Dispassion as an Ethical Ideal

Abstract

The concept of dispassion has been an important part of many different ethical traditions, and yet it has received very little direct attention from moral philosophers.In this paper, I try to give an account of the ethical ideal of dispassion, with a particular focus on Buddhism, Stoicism, and Eastern Christianity.I try to show that there is a common core shared between these otherwise very different traditions, and that it can be expressed in contemporary and not explicitly theological or religious terms.What emerges is an attractive understanding of the ethical life worthy of more investigation.T he concept of dispassion has been an important part of many different ethi- cal traditions.Almost all of these traditions also have some emphasis on related concepts like detachment, mindfulness, and tranquility, and on practices like meditation, prayer, or contemplation.These notions are probably most readily connected by many of us with Buddhism, thanks no doubt in part to the attractions of Zen to the American counter-culture of the 1950s and '60s, the popularity and charisma of the current Dalai Lama, and the rise of positive psychology, with its consistent interest in mindfulness and meditation.But they are also present in Hinduism, and to a lesser (or at least less obvious) extent in Daoism and Confucianism.Further to the west, they were an important part of Stoic and Christian thinking about virtue, especially in the Christian spirituality that developed in the eastern part of the late Roman empire and which continues in today's Eastern Orthodox Church. 1 In spite of this diverse and venerable pedigree, the idea of dispassion as an ethical ideal has received almost no attention from philosophers in the west, 1.The primary source for my discussion of the notion of dispassion in Eastern Orthodox spirituality is the Philokalia, an important collection of texts written between the 4 th and 15 th centuries and compiled in the 18 th at Mount Athos, a monastery peninsula in northeast Greece.This text is, in my opinion, a treasure trove of moral-psychological wisdom that more philosophers would do well to study.