Unselfing, Suffering and Morality: Cultivating Non-Narrative Approaches to Ethical Development
Prof. Terry Hyland
Abstract
A prominent perspective on the alleviation of suffering in ourselves and others – shared by both Western and Eastern philosophical traditions – involves the process of ‘unselfing’, the letting go of the self as a continuous and systematic life narrative. The cultivation of the sense of non-self is a key component of Buddhist ethics which views an attachment to self as a major source of suffering and a hindrance to the process of understanding ourselves and others in the context of our location in the moral universe. In Western traditions the move from self-regarding to other-regarding principles is a central feature of both consequentialist and deontological ethical systems. It will be argued that ethical development along such lines may be cultivated by means of training and education which foregrounds unselfing through the letting go of life as a continuous narrative. Drawing, in particular, on the work of Galen Strawson and Iris Murdoch, these issues are examined against the background of Buddhist mindfulness strategies aimed at waking up to the nature of the good life.