Elucidations Episode 124: Graham Priest discusses Buddhist political philosophy
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What is the “zeroth noble truth” and why does it matter for Buddhist ethics?
Hi, I'm Yujin Lee. Welcome to the Elucidations Podcast. The central tenet of Buddhism seems to be the so called noble path, that is, a way of life that can help us soothe and get rid of the suffering that is everywhere in human life. As such, Buddhism is usually taken to be a private, personal and introspective phase. In this episode, Graham Priest challenges this perception by noting that one central aspect of the noble path is compassion. which requires us to care not only about our suffering, but also that of other people. Priest argues that Buddhism has a public dimension, and indeed has a political philosophy, at the core of which is fostering an egalitarian community. To hear more, please join our episode, co hosted by Matt Techman and Henry Curtis, where Graham Priest talks about Buddhist political philosophy.
Hello and welcome to Elucidations. I'm Matt Tykman. I'm Henry Curtis. With us once again is Graham Priest, distinguished professor of philosophy at the City University of New York Graduate Center, and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne. And he is here to discuss Buddhist political philosophy. Grand Priest, welcome back to Elucidations. Hi guys, thank you. Welcome back. So curious parties can listen to our previous episode on Buddhist metaphysics, uh, for more details on this. But maybe we can just begin with a quick recap of the Four Noble Truths, which serves as sort of the um ethical underpinning of a lot of Buddhist philosophy.
Okay. So the four noble truths are as follows. First of all, life is characterized by dukkha, which is uh unhappy states, if you want to phrase it like that. Second noble truth, when we experience these unhappy states, there's a cause, or at least one cause which we have under our control, which is the mental attitude we bring to bear over these things. Uh if you like a Attachments and aversion. Third Noble Truth is a corollary, get rid of the cause, you get rid of the effect. So you change your headspace, then you won't get uh you won't experience unhappiness when things go wrong. And then the fourth noble truth is itself an eightfold, it's the eightfold noble path, which is a bunch of techniques, if you like, to help you to change your headspace.
And these are partly, you know, understand the world in which you live. Partly understand what your body and your mind are doing. But then three of them are explicitly ethical, at least a Western philosopher would recognise them as ethical, uh right action, right livelihood, right speech. If you want to summarise those, uh don't go around being an arsehole to people. Okay, but this the the whole four that sort of define the basis of Buddhist ethics, there's a presupposition which is never made explicit, which I sometimes think of as the zeroth noble truth, which is that suffering is bad. And the first time you hear that you think, Oh yes, that's obvious. And the second time you hear that you think, Well, is it quite obvious?
And then the third time you hear that you have a serious debate about the question. But the thought is generally that suffering is a bad thing and that's why most people want to get rid of it. And that's true enough.
What would be an example of a situation I might be in where it might help to like apply the uh eightfold path?
Um you lose your job. And of course not many people would be very happy with that. But um the thought is that hey, your job was gonna end sooner or later anyway and you shouldn't be so attached to it because doubtless it was good to have a job and you enjoyed it and it gave you many rewards and so on. But all things have come to an end, so that was a phase in your life. New phase is coming, don't welcome the new.
So accept the things you can't change and change the things you can.
Yeah, if you like.
You say that you think that, you know, we might call the zeroth noble truth the idea that suffering is bad, and you say kind of okay, the first time you think of that, it's obvious, and then progressively as you think more and more about it, it becomes a little bit murkier as to whether or not it's true.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the “zeroth noble truth” and why does it matter for Buddhist ethics?
0:00–5:03
2
How do the Four Noble Truths connect personal suffering to a broader political agenda?
5:03–10:11
3
Why does Graham Priest argue that industrial capitalism creates widespread suffering?
10:11–18:10
4
Can a Buddhist‑inspired political system look like socialism, communism, or anarchism?
18:10–29:04
5
What role does compassion play in shaping a Buddhist vision of an egalitarian society?
29:04–40:41
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Elucidations
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