An Axiological View of Karma

Abstract

The meaning of karma was radically changed when Buddha rejected the Hindu concept of Atman, the indivisible soul that reincarnates for whom intentional action is based on egoism or self-interest and personal rewards in their next reincarnation. In place of independent Atmans or souls, Buddha adopted Dependent Origination, wherein all persons are interconnected and causally interdependent. This introduced a dynamic ontology of infinite process. I contend that the Buddha intuitively understood the intrinsic value of humans and rebelled against the Hindu religion, its caste system, and its dehumanization of humans. He realized that the systemic structure of Hinduism did not allow all human beings to be intrinsically valued. In rejecting Hinduism, he put forth a belief system which presupposed the intrinsic value of humans as ends-in-themselves, something far more than merely systemic constructs within a system or extrinsic means to someone else’s ends. From the perspective of Hartman’s value theory, anatman expresses the intrinsic worth of humans. Historically, anatman was a rebellion against the disvaluation of the intrinsic value of human beings, as seen in the absolute rule by kings and pharaohs that reduced individuals to extrinsic or functional means-to-ends, in the caste system, in various forms of slavery, in misogynistic forms of sexism where women are simply extrinsic objects for men’s sexual pleasure and procreation. Institutionalized forms of dehumanization still continue to disvalue the intrinsic value of human beings in these ways even today.