The basic instrumentalist interpretation

It makes sense to expect that there will be a tight connection between a tradition's assessment of the value of nature, on the one hand, and a tradition's rules governing the treatment of nature (that is, natural entities), on the other. Indeed, we should be able to infer the most basic moral guidelines that govern the treatment of nature from a tradition's assessment of its value and vice versa.

Hence, it might be thought that an inference can be drawn from certain Indian traditions' explicit claims about the proper treatment of nature to a claim about the value of nature. Specifically, one might argue that the moral principle of ahiṃsā (non-harm) entails that nature has intrinsic value – that its value is not derived exclusively from the value of further ends to which it is a means.

The case for the intrinsic value of nature is not this simple, however. Basant K. Lal, for example, explains the virtue of ahiṃsā within the Hindu traditions in the following way. ‘The Hindu recommendation to cultivate a particular kind of attitude [namely, ahiṃsā] toward animals is based not on considerations about the animal as such but on considerations about how the development of this attitude is part of the purificatory steps that bring men to the path of mokṣa [sic]’ (Lal (Reference Lal and Regan1986), 200, italics in original). According to Lal, Hindu traditions do not discourage harm to animals because animals are intrinsically valuable. They discourage harm to animals because the avoidance of harm to animals is a means to the intrinsically valuable end of mokṣa (liberation). Both the attitude of ahiṃsā, then, and animals themselves, are only instrumentally valuable, as a means to the further end of mokṣa. Presumably Lal would also deny that other natural entities, like plants, have intrinsic value.

Lance E. Nelson defends a similar interpretation of Advaita and the Bhagavadgītā with regard to nature more generally. In the case of Advaita, Nelson concludes that ‘all that is other than the Ātman [true self], including nature, is without [intrinsic] value’ (Nelson (Reference Nelson1998), 66). Similarly, he argues that according to the Bhagavadgītā, ‘[i]t is the self (ātman) that is important, not nature’ (Nelson (Reference Nelson, Chapple and Tucker2000), 140). If nature has any value at all, it is merely instrumental, as a means to attaining or realizing the ātman. Since the seeker attains or realizes the ātman only if she attains or realizes mokṣa, Lal's and Nelson's views are roughly the same: only mokṣa has intrinsic value; if nature has value at all, it has instrumental value as a means to mokṣa.

Nelson offers two distinct arguments for his conclusion. The first argument might be called the ‘argument from illusion’. Everything other than the ātman is a product of māyā (a deluding force), and hence illusory. Anything that is illusory is devoid of intrinsic value. Hence everything other than the ātman is devoid of intrinsic value. Since nature is other than the ātman, nature is devoid of intrinsic value.

The second argument might be called the ‘argument from pain’. It states that the world of saṃsāra (rebirth) and everything in it is inherently painful and unsatisfactory. If the world of saṃsāra and everything in it is inherently painful and unsatisfactory, then it has only negative value. If saṃsāra and everything in it has only negative value, then it lacks positive intrinsic value.

In his paper on Advaita and the environment, Nelson says the following,

Since the world of saṃsāra is based on ignorance (the argument from illusion), and since saṃsāra is horrific (the argument from pain), one should hate it, fear it, and do all one can to escape it. Indeed, the ascetic ‘must cultivate positive disgust for [the body] and all other phenomena’ (Nelson (Reference Nelson, Chapple and Tucker1998), 70). If the world is something from which we should recoil, then presumably it lacks intrinsic value.

Nelson offers similar arguments in the context of the Bhagavadgītā. He claims that a number of Gītā verses state that the natural world is an illusion. Gītā 2.16, for example, identifies the three guṇas (fundamental physical elements), which together constitute the entire material world, with māyā (argument from illusion) (Nelson (Reference Nelson, Chapple and Tucker2000), 137). He points out that Gītā 8.15 characterizes the world of prakṛti (that is, the material world) as an ‘abode of pain’. Nelson mentions Gītā 14.5 and 14.20, which claim that escape from the material world is ‘an urgent desideratum’ (argument from pain) (Ibid.).

J. Baird Callicott (Callicott (Reference Callicott1994), 48), Arvind Sharma (Sharma (Reference Arvind and Nelson1998), 51), Rita DasGupta Sherma (Sherma (Reference Sherma and Nelson1998), 95), Patricia Y. Mumme (Mumme (Reference Mumme and Nelson1998), 135), and others, endorse this interpretation as well. Sherma, for example, says that, ‘in India as elsewhere, nature, the human body and its functions, worldly life, and women were associated and enmeshed in a net of devaluation’ (Sherma (Reference Sherma and Nelson1998), 95). Callicott says,

Put simply, this kind of view makes two claims:

1. (1) Only the attainment or realization of mokṣa is intrinsically valuable,

and,

1. (2) Nature is instrumentally valuable only as a means to mokṣa.

In what follows, I will refer to this as the ‘instrumentalist interpretation’ of the value of nature.

The instrumentalist interpretation can be diagrammed preliminarily in the following way:

• ahiṃsā → mokṣa

The arrow in the diagram represents a causal relation, but a second arrow might just as well be drawn in the reverse direction to indicate the direction in which value flows on this view. The value of ahiṃsā – like the value of everything on the instrumentalist interpretation – is derived from the value of mokṣa.

In contrast, hiṃsā (harm) is counter-productive to the attainment or realization of mokṣa, and the disvalue of hiṃsā, on this view, derives entirely from the disvalue of the postponement of the agent's mokṣa. So the preliminary diagram can be expanded to read:

• ahiṃsā → mokṣa

• hiṃsā → postponement of mokṣa

While some authors are careful to attribute this view to individual texts and traditions, others – like Lal, Callicott, and William F. Goodwin (see below) – attribute it to Hinduism more broadly.

The attribution of this view to various Indian traditions has a rich history. One of the main topics at the Second East–West Philosophers' Conference in 1949 rehearsed the ancient question of whether dharma is valuable solely as a means to mokṣa (Moore (Reference Moore1951)). The consensus seems to have been that ‘Hindu moral philosophy … offers a theory of “ultimate good” which allegedly excludes all natural objects and experiences from the Summum Bonum; and postulates a being or an experience [namely mokṣa] which is characterized as alone of intrinsic worth’ (Goodwin (Reference Goodwin1955), 325).

Goodwin reviews a number of the papers from the conference and accepts the argument for this view as ‘unqualifiedly sound’ (Goodwin (Reference Goodwin1955), 321). Most of these authors were concerned with ethics broadly construed, rather than with environmental ethics per se, but their conclusions about the implications of Indian metaphysics are the same – the natural world is valuable only as a means to mokṣa.

Of course the debate over the status of dharma in relation to mokṣa has its earliest origin in the disagreement between the Mīmāṃsīkas and Vedāntins over whether the karma kāṇḍa (action portion) or jñāna kāṇḍa (knowledge portion) of the Veda is authoritative – whether the ultimate purpose of the Veda is to enjoin people to ritual actions as a means of maintaining the order of the world and improving their circumstances, or to teach people the ultimate nature of reality and facilitate liberation via knowledge. For now, I want to leave open the question of whether the instrumentalist interpretation is an accurate interpretation of Advaita, the Bhagavadgītā, or any other Indian text or tradition. I will finally argue that it is not. What is certain, however, is that this position has been attributed to various Indian texts and traditions – especially the Gītā and Advaita – throughout history.

The instrumentalist interpretation requires further clarification. Within many Indian texts and traditions, morally praiseworthy and blameworthy actions are typically accompanied by merit and demerit, respectively. Instances of this claim are so widespread that they hardly need mention. Manusmṛti 5.52–53, for example, reads:

The horse sacrifice is an elaborate, expensive ritual that only the most powerful king can successfully perform. To perform it every year for 100 years is a nearly impossible task. Yet the merit (fruit) that accrues from its accomplishment is no greater than that which results from simple vegetarianism. In other words,

• ahiṃsā → merit

For the person who eats meat indiscriminately, great demerit accrues. A later verse in the Manusmṛti (5.55) plays on a pun with the word māṃsa (meat). ‘[He] whose meat (māṃsa) I eat in this world, he (sa) eats me (mām) in the next world. This, the wise say, is the derivation of the word māṃsa’ (Jhā (Reference Jhā1999), 444). The thought is that by eating meat, an individual incurs demerit that results in being eaten, or some equivalent pain, in another birth. Hence the view is that

• hiṃsā → demerit

The Mahābhārata makes identical claims. Mirroring word for word the first pāda of Manusmṛti 5.52, Mahābhārata 13.116.14 says, ‘the person who desires to increase his own meat by means of the meat of another … he is ruined’ (Dandekar (Reference Dandekar1966), 627). (The pāda is repeated at 13.116.34 (Dandkekar (Reference Dandekar1966), 629).) Another series of verses (13.117.32–34) read:

These passages make clear that both ahiṃsā and hiṃsā have consequences in the form of merit and demerit, respectively. The punishment for harm is subjection to (at least) equivalent harm. One reward for non-harm is a lavish place in heaven.

Furthermore, it is a platitude within the Indian traditions that demerit is counter-productive to the attainment or realization of mokṣa. Hence,

• hiṃsā→ demerit → postponement of mokṣa

So presumably part of what the proponents of the instrumentalist interpretation mean when they say that ahiṃsā is a means to mokṣa is that ahiṃsā is a means to avoiding the demerit that both arises as a result of hiṃsā and postpones mokṣa. Roy W. Perrett takes Lal to be making this point when he says,

Harm to animals produces demerit, which prolongs saṃsāra, and hence postpones that which one attains when one escapes saṃsāra – namely mokṣa. Again, the arrows in the diagram represent causal relations, and a second set of arrows in the reverse direction might indicate the direction in which disvalue flows. It is because the postponement of mokṣa is of intrinsic disvalue that demerit has instrumental disvalue, and hiṃsā has instrumental disvalue because it produces demerit. At the very least, ahiṃsā is a means to avoiding these consequences of hiṃsā, and its value is at least partly explained by this.

The benefits of ahiṃsā are not entirely negative, however. It is also a platitude within the Indian traditions that certain forms of merit are a condition of the eventual attainment or realization of mokṣa (see just below for some important qualifications). Consider a straightforward argument for this claim: in order to be born a human being, one must have sufficient merit. In order to attain mokṣa, one must be born a human being. Hence in order to attain mokṣa, one must accrue sufficient merit. Hence ahiṃsā is a means to mokṣa at least in part because it is a means to merit.

• ahiṃsā → merit → mokṣa

If this is right, then ahiṃsā is instrumentally valuable because it is a means to certain merit, which, in turn, is instrumentally valuable because it is a means to mokṣa. Value flows from mokṣa, to merit, to ahiṃsā.

This seems to be what Nelson has in mind when he says, ‘ahiṃsā, as a value, is articulated for the most part out of concern for the private karmic well-being of the actor’ (Nelson (Reference Nelson, Chapple and Tucker2000), 142). If the value of ahiṃsā, like the value of everything else, ultimately derives exclusively from the value of mokṣa (as the instrumentalist interpretation states), then ahiṃsā is valuable as a means to the ‘karmic well-being of the actor’ only if the karmic well-being of the actor is a means to mokṣa. Hence on the instrumentalist interpretation, ahiṃsā is instrumentally valuable because it is a means to merit, which, in turn, is instrumentally valuable because it is a means to mokṣa.

Again, for now I want to leave aside the question of whether this is an accurate interpretation of Advaita, the Gītā, and so on. There are a number of objections that might be raised, however, that are avoided with some simple qualifications. First, it is important to keep in mind that this account does not entail that merit is a sufficient condition of mokṣa. Śaṅkara, of course, claims that mokṣa is the result of knowledge, not action and its merits, and even Rāmānuja does not think that action is sufficient to attain liberation. Nonetheless, both accept that action and its consequences play some role in attaining mokṣa – even if only a preliminary, preparatory, or purificatory role as a means to some more immediate means to mokṣa, like knowledge (as in the case of Śaṅkara).

Nor does this second claim mean that all merit produces mokṣa. It is widely accepted that at some point along one's path to liberation, all karmic consequences become counter-productive, and must be avoided. So it is not the case that merit invariably moves one incrementally towards mokṣa. The point here, however, is simply that some merit is needed in order to attain mokṣa, and that the production of the merit that is needed in order to attain mokṣa is the way in which ahiṃsā is a means to mokṣa. And even for the agent for whom all merit is counter-productive to the attainment of mokṣa, ahiṃsā is still a means to mokṣa because it precludes the demerit that would both result from hiṃsā and postpone the agent's attainment or realization of mokṣa.

So according to the proponents of the instrumentalist interpretation, it is the fact that ahiṃsā produces merit (and avoids the production of demerit), and the fact that merit is a condition of mokṣa, that makes ahiṃsā valuable in the first place. Additionally, it is the fact that hiṃsā produces demerit, and the fact that demerit postpones mokṣa, that makes hiṃsā of disvalue in the first place. The full diagram of the instrumentalist interpretation therefore reads:

• #1 #2 #3

• ahiṃsā → merit → mokṣa

• hiṃsā → demerit → postponement of mokṣa

An objection to the instrumentalist interpretation

There is a fundamental problem with this view of the value of nature in Indian traditions. The latter connection in the diagram – the connection between merit and mokṣa, #2 and #3 – is unproblematic (with the qualifications mentioned above). What is in need of explanation is the former connection – the connection between ahiṃsā and merit, #1 and #2. If ahiṃsā is not intrinsically valuable, because nature itself is not intrinsically valuable, why does ahiṃsā towards nature produce merit in the first place? The proponent of the instrumentalist interpretation seems to want to explain the connection between ahiṃsā and merit, #1 and #2, by citing the connection between ahiṃsā and mokṣa, #1 and #3. Ahiṃsā leads to mokṣa, however, only because (and if) it produces merit in the first place. That is, #1 leads to #3 because #1 produces #2 first. So it cannot be that #1 leads to #2 because #1 produces #3. It cannot be that ahiṃsā leads to merit because ahiṃsā leads to mokṣa, if ahiṃsā leads to mokṣa because it leads to merit.

There are two different ways to characterize this objection. The first is to say that the instrumentalist interpretation is circular. The proponent of the instrumentalist interpretation answers the question, ‘Why does ahiṃsā, #1, produce merit, #2?’ by saying, ‘because ahiṃsā, #1, leads to mokṣa, #3’. He then answers the question ‘Why does ahiṃsā, #1, lead to mokṣa, #3?’, by saying, ‘because ahiṃsā, #1, produces merit, #2’. This leads full circle, obviously, to the original question: ‘Why does ahiṃsā, #1, produce merit, #2?’

The second way to characterize the objection is to say that the connection between ahiṃsā and mokṣa is simply irrelevant when cited in explanation of the connection between ahiṃsā and merit. Consider an analogy. Suppose a boy hits his younger sister any time she drinks orange juice. When he hits his sister, his parents inevitably punish him. Hence,

• #1 #2 #3

• drink orange juice → hitting → punishment

Now suppose that when his sister asks him, ‘Why do you hit me when I drink orange juice?’ – that is, why does #1 produce #2 – the boy answers, ‘Because when you drink orange juice, I get punished’ – that is, because #1 produces #3. It should be clear that this is no explanation at all, since the boy will be punished for hitting his sister no matter what his reason for doing so – #3 will arise from #2 inevitably. Absent some additional explanation, then, there is little reason to think that the boy's policy of hitting his sister when she drinks orange juice is anything but perfectly arbitrary. That is, there is no reason to think that the connection between #1 and #2 is not perfectly arbitrary.

The same conclusion ought to be drawn, however, from the instrumentalist interpretation. In both cases, the connection between #2 and #3 is unproblematic. In both cases, the connection between #1 and #2 is in need of explanation. And in both cases, the connection between #1 and #2 is explained in terms of the connection between #1 and #3. Just as this kind of explanation implies that the connection between the sister drinking orange juice and the brother hitting her is perfectly arbitrary, likewise this kind of explanation implies that the connection between ahiṃsā and merit (and hiṃsā and demerit) is perfectly arbitrary. If this is right, then it might just as well have been that ahiṃsā produced demerit, and that hiṃsā produced merit, just as the boy might just as well have the policy of hitting his sister for not drinking orange juice, or for drinking milk.

That this consequence follows from the instrumentalist interpretation constitutes a reason to reject it. The consequence parallels one of the horns in the dilemma that Socrates poses to Euthyphro. Euthyphro defines the pious as that which is loved by the gods. Socrates points out that if the love of the gods determines what is pious, then it might have been that vices were virtues and vice versa. Furthermore, had the gods loved murder, lying, and adultery, rather than their opposites, there would be no grounds on which to criticize their preferences, since the definition of piety states that the love of the gods and only the love of the gods determines what is pious. The gods' decisions about what to love, then, are and must be perfectly whimsical, much like an ordinary person's decision about which sock to put on first, and their decision is no more criticizable than a decision of this sort. The problem with this consequence is that morality seems more sensible and stable than either story allows. Just as Socrates takes this consequence to be a reason to reject Euthyphro's definition of piety, likewise we should take this consequence to be a reason to reject the instrumentalist interpretation – regardless of the Indian tradition being interpreted.

Some of the mid-twentieth-century scholars whom I mentioned above make this point. They argue that if the instrumentalist interpretation is correct, then there is no justification for the distinction between right and wrong, and morality is perfectly arbitrary. Since these scholars accept the instrumentalist interpretation, they conclude that morality within Indian traditions is indeed ‘intellectually rootless’ (Goodwin (Reference Goodwin1955), 323). Bhāskara advances the same objection against Śaṅkara. ‘The distinction of good and evil … fits only with our view’ (Ingalls (Reference Ingalls1957), 34).

The same argument weighs against two additional replies. First, the proponent of the instrumentalist interpretation might attempt to avoid the charge of circularity by explaining the connection between ahiṃsā and merit in terms of some kind of divine-command theory, according to which ahiṃsā is meritorious because God and/or scripture prescribes it. If this is right, however, then the moral prescription is perfectly arbitrary. It might have been that ahiṃsā produced demerit, and hiṃsā produced merit. This consequence is implausible.

Second, the proponent might reply that human beings happen to be such that harm to animals increases their delusion, which, in turn, precludes or postpones their attainment of mokṣa. Since this is a contingent fact, however, it might have been otherwise. So it might have been that ahiṃsā produced demerit, and hiṃsā produced merit. The alternative that I favour avoids this consequence.Footnote ¹

The more charitable alternative, however, is that the instrumentalist interpretation cannot be correct. If the instrumentalist interpretation entails that morality is arbitrary, and hence that it might just as well have been that hiṃsā lead to mokṣa and that ahiṃsā postponed it, then the instrumentalist interpretation must be false. It cannot be that the Gītā, Advaita, or any other Indian text or tradition that accepts the doctrines of ahiṃsā (non-harm) and karma insists that nothing other than mokṣa is intrinsically valuable. Something other than mokṣa must be intrinsically valuable as well.

An alternative view

Thus far, I have argued that in order to explain the connections between ahiṃsā, merit, and mokṣa, something other than mokṣa must be intrinsically valuable. There are at least two additional interpretations. The first is what might be called the ‘revised instrumentalist interpretation’. This view is similar to the instrumentalist interpretation in that it maintains both that (non-human) nature is devoid of intrinsic value, and that mokṣa is intrinsically valuable. It differs from the instrumentalist interpretation, however, in that it allows that something besides mokṣa has intrinsic value. The version of the revised instrumentalist interpretation that might seem the most plausible attributes intrinsic value to human beings, in addition to mokṣa, but to nothing else. (I put aside the fact that human beings too are part of nature.) This is the kind of position that Mary McGee, for example, attributes to the Arthaśāstra (McGee (Reference McGee, Chapple and Tucker2000)).

The revised instrumentalist interpretation avoids the objections of circularity and arbitrariness that I outline above. The connection between ahiṃsā and merit, #1 and #2, is explained without reference to the connection between ahiṃsā and mokṣa, #1 and #3. Instead, ahiṃsā produces merit because animals are instrumentally valuable to human beings, and human beings are intrinsically valuable. The relations might be diagrammed in the following way:

• #1 #2 #3 #4

• ahiṃsā → utility to human beings → merit → mokṣa

• hiṃsā → disutility to human beings → demerit → postponement of mokṣa

Ahiṃsā actions are instrumentally valuable because they preserve nature. Nature, in turn, is instrumentally valuable because it is useful to human beings in the form of timber, food, and so on. Since non-harm to nature benefits human beings, and since human beings are intrinsically valuable, non-harm to nature produces merit, which in turn produces mokṣa (with appropriate qualifications). Likewise, since hiṃsā actions harm that which is instrumentally valuable to humans, hiṃsā produces demerit. Demerit, in turn, postpones mokṣa.

The revised instrumentalist interpretation faces a number of problems, however. Consider, for example, how the revised instrumentalist interpretation must explain the quotations cited above from the Manusmṛti and Mahābhārata. Quotations from each text describe the extensive merit that accrues from avoiding meat-eating. If animals are only valuable as a means to the well-being of humans, however, as the revised instrumentalist interpretation states, then this should be puzzling, since using animals as a means to nourishment and palatal enjoyment is just to use them as a means to human welfare – namely the agent's own welfare.

There are only two responses available to the proponent of the revised instrumentalist interpretation. First, it might be that meat-eating is discouraged because the eating of meat does not maximize the utility of animals for humans. Second, it might be that meat-eating is discouraged because one should be unselfish, and to eat meat is to take for oneself what might be used by others.

The first response is problematic because eating meat often does maximize the utility of animals. The second response is problematic for two reasons. First, if the only thing wrong with eating meat is that it is selfish, then there is nothing more wrong with meat-eating than with any other form of consumption. Yet meat-eating is singled out as an especially serious moral trespass. Second, the killing of animals for consumption by others is discouraged along with the killing of animals for oneself. (See, for example, Manusmṛti 5.51.) Hence it cannot be the selfishness of meat-eating that is problematic.

The second passage from each text describes horrendous torture as a result of meat-eating. If animals are valuable only as a means to human use, however, then this demerit that results from meat-eating, if it is deserved at all, is wildly excessive. Imagine, for example, that I kill a wild bird in an isolated place. I enjoy the hunt, and I enjoy the savour of the bird. It's hard to see how I could, in killing the bird, cause harm to human beings that would outweigh these benefits, let alone outweigh them enough to justify my being reborn as an animal to be eaten by the bird, and so on.

The revised instrumentalist interpretation faces other interpretive obstacles as well. Passages that explain the moral guidelines for the treatment of nature often focus on the consequences to the entity itself. Manusmṛti 5.49, for example, says, ‘having seen the origin of meat and the tying up and slaughter of living beings [that is the source of meat], a person turns away from the eating of all meat’ (Jhā (Reference Jhā1999), 441). This suggests that the reason that meat-eating is morally wrong is self-evident to the morally sensitive person. It is not at all self-evident, however, that these animals instead might be used to greater benefit for human beings (or that harm to these animals will postpone one's mokṣa!).

An alternative view – and the view that I endorse – is that plants, animals, and human beings are intrinsically valuable. Since they are intrinsically valuable, it is meritorious to treat them with benevolence. Since treating them with benevolence is meritorious, the agent accrues merit as a result. Merit, in turn, moves the agent incrementally closer to mokṣa (with the qualifications mentioned above). The interpretation is straightforward. It makes sense of the textual descriptions, and avoids the objections I have outlined above.Footnote ²

I include plants here because ahiṃsā is typically described as the avoidance of harm to living beings (bhūta, pranin), rather than simply harm to animals. Additionally, plants are often considered sentient, and are included as stations within the cycle of rebirth. Consider Manusmṛti 1.48–1.50:

In a seminal paper on ahiṃsā, Hans Peter Schmidt argues that ‘Manu's rules against meat-eating are based on the ahiṃsā-doctrine, and this doctrine goes – in Manu's view, too – beyond vegetarianism since at least plants are included in the category of animate beings’ (Schmidt (Reference Schmidt1968), 626).

Here again, certain objections can be avoided with some simple qualifications. This alternative view is consistent with the claim that mokṣa is more intrinsically valuable than anything else. A number of the proponents of the instrumentalist interpretation characterize the value of mokṣa as ‘ultimate’. The word ‘ultimate’ is importantly ambiguous, however. The view that I endorse admits that mokṣa is of ultimate value in the sense that it has the greatest intrinsic value. What the view that I endorse denies is that mokṣa is of ultimate value in the sense that it is the only thing that is valuable independent of further ends to which it is a means.

The environmentalist, however, is typically concerned with demonstrating that certain entities in nature have value of the latter sort. To say that the environmentalist succeeds only by proving that certain entities in nature are more valuable than anything else is to misunderstand the discussion.

Similarly, the view that I endorse is consistent with the claim that mokṣa is of ultimate value in the sense that it is the only end that any seeker will find fully satisfactory. Only with the attainment of mokṣa will the seeker seek no more. The view that I endorse denies, however, that mokṣa is the only thing that has any value for its own sake. Again, the environmentalist is not concerned to establish that certain entities in nature provide permanent and unequalled happiness. She is concerned to establish that certain entities in nature have value independent of further ends to which they are a means.

There is reason to think that some of the proponents of the instrumentalist interpretation fail to notice these ambiguities. Goodwin, for example, says that ‘[t]he philosophies of India … sound a note of complete disillusionment, if not of pessimism: that nature is, or ever could be, the locus of important terminal values is uniformly denied’ (Goodwin (Reference Goodwin1955), 321). Indian traditions claim that nothing in nature has ‘terminal’ value, however, only in the sense of value that is permanently satisfying. A tradition can deny this without denying that certain things in nature have intrinsic value.

A reconsideration of Nelson's arguments

Even if my argument against the instrumentalist interpretation is convincing, something should be said about the arguments that Nelson offers in support of the instrumentalist interpretation. The argument from pain states that since the saṃsāric world is inherently painful and unsatisfactory, it has only negative value. Since the saṃsāric world has only negative value, nothing in it has intrinsic value.

The first problem with this argument is that if the saṃsāric world has disvalue because it is painful, then its disvalue derives from the (at least prima facie) intrinsic disvalue of pain. If pain has intrinsic disvalue, however, then it is false that only the postponement of mokṣa has intrinsic disvalue. Nelson might insist that the disvalue of pain somehow derives from the disvalue of the postponement of mokṣa, but this seems implausible. How might the disvalue of the pain that I experience as a result of breaking my arm, for example, derive from the disvalue of the postponement of mokṣa that results from that pain? If anything, this pain is likely to help me see that saṃsāra is to be avoided, and contribute to my eventual attainment of mokṣa!

The second problem is that even if the premises of the argument from pain are true, it does not follow that everything in the saṃsāric world is without intrinsic value. Life in prison is painful and unsatisfactory, and ought to be avoided. From this it does not follow that the inmates and guards lack intrinsic value. To put this point in more general terms: that some whole has disvalue does not entail that each of its parts has disvalue. To assert otherwise is to commit the fallacy of division.

Nelson's second argument, the argument from illusion, says that since the saṃsāric world is an illusion, it is devoid of intrinsic value. One problem with this argument is that it is not obviously consistent with the argument from pain. As I just mentioned, if the saṃsāric world has disvalue because it is painful, then pain is (prima facie) intrinsically bad. If pain is intrinsically bad, however, then presumably pleasure might be intrinsically good.

Second, while the argument from pain fails, its initial plausibility is due to the fact that (at least prima facie) pain has intrinsic disvalue, and this seems true even if the source of pain – and the pain itself – is somehow illusory. Likewise, however, pleasure is (prima facie) valuable, even if the source of pleasure – and the pleasure itself – is somehow illusory. It is better, all other things being equal, to have a dream in which I am ecstatic than a dream in which I am in misery, even if I am, in the end, not in fact ecstatic or in misery. The dream ecstasy is not valuable because it is a means to some further end, and the dream misery is not of disvalue because it is a means to some further end. The value and disvalue of these experiences are intrinsic. Hence the inference from ‘X is illusory’ to ‘X is without intrinsic value (or disvalue)’ is unjustified.

Third, even if the claim that an illusory item or state of affairs has intrinsic value (or disvalue) is a contradiction, there is some question about whether Advaita asserts that the world is an illusion. A number of authors argue, for example, that since conventional reality is characterized by Advaitins as sadasadvilakṣaṇa (characterized as other than real or unreal) and anirvacanīya (ineffable) it is false that conventional reality is simply illusory (Skoog (Reference Kim, Fort and Mumme1996), 72). Others have argued that the claim that conventional reality is illusory arises later in the Advaitin tradition, as a result of a misinterpretation of Śaṅkara, and that Śaṅkara himself takes conventional reality to be Brahman (Rao (Reference Srinivasa1996)). On either of these interpretations, the attribution of the claim that the saṃsāric world is illusory is false.

And finally, even if Advaita and/or other Indian texts or traditions do indeed claim that the saṃsāric world is illusory, and even if it is true that if something is illusory, then it cannot possibly have intrinsic value or disvalue, it still does not follow that Advaita, and/or other Indian texts or traditions deny that nature has intrinsic value. All that follows is that the tradition or text that makes these claims faces a tension between its metaphysical and moral claims (Framarin (Reference Framarin2009)). This doesn't mean that the best way to resolve the tension is to abandon the moral claims. This, however, is just what the proponent of the instrumentalist interpretation assumes.