Arthur Schopenhauer did not believe in soul. However, he explained that every living thing is possessed by a will. Will is universal. Suffering is universal. Even so, he thought it ethically wrong to cause undue suffering to any person or animal. As a student of Buddhism, Schopenhauer was intrigued by the Buddhist belief in rebirth. I will explore how both Schopenhauer’s idea of the ever-present will and Buddhist rebirth are similar in their concern with and for continuity. For Schopenhauer, continuity is will and for Buddhism, as Frank Hoffman (1987) explains, “continuity is without identity of self-same substance” (p. 53). If all living things are attached by continuity whether by will or “without identity of self-same substance” then what is foundational to the beginning of an ethics of existence is the valuing of that which is attached by continuity, and this includes both human and animal life.
Can we discover morality in nature? Flowers and Honeybees extends the considerable scienti c knowledge of owers and honeybees through a philosophical discussion of the origins of morality in nature. Flowering plants and honeybees form a social group where each requires the other. They do not intentionally harm each other, both reason, and they do not compete for commonly required resources. They also could not be more di ferent. Flowering plants are rooted in the ground and have no brains. Mobile honeybees can communicate the location of ower resources to other workers. We can learn from a million-year-old social relationship how morality can be constructed and maintained over time. Readership This is for lay and academic readers interested in plant and animal science, ethics, and the emergence of morality in nature. For more information see brill.com
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