第236回CAPEレクチャー

Date: 2025年 6月23日(月) 1500-1700
Place:at the 1st floor of the building of the Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University(map8番の建物)
Speaker: Bronwyn Finnigan (Visiting Associate Professor, Australian National University)
Title: Is the Buddha’s Lucky Throw Unlucky?
Abstract: Finnigan (2024) used decision-theoretic tools to argue that the Buddha, in the Apaṇṇaka Sutta, presents a decision-problem under uncertainty about whether to ‘wager’ for karma and rebirth. It showed that he resolves this decision-problem using dominance (superdominance, even superduperdominance) reasoning, but raised three objections to the idea that we are rationally required to accept this wager: the many rebirths objection, the redundancy objection, and the unnecessary expectations objection. Nevertheless, the article ended with a motivational concession: the Buddha’s Wager might at least provide one more reason for someone to act well, if they so needed. This is because the two kinds of outcomes the wager envisions – social and karmic – depend on the individual using the view at issue to inform their conduct. This talk examines a challenge to that concession; namely, that it undermines the rationality of the wager by providing a bad reason for acting well. Call this the self-undermining objection. The Buddha describes his wager as a “lucky throw” that, when “accepted and undertaken… will lead to welfare and happiness for a long time.” Does accepting this wager actually constitute an “unlucky throw”—one that ultimately undermines the very welfare and happiness the Buddha asserts the wager would bring?