This is my fifth post on the multi-faceted Zen Master story. Today’s post explores the standards we use to judge things to be good and bad.
Here’s the story again to refresh your memory:
A boy in a village gets a horse for his birthday. All the people in the village said, “How wonderful! The boy got a horse.”
But the zen master said, “We’ll see.”
Then several years later the boy falls off his horse and breaks his leg. The people in the village said, “How terrible.”
But the zen master said, “We’ll see.”
Then a war breaks out and all the young men are called up to fight, but the boy can’t go because his leg is all messed up. And the people said, “How wonderful.”
But the zen master said, “We’ll see.”
The zen master is what philosophers of ethics might describe as a “consequentialist,” someone who judges good and bad by the consequences they create, rather than judging things as inherently good and bad. But the zen master would likely object to the label of consequentialism. The zen master appreciates the complexity of choice and consequence, and doesn’t know what consequences might follow, so he can’t attribute good or bad to anything. In Buddhist philosophy good and evil are illusions, and the goal is to transcend the illusion of duality (good and evil) and accept reality as it really is – a unity, not a duality.
On the other side of the philosophical debate the “deontologists” believe that good and bad are inherent to the actions themselves and unrelated to the consequences they might create.
In the zen master story, the zen master is a type of consequentialist, and the villagers are a type of deontologists. We’re not dealing with ethical choices here, but the general idea that things can be described as inherently good and bad, or consequentially good and bad.
I think it’s practical to be a little bit of both. We can be two-dimensional in our appraisals. We can say that things are good and bad in and of themselves, and add the dimension of consequence, considering where our choices might lead.
I believe the zen master is wrong to withhold judgement just because a good thing may lead to a bad thing, and vice versa. Also, I disagree with the zen master’s worldview, so I can’t go with him in the belief that good and evil are illusions. At the same time, I believe the villagers could gain some perspective from the zen master, and consider the consequences that follow, not just the acts themselves.
The key is to see things as good and bad in and of themselves, while keeping the longer and more complex view of choice and consequence in mind.