Good and Bad Desires: Implications of the Dialogue between Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna

An Analysis of Consequentialism and Deontology in the Normative Ethics of the Bhagavadgītā

“…Arjuna is expected to detach himself not merely from desires regarding advantages strictly for himself but also from desires for such advantages for, say, Yudhiṡṫhira, whom he cares about, and whose personal advantages are thus an extension of his own. Detailed analyses of the concept of desire in its relation to the ethical psychology suggested by the doctrine of detached action in the Gītā may be found in Framarin (2004Framarin ( , 2006Framarin ( , 2007. Framarin's argument that there can be motivations for actions that are not desires, and that it is exclusively such motivations that Krishna expects an agent to have (see Framarin 2004), cannot be treated here, but that argument is compatible with the view that what the Argument from Detached Action proposes is a consequentialism: the difference would merely be that the consequence prescribed for an agent's action is, under the moderate view, something that the agent has reason to desire to bring about, while, under Framarin's view, it is something that ought to motivate the agent's actions desirelessly.…”