Short Abstract:

Sen uses the Buddhist Sutta Nipata text as an example of his notion of the "obligations of power, which has clear appeal in framing a capabilities-based approach to sustainability. By examining Sen's Buddhist source, this paper will explore how both approaches can be deployed in a meaningful, agency-focused understanding of power and responsibility for the welfare of all the Earth’s inhabitants.

Long Abstract:

In the ninth chapter of The Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen (2009) introduces the notion of the “obligations of power” by referencing a Buddhist text, the Sutta Nipata. According to Sen, “Buddha argues that we have responsibility to animals precisely because of the asymmetry between us, not because of any symmetry that takes us to the need for cooperation” (204). Sen goes on to argue that this “obligation of power” can serve as “an important basis for impartial reasons, going well beyond the motivation of mutual benefits” (207) in domains such as human rights. Such an obligation has clear appeal in framing a capabilities-based approach to environmental sustainability and questions about human treatment of non-human animals. Unlike Nussbaum (2023), whose recent work aims to extend the applicability of the capabilities approach to non-humans, beyond merely those that are “like us” (complex, intelligent, social mammals) but instead to “all those capable of significant striving” (118), it does not require notions of boundaries and thresholds between those organisms whose striving is significant (animals?) and those who fail to reach significance (plants? bacteria? fungi?). Rather, it merely requires an acknowledgement of asymmetric power between humans and the rest of the living world. However, a closer examination of Sen’s source text reveals that the Buddhist understanding of these obligations might go even further than Sen. The Karaniya Metta Sutta, the section of the Sutta Nipata that Sen most likely drew upon for this section (his footnotes merely reference the larger scripture), exhorts its audience to not a mere understanding of asymmetric power and resulting obligation but rather, to “cultivate a boundless heart towards all beings.” Rather than merely being an obligation of the powerful, in the Buddhist context, these seems to be a universal maxim, directly not merely at the weaker, but rather, “Whatever beings there be: feeble or strong; tall, stout, or medium; short, small, or large…” By examining the deeper Buddhist understanding of Sen’s source text, this paper will explore how both approaches can be deployed in a meaningful, agency-focused understanding of power—what we can do and how those actions affect living beings—in order to cultivate a mindset of responsibility for the welfare of all the Earth’s inhabitants.