Varnadharma, Niskama Karma and Practical Morality: A Critical Essays on Applied Ethics

This book provides a bold, original and critical analysis of some basic concepts of Indian ethics, lifting them up from their regional roots to a general philosophical level, along with illuminatingly creative analysis of some practical issues of moral living. Professor Prasad shows, on logical grounds that a varnadharma cannot be both natural and obligatory, the prescription of acting justified, acting desireless action justified, acting desirelessly itself cannot be a duty, the concept of jivanmukti is inapplicable, etc. In respect of ethical practice, he argues with fair amount of rigour and originality, for moral anger and forgiveness as a conditional virtue, basing secularism on the primacy of the ethical, and preferring a morally good professional to one who is good as a professional or as a person. His plea for legitimacy of profit in business and non-hyperactivism in applying ethics throws useful light on business ethics.

His down to the earth approach makes the book a work on applied ethics and his conceptual openness make it one on the basics. Its simple style makes it useful not only for students and teachers of philosophy but also for general readers with interest in Indian philosophy and culture.

About the Author

Rajendra Prasad, educated at Patna University and University of Michigan, retired from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur where he held the chair of the Senior Professor of Philosophy and Head, Department of humanities and Social Sciences. He has been a Fulbright/ Smit-Mundt Fellow, a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow, thrice a National Lecturer of the UGC, a National Lecturer and Senior Fellow of the ICPR and, until recently, a National Fellow of the latter, Professor Prasad has been General President of Indian Philosophical Association, Akhil Bharatiya Darsan Parishad, and Indian Philosophical Congress. His publications include Darsana Sastra Ki Ruparekha, Regularity, Normativity and Rules of Language, Karma, Causation and Retributive Morality, Aesthetics, morality and Jivanmukti, and Ends and Means in Private and Public Life. Besides he has published numerous scholarly papers in several learned journals in India and abroad. He has edited the journals Indian Review of Philosophical and Darsanika Traimasika, and is currently a co-editor of Indian Philosophical Quarterly and Paramarsa.