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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
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    Channa should not be condemned for causing the Buddha's d... — Carmelics
    Statements
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    Home/Moral Responsibility
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Channa should not be condemned for causing the Buddha's death through contaminated food

    Justice & PunishmentMoral Responsibility
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Channa's intention was to perform a meritorious act of generosity
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    • 2.Channa did not know the food was contaminated
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    • 3.Buddhist ethics judges actions primarily by the intention behind them, not the harm that resulted
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Aristotle's doctrine of negligence holds that agents are culpable for harms they could have prevented through reasonable care and diligence.
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    • 2.Channa, as the Buddha's cook, had a duty of care requiring him to verify the safety of food before serving it to such a significant recipient.
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    • 3.Culpable ignorance—ignorance one had an obligation to remedy—does not exculpate an agent in the way innocent ignorance does.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.The Pali Canon itself distinguishes between cetanā as the core of kamma and the additional moral weight assigned to consequences affecting beings of high spiritual attainment.
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    • 2.The Vinaya tradition records that acts causing harm to a Buddha carry exceptional demeritorious weight regardless of the actor's subjective intention.
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    • 3.A purely intention-based exculpation collapses the Buddhist distinction between the gravity of harming ordinary beings versus enlightened ones, undermining the karmic hierarchy the tradition explicitly endorses.
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    Topics

    Moral ResponsibilityJustice & Punishment

    Connections

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    Consequentialism1 linked

    Related

    A purely intention-based exculpation collapses the Buddhist distinction between ...Aristotle's doctrine of negligence holds that agents are culpable for harms they...Buddhist ethics judges actions primarily by the intention behind them, not the h...Channa did not know the food was contaminated
    +5 moreShow less
    Channa's intention was to perform a meritorious act of generosityChanna, as the Buddha's cook, had a duty of care requiring him to verify the saf...Culpable ignorance—ignorance one had an obligation to remedy—does not exculpate ...The Pali Canon itself distinguishes between cetanā as the core of kamma and the ...The Vinaya tradition records that acts causing harm to a Buddha carry exceptiona...

    Similar

    Channa actually gained moral goodness from offering the contaminated f...74%Suicide is disgraceful and its perpetrators should receive dishonorabl...74%Channa did not know the food was contaminated73%It is wrong (with respect to B) to kill the innocent73%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: ethics-indian-buddhism
    View source passageHide passage
    Any interpretation of Buddhist ethics must find room for the absolutely crucial role of intention. There are many contexts in which Buddhism seems to emphasize the intention with which an act was performed much more than the benefit or harm that actually resulted. One case often cited is that of Channa, who presented a gift of food to the Buddha which gave him dysentery and thus caused his death. Since Channa’s intention was to perform a meritorious act of generosity, the Buddha tells his follow
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit