Concept tag
#ahimsa
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Ahimsa in Jainism: how far can non-harm be taken?
I grew up next door to a Jain family in Hyderabad. The grandmother wouldn't eat after sunset (to avoid harming insects attracted to light), and they avoided root vegetables, since pulling them up kills the whole plant and the many small organisms…
Started by Anand Kurup4 replies -
Can Kant’s rule against treating others merely as means be stretched to cover animals?
I work on wetlands, and in a project meeting last month we argued about whether the birds of a lake have any claim against being drained out of their habitat, or whether only the people who enjoy them do. A colleague, a…
Started by Anand Kurup5 replies -
Monks take the great vows, I take the small ones: is a graded ethic a cop-out?
Jain ethics has five vows: non-harm, truthfulness, not stealing, sexual restraint and non-possession. Monks and nuns take them as the great vows, absolutely. Laypeople like me take them as the small vows, in a limited form suited to a householder's life. So…
Started by Hetal Shah5 replies -
Once you know how a food was produced, you cannot honestly taste it the same way
I grew up Jain, which means I have strong views on honey, onions and root vegetables, and I think every week about animal testing. So this is not a neutral thesis for me, but I want to argue it on terms anyone…
Started by Hetal Shah6 replies -
Drug trials on animals, seen from behind a Jain pharmacy counter
Every few weeks a customer at our family pharmacy, usually an older Jain auntie, asks me whether a medicine was tested on animals. The honest answer is nearly always yes, somewhere along the line, because regulators have long required it. Ahimsa, as…
Started by Hetal Shah5 replies -
Pacifism is the most consistent ethics of war, not a refusal to have one
I grew up among Jain neighbours in Hyderabad and came to Gandhi through them. Gandhi credited Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1894) with a large influence on him, so the pacifist line I have absorbed runs from Mahavira through…
Started by Anand Kurup6 replies