Original sin

The bullet I'm biting

I've been on vacation in Kenya the last two weeks¹ - my first abroad in the last two years. I went for a wedding of a close friend from graduate school who now works on agricultural development in Africa. Although refreshing and enjoyable, it was hard not to think about whether taking this trip was ethical. It's not that I didn't consider such questions beforehand, but being in Africa made those questions much more salient. The ethical dimensions of such a decision are multifaceted - the climate impact of the flight, the ecological impact of going on safari, the good from supporting local people and charities etc. My friend argued that money needs to flow from the global north to the south (true), and spending (and giving away) money locally is a good way to enact that transfer. And yet when I ask him - someone whose whole life is oriented around helping people in extreme poverty - whether he feels like he's unambiguously doing good in the world, he was very ambivalent². And this was the same vibe I got from talking to a number of other folks I met in development. At the risk of repeating myself, doing good is hard even if we have the best of intentions.

As someone who has had extreme good fortune in life, having meaningful encounters with people who haven't makes me think about the suffering I cause by simply existing as a relatively wealthy first world person - the resources I consume, the pyramid of human toil that I sit on top of, etc. This is a contemporary notion of original sin - updated from its Christian origin to be recognizable to the moral entrepreneurs of our era - e.g. the woke or the effective altruists. I'm naming these groups because many (most?) such people believe that advantaged people are obliged to help the less fortunate, perhaps even to the point of dismantling their very privileges and being ascetic. And not doing so - continuing to occupy space at the top of various hierarchies - is harmful to others. Consider all of the possible ways one can be advantaged - race, gender, sexual orientation, abilities, socio- economic status, intellect, family, to name a few. Playfully I would even say that my traumas led to spiritual growth, and so even my disadvantages were advantages! May you be lucky enough for your suffering to be a privilege!

Even if you don't believe in original sin, I think in large parts of upper/middle class Western polite society you need to have some kind of answer for it. Nihilistic hedonism is out of fashion. One obvious move is to point to alternative, non-commensurate, sources of value that a person can create. You can make art, bringing beauty into the world. Maybe the joy you create for others is good enough. Someone in a devout religion perhaps can sidestep the question by virtue of adherence to another respected world view. Or if you have kids you might argue for that as selfless enough to justify your existence. Of course there are some environmentalists who would dispute that. But original sin is still a serious moral concern. Indeed, there are some who say we shouldn't be enjoying our lives very much at all if we want to call ourselves ethical people.

Or maybe we don't. But this is precisely the moral accounting that consequentialism demands³. I know that Peter Singer and his ilk suggest that we “merely” give 10% away. But the problem with the view from the top of morality is that it has no bound - 10% is arguably an unjustified compromise. I think at least some people agree that it’s not enough - accounts abound of guilty utilitarians obsessing over whether it’s ok to eat a nice meal. And so I want to chart a path through this carefully. Because this impulse - to question our actions and be sensitive to harms we cause, and maybe even feel a little guilty in the process - is a deeply powerful, useful, and propulsive human emotion. How might we deal with original sin from a Buddhist perspective?

One obvious approach is to see the guilt as empty. The Ground of our Being is primordially pure, and cannot be sullied by anything like original sin. Perhaps we can also accept that our Egoic selves cannot be Good, and it’s only our True Nature that can be. To think that Buddhism is going to wave a magic emptiness wand, however, and make this disappear seems wrong. But there are some who would make this move unconditionally - simply see the feeling as empty like any other. Allow compassionate action to automatically arise - no need to change anything otherwise. I'd say there's some truth here (often the self-focused feelings of guilt can get in the way of actually doing good) but there's a danger here too - of complacency. There's a reason historically in Tibet that the highest Dzogchen teachings were often reserved for only the ruling class. In the West we also have a tradition of religion being tied to conservatism, obviously. It’s a valid concern that these teachings could be used as an excuse not to do more.

A different type of Buddhist could alternatively take a renunciative perspective and say that the goal of the path is to make all your desires disappear so your existence is nothing but upside for sentient beings. Of course along the way there is a possibility for an emotional transformation that also would dispense with any guilt, as long as you uproot desire too. And certainly seeing though desires and shrinking your footprint somewhat seems like a good thing to do. As one’s practice matures it’s certainly true that attachment to worldly pleasures is reduced and it’s easier to live a life that doesn’t cause harmful side effects. But I want to say that it's ok to enjoy our lives to some degree and maybe it’s even ok to take a vacation occasionally. The Vajrayana view, in contrast to this renunciative perspective, is to harness all aspects of ourselves skillfully for the benefit of all beings. No need to make anything go away - neither the guilt nor the desire. In that spirit, I wonder if there’s room to live a normal human life within a spiritual framework but also find space for the worry of original sin and do something beneficial with it.

Relatedly, I’ve been reflecting on everything I've written recently about ethics and feeling like it was a bit too easy. Every moral perspective has some bullets to bite - for example utilitarians have got the repugnant conclusion. Deontologists sometimes worry about the ethics of lying, even in cases where it would lead to a positive outcome. So the bullet I’m going to bite, that might make many people uncomfortable, is that we should enjoy our lives. Even if doing so might cause some (hopefully a small and shrinking) amount of suffering. That isn’t to say we can ignore the effects of our actions. As it says in the classic Jewish moral text, Pirkei Avot, “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.” The sensitivity to harm, and its ultimate emptiness, are perspectives that can be held simultaneously. Give up on the idea of being a “good person” and instead just do good.

1. Hence my recent radio silence — don’t worry though, the regular schedule should resume next week!

2. One big reason: the long term environmental sustainability of improvements to living standards. As he put it — everyone in the world cannot at present engage in the consumption behaviors of those of us in the first world.

3. A move some thinkers make, e.g. Scott Alexander here, is to question any moral theory that would imply that no one is a good person. Of course, one might say in response that in the pre-Industrial era, where our actions had a much more limited reach, being a good person was possible and could mostly consist in being good to those in our immediate purview. It’s only in our contemporary, globalized, late-Capitalist era that being a good person is rendered impossible. If moral truths are timeless (big if), then it could be justified to believe that only now has the possibility of being a moral actor been compromised.