Venue: Seminar Hall, Department of HSS.

Abstract:

The doctrine of karma stands on two pillars of support:

Assumption (1): Actions have consequences which the agent must reap because he deserves it.

Assumption (2): The agent must be reborn to experience the unexperienced balance of consequences of actions in this life. It will be argued that (1) is a weak assumption, because even if some actions produce effects, it does not follow that the agent must experience them all, nor that he deserves all that he experiences. It will be argued further that (2) [belief in rebirth] is a grave set back to the karma doctrine since, in the obvious absence of physical continuity, identity of the sufferer with the supposed doer of the action is never established, nor can the action be individuated, and hence the desert claim remains highly dubious. Conclusions: (a).The weak pillars are forced on us because of our proneness for absolutism and generality; as a result of which we take the law of karma to be inexorable and absolutely infallible. But all moral laws, I contend, are necessary but defeasible, and the law of karma is no exception to it. (b) Karma, therefore, is not inviolable and karma phala is not unavoidable. The law of karma can still have its retributive force even without being dependent on rebirth.

 About the Speaker:

Dr. P.K.Mohapatra presently National Fellow of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, is former Professor of Philosophy of Utkal University.

Soon after his retirement in July, 2002, he was a Senior Fellow of the ICPR for two years and later on an Emeritus Fellow of the UGC for two years.

Professor Mohapatra was awarded the Utkal University Gold Medal for standing first in First Class in M.A.Philosophy in 1966. He got Ph.D. from the University of Keele, England, where he worked as a Commonwealth Scholar for three years (1973-77). He was also a Fulbright Visiting Professor in the United States in 1989.

A specialist in Philosophy of Mind, Analytic Philosophy and Philosophy of Values, his latest interest is in Practical Ethics and Indian Ethics from the applied ethical perspective. Besides a number of publications in reputed journals of Philosophy in India and abroad, Professor Mohapatra is the author of five books in Philosophy: Personal Identity, Concepts and Problems, Ethics and Society: An Essay in Applied Ethics, Society Culture and Value and Bhinna Drusti (in Odia) and has edited nine books, prominent among which are: Social Justice, Purusarthas, Persons, Mind and Value and Perspectives in Analytic Philosophy.  He is the founder General Editor of Utkal Studies in Philosophy series of publications and (1991-2002) Editor of the Indian Journal of Analytic Philosophy. Dr. Mohapatra was Vice-Chairman of the Indian Philosophical Congress during 1994-97 and has been the President of the Orissa Philosophy Association since 1996.