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Joydeep Bagchee
Philosophy East and West, Volume 61, Number 4, October 2011, pp.
707-717 (Article)
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FEATURE REVIEW
Joydeep Bagchee
Post-Doctoral Fellow, University of Marburg
Christopher Framarin has spent many years analyzing the problem of niṣkāma karma
or desireless action in Indian philosophy as evidenced by his many papers on the
topic. The results of these papers are gathered into his book, Desire and Motivation
in Indian Philosophy, which presents a sustained defense of the doctrine from mul-
tiple perspectives. Its philosophical depth and sophisticated argument notwithstand-
ing, Framarin’s work is lucid, persuasive, and well-executed. Framarin sets up the
basic problem in the introduction and then proceeds to test various interpretive re-
sponses. As he develops the book, he shows why each of these responses fails before
presenting his own solution. The inquiry into non-viable responses is an integral part
of the argumentation (both in Western philosophy and traditional Indian commen
taries), and the reader is therefore well advised not to view it as unnecessary “lucu-
bration.” Each chapter marks a new ingress into the problem. This only becomes
clear when one looks at the way Framarin develops the individual approaches in his
papers, because he unfortunately does not always spell out the consequences of his
moves in the book. In order to clarify the book’s complex logical structure, I will
situate it both in relation to these early papers and to other Gītā scholarship.
The second is especially necessary, because while Framarin appears merely to be
raising abstract logical points — in the words of one reviewer, he “experiments with
many lines of possible explanation, presents them in formal terms with numbered
premises and conclusions, and picks holes in them; and at the end he remarks upon
what remains” — he is, in fact, dismantling pervasive misreadings of the text. I will
refer to some recent and older Gītā scholarship to illustrate just how problematic
these views are and to bring out Framarin’s incredible achievement in showing why
these approaches misunderstand the Gītā through presenting a logical rather than a
rhetorical argument.
In the introduction, Framarin sets up the basic argument as follows: in the
Bhagavadgītā, Kṛṣṇa asks Arjuna to act without desire (the specific action he should
here perform is his svadharma or the duty proper to him as a soldier). However, some
scholars argue that Kṛṣṇa’s advice cannot be taken literally, as desire is a necessary
condition of action. Hence, one must either reject it as absurd or revert to a non-
literal interpretation. I adopt the shorthand “belief-desire theorist” in this review, al-
though one could also describe their positions as “common sense philosophies” since
Philosophy East & West Volume 61, Number 4 October 2011 707–717 707
© 2011 by University of Hawai‘i Press
the belief-desire theorist sets out from the common experience that one usually per-
forms actions out of desire, that is, when one desires a particular end.1 The problem
with the belief-desire interpretation is twofold.
1. As Framarin argues in chapter 1, the claim that action entails desire is not
“analytically” true and hence cannot justify reverting to a non-literal interpretation.
In fact, the claim is only true if “desire” is taken to refer to the agent’s purpose or
reason for performing the action. It does not entail that the agent had a desire in the
narrower, more substantive sense. Hence, the argument that the relation between
desire and action is so obvious as to justify a non-literal interpretation of the Gītā
does not work. The relation between desire and action is more complex than the
belief-desire theorist acknowledges. Critically, he does not adequately distinguish
between desires for means versus desires for ends, or desire in the narrower sense
from desire in the sense of ends or purposes. For example, I might do something
because it is my aim or because I believe it is the right thing to do, without necessar-
ily having a desire either for or against the action.
2. By not allowing for these more complex situations, the belief-desire theorist
assumes that desire is the only motivating cause. For example, in the latter case, he
would argue that I do not do the right thing out of a normative belief that it is the right
thing to do, but because I desire to do the right thing. Thus, he argues that belief can
only function as a motivating cause when coupled with some additional desire
(hence the name “belief-desire theorist”). This is the view famously advanced by
David Hume.2 But, as Framarin argues, “this explanation begs the question. A desire,
in this account, is defined as the only state that motivates. But the question is whether
other states motivate as well. Their explanation of desire only underlines the fact that
the belief-desire theorist takes desire and motivation to be the same thing” (Framarin
2003, p. 11; see also chap. 7 of the present volume, where Framarin repeats the
charge of circularity).
Hume’s view typifies the common sense response, but it is based on a double
failing. But if refuting the common sense view is so straightforward, why does the
problem of desireless action in the Gītā require such a complex philosophical exe
gesis and why does Framarin himself take five chapters before finally returning to
Hume’s position? The answer is that the common sense misunderstandings are nu-
merous and pervasive, necessitating the multi-pronged, multi-chapter approach that
Framarin employs.
A first interpretation of Kṛṣṇa’s advice is to argue that since desire is a necessary
condition of action, Kṛṣṇa can only mean to advise against some desires. Hence,
there is a distinction between permissible and impermissible desires (a view Frama-
rin discusses and ultimately rejects in chapter 2). This implies that we must seek a
general criterion to distinguish permissible from impermissible desires, for example
by distinguishing selfish from non-selfish desires, phenomenologically salient from
phenomenologically non-salient desires, or the desire for mokṣa (final liberation)
from other desires.
Let us start with the basic objection that if Arjuna were completely desireless, he
could not fight in battle. Consequently, Kṛṣṇa’s aim cannot be the nullification of all
1. If a single criterion of right action (besides being the action that a fully knowl-
edgeable agent performs) were possible, then the Gītā’s complex analyses of
action become redundant. Indeed, “Kṛṣṇa might just say, in chapter 2: just act
altruistically, or just act calmly, or just act in accord with śruti” (Framarin
2007, pp. 155–156).
2. The three responses are all too rigid to encompass the full complexity of ac-
tion. For example, “[t]o say . . . that any desire other than the desire for mokṣa
is impermissible is to ignore the wide range of valuable states of affairs that an
agent might play some role in bringing about. A fully knowledgeable agent
will desire states of affairs other than mokṣa” (Desire and Motivation in Indian
Philosophy, p. 59).
Again, this is a point of global significance for the Gītā’s structure: the Gītā is not
a dogmatic treatise that lays down a particular course of action as right in all circum-
stances. It does not, for example, say “only pursue the goal of mokṣa” or “never do
this,” but rather proposes a solution that is inherently polymorphic, varied, and indi-
vidually modulated: act as the fully knowledgeable agent would. This places the
onus squarely upon the individual to take responsibility (and thought) for his own
moral development, a point Brodbeck misses in his attempt at “calling Kṛṣṇa’s bluff.”9
In chapter 5, Framarin examines the theory of motivation in the Manusmṛti,
thereby showing how the Gītā-critical positions rest upon the tacit imputation of a
Humean framework to the Indian theory of action. For example, Manusmṛti 2.2–2.4
is frequently cited as evidence that the Indian tradition holds that action entails de-
sire. Framarin, however, argues that this view is based on a mistranslation: Manusmṛti
2.3 does not hold that “[d]esire is the very root of the conception of a definite inten-
tion,” as Doniger and Smith translate it, but rather that “[e]ven desire has a definite
In the second reading, beliefs rather than desires are the primary motivating cause of
actions, and, once this is clear, it is also evident how Kṛṣṇa can claim that Arjuna
should replace desire (not wishing to fight, anger, despair, etc.) with right belief and
still continue acting. Indeed, in Framarin’s view, the Manusmṛti is not only diametri-
cally opposed to the Humean view, but makes cognition the very basis of desire and
thus of a purpose or intention. Hence, although some scholars (e.g., Brodbeck, who
raises this very objection against Framarin [2010, p. 137]) oppose that the Manusmṛti
argues that “never does desirelessness (akāmatā) exist here on Earth. . . . No action of
[a person who is] desireless is ever seen here” (2.2–2.4; Framarin’s trans.), this state-
ment must be relativized: while the Manusmṛti’s view entails that desire is a neces-
sary condition of action, desire does not play the same role here.
The Manusmṛti’s analysis further allows us to distinguish between those actions
undertaken out of a desire for ends (kāmyakarma) and those undertaken because
they are prescribed (nityakarma), with the injunction against desire applying only to
the latter. In “the case of nityakarma, . . . the agent can desire to do what they are
doing” (p. 85), but they specifically cannot desire phala (ends). The specific differ-
ence between kāmyakarma and nityakarma is not so much that one is accompanied
by desire and the other not, but that each chooses a different type of object as most
valuable or as desirable. In other words, the difference between them must be based
on a cognitive difference. Indeed, as Framarin points out, verse 3.25, “one of the only
passages in the Gītā in which Kṛṣṇa seems to endorse desire” (p. 91), reads: “As the
ignorant act attached in action, O Arjuna, so the wise [vidvān] should act without
attachment, desiring (cikīrṣur) lokasaṃgraha” (ibid.; Sadhale trans.). The wise per-
son’s desire is not a desire for a specific end (which would dispose him to joy or
disappointment depending on the outcome); it is a “desir[e] to do” (ibid.). “Hence
the desire that Kṛṣṇa advises Arjuna to act on is a desire to do what he does — just as
it is in the Manusmṛti10 (ibid.). That is to say, you should desire to do what you do
and, as a vidvān, you ought to do “what is to be done” (ibid.).
Thus, both the Manusmṛti and the Gītā seem to hold that action always originates
in cognition, not desire (indeed, desire itself originates from a false cognition). In the
Gītā, Kṛṣṇa makes a distinction between action that proceeds purely from phenom-
1 – The term is from Framarin’s paper “Desire and Desirelessness: A Case for
Niṣkāmakarma” (Framarin 2003, p. 1; see also pp. 111–112 of the present vol-
ume, although Framarin does not use the term here).
2 – Although I refer to this as the “Humean” view, it is important to make a distinc-
tion between Hume’s own position, which is more complicated, and the way
his views were used by later commentators. It is in this latter sense that I use the
word “Humean” throughout.
3 – Obviously, with the suitable caveats. But could one perform the wrong action
for the right reasons? Is the right resolve alone enough to judge the moral qual-
ity of an action? In the Gītā’s view, it seems that it is not. Hence, a number of
chapters (e.g., 17) are devoted to elucidating vidhis (injunctions) and to a de-
fense of śāstra (scripture). In general, Western scholarship on the Gītā has tended
to downplay these chapters, possibly because of a mistaken (historicist) belief
that these sections have only limited applicability within a specific historical
and cultural context. I would have liked to see Framarin address these chapters
in some depth, especially the indiscriminate tendency to read verse 2.43 as
articulating an opposition between the Gītā and the Veda.
4 – The obvious parallels with Kantian ethics have been noticed by many scholars,
among them Framarin’s teacher Arindam Chakrabarti (see Chakrabarti 1988).
The detailed and mature analyses of analytic philosophers stand in stark con-
trast to the views of Indologists as typified by Malinar’s pronouncement, “While
the comparison with Kant has become a favorite exercise in later scholarship
. . . , it seems that, for the philosophers of the early nineteenth century, such a
connection was rather far-fetched, as indeed it is when the respective philo-
sophical frameworks are taken seriously” (Malinar 2007, p. 20). Nowhere, to
my knowledge, has Malinar actually engaged with Kantian philosophy; her
work is limited to identifying various ad hoc layers in the Gītā, an approach that
is incompatible with a consideration of the Gītā’s philosophical argument as a
whole.
5 – In fact, at the time of the Gītā’s narration, Arjuna has already re-entered the
battle, and Bhīṣma, the Kaurava patriarch and general of the opposing army, has
fallen, so the reader already knows how the battle has turned out. Thus, from the
perspective of storytelling, the Gītā contributes very little to the narrative, which
perhaps explains the frequent attempts to remove it from the epic.
6 – Although Framarin borrows the expression from analytic philosophy, he does
not “read” it into the Gītā. As he points out in his paper “The Desire You are
Required to Get Rid of: A Functionalist Analysis of Desire in the Bhagavadgītā,”
Kṛṣṇa “defines the wise one as one who has abandoned ‘all desires’ (kāmān
sarvān), ‘whose desire is gone,’ and who is ‘without desire, fear, and anger’ . . .”
(Framarin 2006b, pp. 604–605; Framarin’s emphasis). In chapter 2, the Gītā
References