western Oxford trained philosopher version of Buddhism. The one time I met him actually was at a Buddhist, Buddhist ethics conference. He's largely trying to make a very specific claim that when people talk about morality, they seem to assume that you need the sense of self and he's trying to defeat that claim. It doesn't really tend on that because I don't think we've had one sort of Kantian and no vaping, e-segarette, none of that.
Do you think of your life as a story? Does your life have a narrative structure or form? Do you identify with your past selves and your future selves? If not, can you live a good life, a moral life, an authentic life? Can you feel guilt, regret, and resentment? Plus, speaking of stories, we talk about a new study suggesting that books with anthropomorphic animals can't teach moral lessons to kids.
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Links:
- Larsen, N. E., Lee, K., & Ganea, P. A. (2017). Do storybooks with anthropomorphized animal characters promote prosocial behaviors in young children?. Developmental Science.
- Children's books with humans have greater moral impact than animals, study finds | Books | The Guardian
- Strawson, G. (2004). Against narrativity. Ratio, 17(4), 428-452.
- Strawson, G. (2007). Episodic ethics. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements, 60, 85-115.
- Parfit, D. (1995). The unimportance of identity.
- I am Not a Story