Desire and Motivation in Indian Philosophy

Christopher G. Framarin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780415627573
• eBook ISBN: 9781134043439
• Topic: Filosofia
• Subtopic: Filosofia orientale

Desireless action is typically cited as a criterion of the liberated person in classical Indian texts. Contemporary authors argue with near unanimity that since all action is motivated by desire, desireless action is a contradiction. They conclude that desireless action is action performed without certain desires; other desires are permissible.

In this book, the author surveys the contemporary literature on desireless action and argues that the arguments for the standard interpretation are unconvincing. He translates, interprets, and evaluates passages from a number of seminal classical Sanskrit texts, and argues that the doctrine of desireless action should indeed be taken literally, as the advice to act without any desire at all. The author argues that the theories of motivation advanced in these texts are not only consistent, but plausible.

This book is the first in-depth analysis of the doctrine of desireless action in Indian philosophy. It serves as a reference to both contemporary and classical literature on the topic, and will be of interest to scholars of Indian philosophy, religion, the Bhagavadgita and Hinduism.

1 Four interpretations of desireless action

In this chapter I consider four interpretations of desireless action in the Bhagavadgītā. The first three interpretations begin with the basic inference that since all action is motivated by desire, the Gītā’s doctrine of desireless action—if taken literally—is a contradiction. The three accounts diverge, however, in their further conclusions.

Some interpreters conclude that the advice to act without desire is simply nonsense, and ought to be disregarded. More charitable interpreters infer that the doctrine of desireless action should not be taken literally. Some argue that the kind of action that is advocated is not intentional action at all, and hence does not entail desire. Others draw a distinction between permissible and impermissible desires, and argue that desireless action is action devoid of only a certain kind of desire.

Initially I offer objections to the first two interpretations and argue that the third interpretation is the most plausible. I then introduce a distinction—which I adopt from G.F.Schueler (1995)—between two senses of the word ‘desire’. In the first sense, ‘desire’ means reason, purpose, or goal. In the second sense, ‘desire’ refers to a narrower set of mental states that can be contrasted with beliefs, intentions, and so on. I argue that if the word ‘desire’ is understood in the second sense, the advice to act without any desire at all is straightforward and unproblematic, and a non-literal interpretation is not needed.

In order for the entailment¹ between action and desire to serve as a constraint on the interpretation of Indian texts—as almost all of the contemporary scholars who write on this topic claim—the entailment must be so obvious that it is implausible to deny that the authors of these texts fail to see it. The only entailment between action and desire that is obvious in this way, however, is the entailment between action and desire in the first sense—that is, the entailment between action and an agent’s purpose or reason for acting. This implies that the advice to act without desire is not the advice to act without a purpose or reason.

There is no such entailment, however, between action and desire in the second sense. Even if desire of this kind is entailed by action—as most contemporary western philosophers and non-philosophers claim—the entailment is not obvious enough to serve as an interpretive constraint. Hence there is no obvious reason to assume from the outset that the advice to act without desire cannot be taken literally, so long as ‘desire’ is taken to refer to the narrower class of states that can be contrasted with beliefs, intentions, and so on.

While the conflation of these two senses of the word ‘desire’ is central to the justification that most authors offer for taking the advice non-literally, some authors offer a justification that avoids the objection. They claim that the entailment between action and desire serves as an interpretive constraint because the entailment is widely accepted by the Indian tradition more broadly.

The basic argument

Most contemporary commentators on desireless action focus exclusively on the Bhagavadgītā. Since one of my primary goals in this chapter and the chapters that follow is to assess some of these commentators’ interpretations, for now I limit myself to a consideration of desireless action in the Gītā in particular, and postpone any detailed consideration of other texts until later chapters.

It is worth noting, however, that many of these commentators’ arguments are generalizable to some of the broader traditions. If it is a contradiction, for example, to advise acting without desire in the Gītā, then presumably it is a contradiction to advise desireless action in other contexts. If the most plausible solution to the interpretive problem in the Gītā is to draw a distinction between permissible and impermissible desires, then presumably this is a promising solution to the problem in other texts as well. Additionally, some contemporary authors draw evidence directly from other texts in the traditions. This implies that they take there to be some general consistency or continuity between the Gītā and the other text or texts cited. If this is right, and I think it is, then an analysis of the Gītā may have implications for the analyses of other texts within the traditions (and vice versa).

I want to begin by stating the supposed problem of desireless action as clearly as possible. Most contemporary commentators either begin their discussions with the following argument, or simply take its conclusion as an unproblematic assumption. In analyzing the Gītā in particular, they offer what I will call ‘the basic argument’:

(BA)

Premise One:

advises Arjuna to act without desire.

Premise Two: Desire is a necessary condition of action.

Conclusion: Hence `

advice is a contradiction—at least prima facie.

Since all action is motivated by desire, action not motivated by desire is impossible. Since

seems to advise desireless action, his advice seems to be inconsistent.

Most authors begin from the conclusion that a literal reading of the advice is a contradiction, but do not explicitly state the full argument. Others review the entire argument. Rajendra Prasad, for example, argues as follows:

As per common experience, an intentional action X is possible without any desire for doing X, if there is another desire for doing something else. I drink intentionally, though I do not want, or desire, to drink, because I want, or desire, to please my boss who has himself offered me the glass to drink.

(Prasad 1999:59–60)

Even if someone denies that they desire to do what they are doing—“I really don’t want to go to this meeting”—it must be that they desire some perceived consequence or aspect of what they are doing—“but I do want to keep my job, and attending this meeting will ensure that I do that.” Otherwise motivation would not arise. The advice to act without desire seems inconsistent with this apparent fact.

Jagat Pal mentions the same line of argument. Since

(desireless action) is done intentionally, “and the act of intending is just not possible without desiring…because the notion of the act of intending always conceptually involves in its meaning a reference to the notion of desiring,” desireless action is impossible (Pal 2004:53). A number of other contemporary authors cite this argument as well.²

Indeed, the argument has its origin in classical Indian texts themselves.

2.2, for example, reads: “Desirefulness (kāmātmatā) is not praiseworthy, but never does desirelessness (akāmatā) exist here on Earth, since the study of the Veda and the performance of Vedic actions are to be desired (kāmya)” (Dave 1972–1985:154, lines 26–27). ³ Perhaps desire is not a good thing, but without it, nothing can be done.⁴

Three interpretatio...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1 Four interpretations of desireless action
• 2 Desireless action in the Yogasūtra
• 3 The desire for Moksa
• 4 Unselfish desires
• 5 Desireless action in the Manusmrti
• 6 Desireless action in the Nyāyasūtra and Brahmasiddhi
• 7 A defense of desireless action
• Conclusion
• Appendix i
• Appendix ii
• Appendix iii
• Notes
• References