Book Reviews

Future Morality

Edited by David Edmonds
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. 288 pp., hardcover, $13.95.

A woman is being treated for a medical condition only by software bots. Another woman has an implant that automatically adjusts her brain function in response to her bodily experiences. A baby is born from an artificial womb.

These are among the many hypothetical scenarios described in the anthology Future Morality, a book about, as the preface puts it, “future moral dilemmas.” Future Morality focuses on preemptive thinking about the ethics of future decision making in ways that might help to shape present-day decisions. It touches on a wide range of fields and social practices where recent technological developments are creating major pressure for change, from life extension to gender, food production, and policing. What happens to our definition of death when we keep figuring out how to medically extend life even further? What happens to policing when people are taken entirely out of the decision loops?

The future here is in the short and medium term—less than half a century out from the present, with an occasional glance at life in a much more distant future. At the same time, there is acknowledgment of what is known as the Collingridge dilemma: the fact that while it is easiest to shape the impact of new technologies early in their development, unfortunately that is nearly always too early to be able to accurately foresee what kinds of interventions would actually lead to better outcomes.

In other words, the hypothetical scenarios described in Future Morality are based on what is happening now, and don’t fully reflect how things will actually play out in the long run. Yet changes are already occurring in all of these areas, often led by technology firms partnering with businesses and governments, and too much of it is happening out of sight. A major recurring thread, for example, is the rapidly increasing intrusion of AI into many areas of our lives, often without the knowledge or consent of the public.

The primary goal of this anthology appears to be to offer insight into what is happening behind the scenes, along with reflections on what values should be brought to bear in present and future decision making. This approach is welcome in light of the complexity of these issues.

As in any anthology, some contributions are much slighter than others and do not seem as deeply informed as they could be. In some cases—especially where the author is extrapolating about issues that are already receiving a great deal of press—it does not seem that much is being added to the current debates. For example, the chapter on friendship in the age of the Covid-19 pandemic reads like a thousand opinion pieces from the last year, although it is less negative than most in its assessment of how virtual interaction affects friendship. Yet as in other chapters, there are nuggets of interesting information—on the likely cognitive limits to how many friends we can actually maintain, and on the differences in how friendship is understood in individualistic versus collectivist cultures.

The chapter on alt-meat reads as a short summary of familiar arguments about the need for a comprehensive shift towards vegetable proteins and localized agriculture, along with familiar warnings about the possible role of big agriculture in undermining those changes. The chapter on avatars and avatar customization has nothing new to say on a subject that has been amply covered by authors such as Legacy Russell, Sherry Turkle, Lisa Nakamura, and Julian Dibbell, going all the way back to the 1990s.

In a few cases, the arguments are stretched rather thin. In a chapter on abolishing gender, Brian Earp neatly summarizes the problems with what he calls the dominant gender ideology (DGI) of Western cultures, especially the imposition of hierarchical masculine and feminine gender norms. One path away from this would be to abandon gender as a category altogether (the gender abolitionist position), while another would be to reshape our understanding of gender to eliminate its role as a determinant of social hierarchies (the gender reform position). He observes that any significant movement toward neutralizing gender norms is likely to morph into gender abolition. He then asks whether the abolition of gender would harm transgender people by eliminating their very identity. This argument has been made by only a handful of transgender activists, and Earp proceeds to dismantle it, largely on the grounds that in a postgender world everyone would have to refashion their self-identity to the degree that it was predicated on gender. By the end of the essay, this reader had the feeling that the central discussion was something of a straw argument, a pretext for outlining the current state of informed arguments about where our ideas about gender are likely headed. In this, it exemplifies both the strength and the weakness of this book: if you’ve been paying attention to the debate, you will not find a great deal that is new, but if you haven’t, it provides a usefully compact summary.

Overall, there is a lot to like in this book. The consistent use of hypothetical case studies is helpful, as it gives the reader something concrete to chew on, even while knowing that the particular scenario probably won’t unfold as described. The prose is readable and refreshingly jargon-free, and in many essays provides information one wouldn’t necessarily come across in general-interest publications. For instance, an essay on predictive policing makes important points about how algorithmic surveillance techniques quickly become an impenetrable black box for both citizens and police. That chapter also touches on the serious harms of China’s current social credit system—which both rewards citizens for following norms and punishes those who don’t—and flags it as a potential future path for Western democracies that fail to safeguard citizen privacy and autonomy.

The essays are short, making it easy to dip in and out of this book when looking for an overview of anything from driverless cars to cryopreservation, from fetal vaccines to neurological interfaces. Especially welcome is the absence of either protechnology hype or antitechnology scaremongering, replaced by careful analysis of the values at stake in the decisions we are making now and could find ourselves forced to make in the future.

Antoinette LaFarge

The author is a professor of art at the University of California at Irvine. Her book Sting in the Tale: Art, Hoax, and Provocation has just been published by DoppelHouse Press.

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Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics, Volume 2: The Mind

Conceived and introduced by HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA,
edited by THUBTEN JINPA, with contextual essays by JOHN D. DUNNE
Somerville, Mass.: Wisdom, 2020. 554 pp., hardcover, $39.95.

Student: Master, my mind is restless. What can I do?
Master: Bring it to me.
Student: But I can’t find it.
Master: See, I already fixed it.
—Zen story

I wish the student in this story had this volume to hand to his master.

Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics is an ambitious four-volume work conceived by the Dalai Lama. The first volume was The Physical World (review in Quest, summer 2018). The Mind, the second volume, focuses on the science of the mind. Major topics in this volume, which is divided into six parts, include the distinction between sensory and conceptual processes; mental factors (attention, mindfulness, compassion); the Tantric theory of subtle levels of consciousness and their connection to subtle energies (including what happens to each when the body and mind dissolve at death); seven types of mental states and how they impact the process of perception; and styles of reasoning as a valid avenue for acquiring sound knowledge.

The volume draws from ancient texts by Buddhist thinkers such as Asanga, Vasubandhu, Nagarjuna, Dignaga, and Dharmakirti. Each part is preceded by an immensely helpful introductory essay by John D. Dunne, distinguished professor of Buddhist philosophy and contemplative practice at the University of Wisconsin. The final section, titled “Training the Mind through Meditation,” is a treatise for meditative practice.

The challenges for producing such a work are daunting. The translation seeks to reach a broader audience, although these texts were not written for the average reader and several passages had never been translated before. Furthermore, Sanskrit is a language in which one word can have many meanings (in high school, I had a choice of picking between Sanskrit and arithmetic. I chose arithmetic!). In addition, translating from Sanskrit to Tibetan was a challenge. Yet another hurdle arose in translating the texts into English without sacrificing the original meaning. This is where Dunne’s expertise proves invaluable.

Where does science come in? The Dalai Lama says, “Not only do Buddhism and science have much to learn from each other, but there is also a great need for a way of knowing that encompasses both body and mind.” His goal was to have a dialogue with scientists to see how the meditative techniques such as calm abiding (samatha) and insight (vipassana) can be incorporated in the fiber of present-day life. This work is not intended to convert followers of other religions to Buddhism, but to find teachings that would seamlessly benefit everyone.

It is impossible to delve into each chapter in the book here. I am drawn to the final part: “Training the Mind through Meditation.” Why do we need to know about the details of various mental states? Because they enlighten us in our journey to transform the mind.

The texts provide a profound analytical clarity that is perhaps not found easily. The Sanskrit term klesa means mental afflictions that cause suffering. It is possible to counteract these in a way that not only suppresses them but also uproots them. The two approaches are suppressing and undermining. For example, when aversion is present in any given moment, the mental state of craving cannot be present at the same time; it is suppressed. The two states are simply incompatible! On the other hand, when wisdom arises, the factors that would give rise to either aversion or craving are undermined; their cause is completely eradicated. When lovingkindness or compassion is present, how can hatred, resentment, or aversion also be there?

Another important insight has to do with inappropriate attention, which is a distortion of reality that arises out of our ignorance and conditioning.  The Sanskrit term smrti can be translated literally as memory or, in a broader context, as moment-to-moment nonjudgmental awareness.

The authors in this volume have a very clear definition of mindfulness as a mental factor that supports stable attention. What is stable attention? It is not losing track, either through distraction or focus (dozing while meditating!).

The authors explain another term, commonly known as clear comprehension (Pali: samprajanna), as “a meditative awareness that monitors the quality of one’s attention.” If, for example, we are focusing on the breath, this quality will point to us when we become distracted and are thinking of being on a beach!

The concluding section is titled “The Person or Self.” When one says, “I see a flower,” what does that mean? How is the seeing done? What is the self or a person? This is discussed in detail in volume four of this work.

We can’t wait.

Dhananjay Joshi 

The reviewer, a professor of statistics, has studied Hindu, Zen, and vipassana meditation for forty years. He reviews regularly for Quest and works as a volunteer in the archives department of the TSA.

 

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Think Least of Death: Spinoza on How to Live and How to Die

STEVEN NADLER
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2020. 234 pp., hardcover, $27.95.

Philosophers have explored the idea of freedom in their writings since the time of Plato, and the seventeenth-century Dutch-Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza was no different. The theme running through this latest commentary on Spinoza’s Ethics specifically looks at how one can be a free person.

We all seek to be free, but few know what that entails. According to Steven Nadler, Spinoza’s is an “inner freedom that consists in choosing to do what one knows is good and in one’s own best interest . . . whereby one’s thoughts, desires and choices (and ultimately one’s actions) follow from one’s own nature and not from the effects that other things have on one.”

One important aspect of becoming a free person is conatus, the power of acting to persevere, which, Nadler explains, “is the motivational force that lies at the root of all of a person’s endeavors.” Becoming a free person involves making choices that increase one’s conatus, and that requires reason and “rational desire.”

We are free when we are living and acting from our own nature. Nadler quotes from Spinoza’s Ethics: “That thing is called free which exists from the necessity of its nature alone, as is determined to act by itself alone.” The free person is unaffected by external things, because the free person is not in bondage to his passions: “I am more free if I do what I do because of what I essentially am than if I do it because some sweetly alluring object moves me.”

For us who study Ageless Wisdom traditions, the exhortation at the oracle at Delphi—“Know thyself”—resonates at a deep level. For Spinoza, knowledge is a critical element in adding to one’s conatus. In other words, says Nadler, “what matters, according to Spinoza, isn’t just what you know but also how powerful that knowledge is.” Does it change our life and increase our conatus? Does it make us a free person?

Free persons are guided by reason. Here, Nadler tells us, Spinoza takes cues from the Stoics: “The life of freedom under the guidance of reason, Spinoza says, ‘teaches us wherein our greatest happiness, or blessedness, consists.’” The free person seeks nothing for others that they do not want for themselves. They are “honest and honorable” and practice virtue, which is not only “the greatest freedom” but is “happiness itself.” Nonvirtuous actions, particularly hate, deplete one’s conatus. Therefore the “rationally virtuous person knows true peace of mind. So yes, the free person is happy in the truest sense of human happiness.”

Spinoza’s philosophy runs along some of the same threads as Buddhist philosophy. One common theme is living in equanimity and avoiding extremes (in Buddhism, attachment and repulsion) as well as embracing all as the path. “Teach us how we must bear ourselves concerning matters of fortune, or things that are not in our power, that is, concerning things that do not follow from our nature—that we must expect and bear calmly both good fortune and bad,” writes Spinoza in his Ethics.

Of course if one is to know what it means to live rightly, one must also know how to die. Given that death is in the title of Nadler’s book, it must be addressed in Spinoza’s philosophy. Even the rational, virtuous person who is free thinks about his mortality, knowing that all living things die. However, “instead of the irrational fear of death, he knows the rational joy of living.”

Nadler’s chapter on death is followed by a chapter on suicide. Many philosophers down through the ages, including Socrates and the Stoic Seneca, have looked deeply at this phenomenon, which we still puzzle over today. Spinoza asked, is suicide ever “rational” and a “virtuous” thing to do? For him, increasing conatus (self-preservation) is an aim of life; therefore “no individual can, freely and under the guidance of reason, . . . choose to end her own life,” says Nadler. The free person—“who always acts from the dictate of reason and pursues only what is truly good—would never do it.”

Given that the free person is “rational,” Spinoza addresses the “doctrine of the immortality of the soul [which] may be the most pernicious of all the irrational ideas that religious authorities and their allies encourage in their followers.” Nonetheless, Spinoza does believe that there is a part of the soul that is eternal, saying that “the eternal part of the mind is the intellect,” which Theosophists understand to be the buddhi.

Ultimately, in the final chapter of Nadler’s commentary on Spinoza’s Ethics, we learn “the right way of living.” As Nadler explains by way of conclusion, “The free person does what he knows to be good and what is truly in his own best interest (as well as the best interest of others), and not what merely appears to be good or happened to be a source of pleasure. It is also the life of true happiness. It is therefore the life we all desire to lead, whether we know it or not.”

Clare Goldsberry 

Clare Goldsberry’s latest book, The Illusion of Life and Death, will be published in 2021 by Monkfish.

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TIM WYATT
Bingley, West Yorkshire, England: Firewheel Books/Leeds Theosophical Society, 2021. 226 pp., £31.

For Buddhists there is the Tibetan Book of the Dead to help one understand the process of life, death, and reincarnation. The ancient Egyptians had their own Book of the Dead, containing funerary texts and magic spells to help the deceased navigate their journey through the underworld into the next life.

Now we have Everyone’s Book of the Dead, providing a vast exploratory venture into the mysteries of death and reincarnation from the perspective of the Ageless Wisdom, most prominently Theosophy.

 We in the West don’t know how to die, which means we don’t really know how to live. We live in fear of death; is that really living? “Learn to die so that you may learn to live,” Wyatt quotes Thomas à Kempis, author of The Imitation of Christ, adding that we are not good at embracing the death event because “we have lost touch with the natural rhythms of life and death.”

“Death is the greatest of earth’s illusions,” said Annie Besant in The Ancient Wisdom, just one of Wyatt’s many quotes pulled from an array of Theosophical writings.

Materialism has influenced our reluctance to think about death and prepare the mind for this most personal and amazing of all our earthly experiences. By contrast, Theosophy, notes Wyatt, “offers a radically different view of ourselves, the wider world and the universe than can be easily found in any religion, science or philosophy.”

Wyatt quotes many philosophers and Theosophists, including Besant, H.P. Blavatsky, William Q. Judge, and J. Krishnamurti, bringing to light their thoughts on death and dying as well as near-death experiences in order to demystify death for everyone instead of just those who profess a particular religion. After all, in much of today’s society, religion doesn’t mean what it once did, as surveys show that fewer people are affiliated with any religious organizations.

Perhaps many today are avoiding the dying process rather than death per se. But the process of dying is a mystery too. The Tibetan Book of the Dead has an entire section on the stages of the dying process, which was very helpful for me when Brent, my significant other, was dying of cancer at our home. Everyone’s Book of the Dead also contains a chapter on the process of dying.   According to Wyatt, modern attitudes surrounding the dying process usually involve fear. We are so used to depending on medicine, surgery, and other modern remedies that death seems far away, if not impossible. “The majority of older people die under some form of medical supervision,” writes Wyatt. “The last rites have been replaced by the last intervention or injection.”

It would be helpful to learn a different way of looking at death. Wyatt suggests that we see it as “a Beginning—not an End. . . Transforming our attitudes to death would yield another bonus: it would inevitably mean that we also aggressively re-examine our ideas about disease—its real origins on the inner rather than the physical planes. Until we understand the deeper causes of disease—the karmic causes—we shall not be able to develop effective means to treat and manage it.” He also stresses that we would be better off not to treat disease and death with a “militaristic mind-set. . . as an enemy to be fought and conquered.”

Many obituaries state that the individual died “after a long battle” with a disease. My significant other warned me not to say that in his obituary: he never fought his cancer but embraced the path that was his to tread. 

Wyatt’s chapter on reincarnation contains a statement with which I completely agree: “If a correct understanding of reincarnation became permanently embedded into the collective human mind-set the implications would utterly transform life on Earth—almost at a stroke.”

Wyatt’s exploration of death, dying, and reincarnation is made all the more enjoyable by the beautiful artwork, photographs, and layout of each page, which capture the imagination in a way that words alone cannot.

This is truly a book for Theosophists, and one I recommend sharing with family and friends. Dying is something we will experience (and likely have experienced), but it is not to be feared. As Brent told me shortly before he died, “Dying is easy. I thought it would be harder than this, but it’s so easy.”

Clare Goldsberry

Clare Goldsberry’s latest book, The Illusion of Life and Death, will be published in 2021 by Monkfish.

 

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