Yeah, use another font!
A follower of the teachings of the Buddha believes that life is a cyclic existence, therefore all living beings have at one time been our mothers. One shouldn’t cause harm or suffering to any living creature; to do so would be to cause harm to your mother, thus harming yourself.
Or, all living things live over and over. Therefore, every living thing has been your mother, or you have at one time or another been the mother of every living thing. To cause harm to one thing, be it a neighbor or a spider, would cause harm to your mother, your child; yourself.
I hit reply too soon. There is no argument if one believes in a cyclic existence. If one believes in linear time (i.e. Creationism with a beginning and an end) then the statement is false, but still no argument.
A similar sentiment from a non-Buddhist:
No, it’s not.
Yes it is!
Also known as:
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Cite?
CJJ is right; the argument in the OP is a false analogy not equivocation.
The logic of the argument is that because we all share a common charactoristic (suffering) we are therefore connected. That’s not necessarily true.
Equivocation would be an argument like: “All men are brothers. Therefore, you should never cause another person grief because it will make family holidays awkward.” This argument is using the word brothers in two different meanings of the word and is equivocation.
The philosophy paraphrased in the OP refers to the Buddhist belief in reincarnation, and illustrates the connection among all living beings. A fundamental Buddhist truism explains that through countless rebirths every living thing has at one time or another been our mother. If this statement is true, then causing suffering to any living being will result not only in bad karma (which will cause the self to suffer), but will also result in the abuse of a creature who in a past life was your mother. (or father, or husband, or child, etc)
It is no more a false analogy to a Buddhist than the Christian statement “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy”. A Christian believes that the merciful will receive merciful treatment from God in Heaven. A Buddhist believes that kindness to all living beings is necessary in order to prevent the suffering of oneself and others, and will result in good karma both in this lifetime and the next.
The statement is a parable- a concise method of illustrating an important Buddhist conviction.
The book or movie Seven Years in Tibet illustrates this philosophy easily. A temple is being constructed, and workers are carefully removing worms from the construction site and relocating them. When asked why this time consuming habit is holding up construction, a monk explains that the “earthworms are our mothers”.
Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.
Wow, I do believe you’re right!
No, he’s not.
Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
Is that in the Kama Sutra?
I’ve brought a relevant update: a term that hadn’t been invented when the thread was started. Nowadays there is the word deepity to refer to the equivocation-related phenomenon where you make a statement that could be interpreted in either an obviously-true-yet-trivial manner or a breaktakingly-deep-and-world-changing manner, and hope people will accept both meanings without noticing how the trivial meaning doesn’t have anything to do with the deep meaning.
The Buddhism example in the OP is probably not correct for the purpose sought by the OP. It may also suffer from western bias inherent in the English language.
One of the core tenets in Buddhism is that there is no “self soul” or “individual soul”. Like Rod Stewart said “You are everything and everything is You”.
Growing up in India, it was explained to me like this by a good Buddhist : Imagine an open pot in the ocean. There is water outside and there is water inside. Now would you say that there is water in the pot or the pot is in water?
What goes around, comes around.
When you live in a society that is interconnected in many ways. What you do can ripple out. And those ripples can cause positive or negative things. The results of your actions can then come back to you. In ripples, or maybe tidal waves. Good or bad.
I think this is true. But it depends on many variables. Some ripples fade out with little or no effect. Others get amplified.
Not sure if you can define this in one term. Due to the variability of the effect caused and the paths the effect takes.
Many things in society have people studying the methods and effects that happen from events in those things. Specific areas of interest come up with names and theories for how these things work. But it is basically, something happens, in isolation or some mass or number. Then the event is either dampened or amplified by other systems and/or events.
What goes around, comes around. Or maybe it doesn’t. There is a pretty generic term, Causality. But the route to causality can be very winding and wild.
Oh. Just thought.
Why did you consider it an argument? Maybe that’s why all the Python stuff came up. It does not really seem to be an argument. A piece of observed wisdom?
I was sure you were gonna say COVFEFE.