IS KARM A RETRIBUTIVISM? A COMPREHENSIVE ANALYTIC-SYNTHETIC DISCOURSE

Abstract

No society operates in a vacuum. Individual human beings that make up the society also need substantial anchor on which to base their activities. Progress or constructive development in the society is usually the product of institutionalized policies that make such possible. The experience with extrinsic policy-infrastructure indicates its insufficiency to always guarantee good human conduct without which the envisaged societal good becomes impossible. Karma works at the intrinsic level to intelligibly complement the extrinsic institutional policies for ordered society. The paper examined the concept with a view to clarifying what it is all about. It also raised deeper questions concerning the metaphysical claims to its foregrounding as an intellectual reality. The finding is that the existence of karma flies on the face of unsustainable metaphysical and epistemological methodologies of approach. This unintelligibility notwithstanding, the concept scores significantly on the ethical dimension. The methodology employed in the research is the analytic-synthetic methodology. Keywords: dharma, samsara, moksha, nirvana, metempsychosis