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200 Richard Sorabji on Mahatma Gandhi as PhilosopherÂ
0:41
thank you very much for asking me we're going to
0:43
be talking about mahat mandhi as a
0:46
philosopher now most people think of him
0:48
as a political leader somebody who
0:51
managed to bring about independence in
0:52
India not so much as a philosopher what
0:55
makes him a philosopher I think we'll
0:57
see more clearly when we talked a little
0:59
bit about him how philosophical his
1:01
arguments are just for now I'll say that
1:05
he subjects his views to criticism on a
1:08
scale that is unmatched by any other
1:10
philosopher I know and I think that's
1:12
one of the mocks of a really good
1:16
philosopher he's famous as an exponent
1:20
and theorist of nonviolence could you
1:23
say a little bit about that to begin
1:24
with yes he believed in nonviolent
1:28
resistance against the the British rule
1:30
of India but he also believed in
1:33
nonviolence outside the context of
1:35
resistance as an attitude of mind that
1:38
he learned from TL stoy so you're saying
1:41
there are two different facets to
1:43
nonviolence one is what you do so you
1:46
sit down and protest non-violently in
1:48
front of somebody who's threatening to
1:50
kill you possibly that's the Practical
1:52
side but there's also what might be
1:54
thought of as a spiritual or
1:56
psychological aspect where you make
1:58
nonviolence part of your character yes
2:01
that's right he learned from tuloy that
2:04
nonviolence was an attitude of
2:06
compassion for all human beings or love
2:09
tolto took his message from Christ he
2:12
thought that there had been three stages
2:15
in the history of the world first it was
2:17
each person for themselves then each
2:20
person for their group or Nation but
2:23
that was a funny stopping point and
2:25
Christ told us to love all mankind it
2:29
had taken by that stage 1800 years for
2:31
that to sink in but he thought it
2:34
clearly was sinking in because of the
2:37
huge number of suicides in the armed
2:39
forces in Europe soldiers who were
2:41
forced to be violent the suicide showed
2:43
that they realized there was something
2:45
wrong and he thought that Christ's hope
2:49
for Universal nonviolence in the sense
2:51
of universal love would soon be coming
2:54
about did Gandhi accept all aspects of
2:58
Toto's theory of compassion nor were the
3:00
limits to that he accepted all aspects
3:02
with two exceptions he very much
3:05
accepted that violent revolution was a
3:08
bad thing because it would just give you
3:10
another violent government tolto
3:12
actually wrote and allowed Gandhi to
3:14
publish in 1908 a letter to a Hindu in
3:18
which Tolstoy said the British had not
3:20
enslaved Indians Indians had enslaved
3:23
themselves by seeking employment with a
3:26
violent government in the army of the
3:28
police the law courts a few thousand
3:31
Britain couldn't possibly enslave
3:33
hundreds of millions of Indians if the
3:36
Indians hadn't voluntarily agreed with
3:38
this violence all that Gandhi strongly
3:41
believed the two exceptions were this
3:44
Gandhi for very interesting
3:45
philosophical reasons was not a pacifist
3:48
and secondly he did think that
3:51
nationalism was acceptable he said of
3:54
his own nationalism my nationalism is
3:57
compatible with the Love of All Nations
3:59
now obviously if somebody is a
4:01
nonviolent resistor to a powerful and
4:04
aggressive individual or group of
4:05
individuals like police wielding battens
4:08
the nonviolent resistor is going to get
4:11
hurt what is the role of that suffering
4:14
for Gandhi because it seems to be
4:16
crucial to the experience of nonviolent
4:18
resistance that you should be prepared
4:20
to be hit that's absolutely true and
4:23
this is where Gandhi supplemented tolto
4:26
tolto hadn't really addressed the
4:29
question question how to face up to
4:32
suffering if you're going to engage in
4:34
nonviolent resistance Gandhi faced it
4:36
squarely he did three things first of
4:39
all he selected certain people only as
4:42
able to engage in nonviolent resistance
4:46
they had to have the right temperament
4:48
because he thought what your duties were
4:50
was a very individual matter which
4:52
depended among other things on your
4:53
individual temperament secondly having
4:56
selected those who should go in for the
4:58
nonviolent resistance he trained them by
5:02
showing them you won't succeed in
5:04
resisting unless you detach yourself
5:06
from your ordinary needs detach yourself
5:09
from the Need For Freedom detach
5:11
yourself from the fear of pain or death
5:14
detach yourself from your families
5:16
unless you manage to emotionally detach
5:18
yourselves you won't succeed in
5:21
resistance and finally he regarded the
5:24
suffering as something positive it was
5:27
positive for his campaign because he
5:30
felt that it opened the ears of the
5:33
opponents and it was positive for the
5:35
individual because if you can remain
5:37
nonviolent and compassionate in the face
5:40
of tremendous provocation you've
5:42
achieved an even higher level of virtue
5:45
if the cost of me being a successful
5:49
nonviolent resistor is that I lose all
5:51
attachment to my family to those I love
5:53
to the places I love to the things that
5:55
I enjoy surely the price is too high
5:58
that means I've lost my human
6:01
I think there was a special problem
6:02
about family Gandhi did not in my view
6:05
get that right he disadvantaged his
6:09
family quite consciously and that was
6:12
not authorized by the Bhagavad Gita as
6:15
he supposed his favorite piece of
6:18
scripture I wish he could have shown how
6:21
one could have preserved love of family
6:23
too all I can say in his defense is that
6:27
another nonviolent campaigner C
6:30
says very very Stern things about
6:33
abandoning your family but I regret it
6:36
and I feel that was a wrong view you
6:39
mentioned earlier that one of the ways
6:41
that Gandhi disagreed with tolto was
6:43
that he wasn't a pacifist I wonder if
6:45
you could explain that Gandhi's views
6:48
were changed by an incident in which
6:51
he'd recommended killing in this case
6:53
killing of stray dogs because stray dogs
6:56
spread rabies to each other and to
6:59
humans
7:00
and this provoked outraged protests from
7:03
his fellow Hindus who said we thought
7:06
you believed in nonviolence they were
7:09
rather violent letters and you can see
7:11
Gandhi through the space of these seven
7:13
letters realizing that he must produce a
7:16
philosophical refinement of his
7:19
conception of nonviolence so far he'
7:21
accepted TL's idea that nonviolence is
7:24
an attitude of Mind a Compassion or
7:29
quite a detached form of love for all
7:31
human beings he didn't retract that it
7:34
was very good so far as it went but now
7:36
something extra had to be found a new
7:39
Criterion for how killing could be
7:42
nonviolent he said that killing is
7:45
nonviolent only if it's carried out for
7:48
the sake of the killed that meant that
7:52
other deliberate killing was all of it
7:54
violent for example protective killing
7:57
killing to protect other people was
7:59
going to to turn out violent that was a
8:01
very startling result so killing for the
8:04
sake of the individual killed it's quite
8:07
a rare occurrence that tends to be in
8:08
cases of euthanasia where somebody's
8:10
unable to kill themselves perhaps but
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it's still in their interest and they
8:14
consent to being killed yes it only
8:17
covers cases like that euthanasia his
8:20
view was that all other killing is wrong
8:24
but several philosophical points need to
8:27
be made on the other side one of them
8:29
is that it's good to avoid all other
8:32
killing as a council of perfection that
8:35
you can't live up to and you know you
8:37
can't live up to it but it's good to
8:39
have a council of perfection because it
8:41
enables you to raise your sights perhaps
8:44
you won't so readily kill Nets
8:46
mosquitoes perhaps you'll gradually
8:48
improve if you have a council of
8:51
perfection that's one consideration but
8:54
there are other considerations too such
8:56
as well sometimes a the Gandhi saw we
9:00
are in a moral double bind sometimes we
9:04
are obliged to kill because a mob is
9:08
descending on an innocent woman and
9:11
unless we use tear gas which is violent
9:13
we're not going to be able to save the
9:14
woman or else perhaps we have people in
9:17
our charge and only by killing can we
9:21
protect the people in our charge
9:23
whatever we do is wrong so you're saying
9:25
that in that situation where there's no
9:28
right course of Behavior gandi would
9:30
Advocate the path which resulted in the
9:32
fewest deaths for instance no he would
9:35
never do it numerically you've got to
9:37
judge for yourself which is the worst of
9:40
the two wrongs and what would be
9:43
relevant was that these were children in
9:46
your charge for example whether they
9:48
were 12 children or one child would be
9:50
absolutely irrelevant to him but that
9:52
they were in your charge might rightly
9:54
be thought to weigh and make this the
9:56
Lesser wrong and so doing wrong you
9:58
would none less be under an obligation
10:00
to do it you'd be in a double bind very
10:02
good philosophy I think that recognized
10:05
I Believe by Thomas aquinus but they not
10:07
enough modal philosophers it's probably
10:09
quite easy to caricature Gandhi's views
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as if he was saying one size fits all
10:14
everybody ought to feel compassion
10:16
everybody ought to act to resist a
10:19
certain sort of Oppression but it seems
10:21
from what you're saying that he was very
10:23
responsive to particular circumstances
10:26
and possibly also to the limits of what
10:29
individual people could do that's
10:32
absolutely right he believes in
10:34
individual Duty he has a word for it sah
10:37
Dharma he thinks that you have different
10:40
duties if you're a householder with a
10:41
family to look after he actually thought
10:45
but within a year he had to correct
10:46
himself that Muslims shouldn't be asked
10:50
to follow his belief in nonviolence
10:52
because he thought wrongly as he
10:54
acknowledged that Muslims believe that
10:56
retaliation is the right and no course
11:00
in fact he was going to be undeceived
11:02
about that within a year because the
11:05
group who most nobly shared with him in
11:09
the idea of nonviolent resistance was a
11:11
group of very courageous Afghans when he
11:15
found that these afans were willing to
11:17
engage in nonviolent resistance against
11:19
the British he urged them when they were
11:22
attacked whether by the British or by
11:23
other tribesmen always to say here I am
11:27
I'm unarmed you whatever you wish and
11:30
yet he said what looks like the opposite
11:33
to other people on The Afghan Frontier
11:35
there were Hindu trades people with
11:38
shops on The Afghan Frontier and some of
11:41
the Afghan tribesmen used to come down
11:43
regularly and raid these shops he knew
11:47
that these Hindu Tradesmen didn't have
11:49
the right tradition and the right
11:50
temperament to say here I am I'm unarmed
11:54
do what you like but he didn't want them
11:56
to run away either because he thought k
11:59
cice was even worse than violence so to
12:01
them he said what you should do is to
12:04
shoot back he's recommending to them
12:06
something violent but it's because once
12:10
again he saw it as the lesser of two
12:12
evils a lesser evil than the Cardis of
12:15
running away and so what he thought was
12:18
right for people depended not on what
12:20
was right for him but on their
12:23
individual Persona that gave them an
12:26
individual Duty now the classic ction to
12:29
this kind of non-violence is surely that
12:31
in some situations it doesn't just not
12:35
work but it results in Slaughter the
12:37
Nazis coming into Britain were not
12:40
likely to respond well to a policy of
12:44
the British turning the other cheek it
12:46
is true in the case of Hitler I don't
12:49
agree with Gandhi's advice to the Jews
12:51
in Hitler's Germany that they should
12:54
deliberately walk into the street and
12:57
invite being machine gun down I think he
13:00
was completely wrong you have to judge
13:03
rather carefully when nonviolent
13:05
resistance may be actually politically
13:08
as opposed to morally successful this
13:10
has been very much studied and there've
13:12
been several dozen countries since
13:15
Gandhi who've attempted nonviolent
13:19
resistance according to the most
13:21
prolific writer Jean Shar they've been
13:24
successful in about half the cases it's
13:27
very difficult to tell when it's likely
13:29
to be successful and when not sometimes
13:32
we're taken by surprise because the
13:34
first attempt doesn't work but it works
13:36
10 years later there are examples now
13:39
Burma is obviously one where it's taken
13:42
a very long time with very limited
13:44
success seems but one never quite knows
13:48
when it is going to work and also when
13:50
it isn't you've written a book about
13:52
Gandhi which links him with the stox
13:55
what's the connection there I called it
13:57
Gandhi and the stox modern experiments
14:00
on Ancient values because in many cases
14:04
his values were like those of the stoics
14:07
he was at one with them in the idea that
14:10
people have different individual Persona
14:14
as the stoics would put it and therefore
14:18
have different individual duties it
14:21
contrasts very strongly with K's
14:23
philosophy which has been more
14:25
influential on us recently but I think
14:28
the Gand steric alternative is very
14:32
important and even closer to the truth
14:36
why do you think that's closer to the
14:38
truth let me just tell you basically
14:40
what the steric said they said that in
14:43
the extreme case an individual may be
14:46
unique so that for example when the
14:50
entire Roman Republic was wrecked and
14:52
was changed into a tyranny by Julius
14:55
Caesar it was right for the great story
14:59
Kato who was on the L losing side to
15:01
commit suicide even though it would not
15:05
have been right for anybody else in the
15:07
same
15:08
circumstances it sounds as if it's the
15:11
direct opposite of what Kant was later
15:13
going to say now why did he say that
15:16
well he said something else rather
15:17
uncontent too the stoics have advice on
15:21
how to make decisions in life and it
15:24
starts off in a rather content Way by
15:26
saying you've got to take into account
15:28
that you're a rational human being and
15:31
so you've got to think out what it would
15:33
be rational to do people have recently
15:36
complained about C that that doesn't
15:38
tell us enough it leaves too much open
15:40
about our decision now what the stoics
15:43
did very usefully was to fill that Gap
15:48
because they said after deciding what
15:51
you should do as a rational being in
15:53
order to be more precise you've got to
15:55
think what you should do as the
15:57
individual that you are you've got to
16:00
take into account your own strengths
16:02
your own weaknesses your own
16:05
temperaments the commitments you have
16:08
entered into because those are going to
16:10
pin down exactly what your duty is now
16:15
and this is useful when you're choosing
16:17
a career whether you're deciding whether
16:19
to obey your parents it's useful in all
16:22
the decisions you take in life now it's
16:25
fairly rare to get a case like Kato's
16:28
where the same decision won't be right
16:30
for anybody else in the same
16:32
circumstances but I think it's a very
16:34
valuable point I think this is subtle
16:37
philosophy I think this is good
16:38
philosophy and I think this is actually
16:40
right
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