10.11 Of Non-Intimation as Immoral (KV10.11)

Controverted Point: That acts not intimating a moral purpose are immoral.

Theravādin: But the conduct that is immoral—taking life, theft, fornication, lying, intemperance—do you affirm that these are so many modes of non-intimation? You deny. (Then they are intimative, and some immoral acts are therefore intimative of moral purpose.)

If anyone giving in charity has resolved on some evil deed, do his merit and his demerit both grow thereby? If you assent, you are involved in two sets of mental procedure. And if you assent to this anomaly, you have good and bad, low and excellent, sinister and radiant states of mind simultaneously present, when, in fact, as the Exalted One said, they are as far apart as earth and sky, etc. Similarly for all courtesies shown by one who has resolved on some evil deed.

Mahāsaṅghika: But an evil deed, you admit, had been resolved upon, hence it is right to say that acts non-intimative of a moral thought behind them are immoral.

The Points of Controversy, an English translation of the Pali Abhidhamma Kathāvatthu. Translated by Shwe Zan Aung and C.A.F. Rhys Davids. First published by Pali Text Society, 1915.

This SuttaCentral edition was prepared by Manfred Wierich and Ven. Vimala and proofread by Josephine Tobin. Some changes were introduced:

Abbreviations, i.e., those of cited works and the participants in the controversies, were expanded.

Cross-references were linked.

Some typographic changes were introduced, among others, i.e.: the phonetic symbol “ŋ” was changed to the Pāli diacritical letter “ṃ”, “ô” to “o”, single quotes to double quotes, and “:—” to “:”.

Letter-spacing with fixed spaces was replaced with bold font.

The corrigenda were merged into the text. Some could not be resolved, though.

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