Editing Karma (section)

==Discussion==
===Free will and destiny===

One of the significant controversies with the karma doctrine is whether it always implies [[destiny]], and its implications on free will. This controversy is also referred to as the [[moral agency]] problem;<ref name=wrkaufman>Kaufman, W. R. (2005), Karma, rebirth, and the problem of evil, Philosophy East and West, pp 15–32</ref> the controversy is not unique to karma doctrine, but also found in some form in [[Monotheism|monotheistic religions]].<ref>[Moral responsibility] Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University (2009); Quote – "Can a person be morally responsible for her behavior if that behavior can be explained solely by reference to physical states of the universe and the laws governing changes in those physical states, or solely by reference to the existence of a sovereign God who guides the world along a divinely ordained path?"</ref>

The free will controversy can be outlined in three parts:<ref name=wrkaufman/>

# A person who kills, rapes or commits any other unjust act, can claim all his bad actions were a product of his karma:  he is devoid of free will, he can not make a choice, he is an agent of karma, and he merely delivers necessary punishments his "wicked" victims deserved for their own karma in past lives. Are crimes and unjust actions due to free will, or because of forces of karma?
# Does a person who suffers from the unnatural death of a loved one, or rape or any other unjust act, assume a moral agent is responsible, that the harm is gratuitous, and therefore seek justice? Or, should one blame oneself for bad karma over past lives, and assume that the unjust suffering is fate?
# Does the karma doctrine undermine the incentive for moral education—because all suffering is deserved and consequence of past lives, why learn anything when the balance sheet of karma from past lives will determine one's action and sufferings?<ref>Herman, Arthur (1976), The Problem of Evil in Indian Thought, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas</ref>

The explanations and replies to the above free will problem vary by the specific school of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. The schools of Hinduism, such as [[Yoga (philosophy)|Yoga]] and [[Advaita Vedanta]], that have emphasized current life over the dynamics of karma residue moving across past lives, allow free will.<ref name=Coward-Karma/> Their argument, as well of other schools, are threefold:

# The theory of karma includes both the action and the intent behind that action. Not only is one affected by past karma, one creates new karma whenever one acts with intent – good or bad. If intent and act can be proven beyond reasonable doubt, new karma can be proven, and the process of justice can proceed against this new karma. The actor who kills, rapes or commits any other unjust act, must be considered as the moral agent for this new karma, and tried.
# Life forms not only receive and reap the consequence of their past karma, together they are the means to initiate, evaluate, judge, give and deliver consequence of karma to others.
# Karma is a theory that explains some evils, not all (cf. [[moral evil]] versus [[natural evil]]).<ref>Reichenbach, Bruce (1990), The Law of Karma, University of Hawaiʻi Press, Honolulu, {{ISBN|978-0-333-53559-2}}</ref><ref name="mdeb" />

Other schools of Hinduism, as well as Buddhism and Jainism that do consider cycle of rebirths central to their beliefs and that karma from past lives affects one's present, believe that both free will (''[[cetanā]]'') and karma can co-exist; however, their answers have not persuaded all scholars.<ref name="wrkaufman" /><ref name="mdeb">Matthew Dasti and Edwin Bryant (2013), Free Will, Agency, and Selfhood in Indian Philosophy, Oxford University Press, {{ISBN|978-0-19-992275-8}}</ref>

===Psychological indeterminacy===
Another issue with the theory of karma is that it is psychologically indeterminate, suggests Obeyesekere (1968).<ref name=goerl>G. Obeyesekere (1968), Theodicy, sin and salvation in a sociology of Buddhism, Practical religion, Editor: E.R. Leach, Cambridge University Press</ref> That is, if no one can know what their karma was in previous lives, and if the karma from past lives can determine one's future, then the individual is psychologically unclear what if anything he or she can do now to shape the future, be more happy, or reduce suffering. If something goes wrong, such as sickness or failure at work, the individual is unclear if karma from past lives was the cause, or the sickness was caused by curable infection and the failure was caused by something correctable.<ref name=goerl/>

This psychological indeterminacy problem is also not unique to the theory of karma; it is found in every religion adopting the premise that God has a plan, or in some way influences human events. As with the karma-and-free-will problem above, schools that insist on primacy of rebirths face the most controversy. Their answers to the psychological indeterminacy issue are the same as those for addressing the free will problem.<ref name=mdeb/>

===Transferability===
Some schools of Indian religions, particularly within [[Buddhism]], allow transfer of karma merit and demerit from one person to another. This transfer is an exchange of non-physical quality just like an exchange of physical goods between two human beings. The practice of karma transfer, or even its possibility, is controversial.<ref name="ReferenceA"/><ref>see:
* Charles Keyes (1983), Merit-Transference in the Kammic Theory of Popular Theravada Buddhism, In Karma, Editors: Charles Keyes and [[Valentine Daniel]], Berkeley, University of California Press;
* F.L. Woodward (1914), The Buddhist Doctrine of Reversible Merit, The Buddhist Review, Vol. 6, pp 38–50</ref> Karma transfer raises questions similar to those with [[substitutionary atonement]] and vicarious punishment. It undermines the ethical foundations, and dissociates the causality and ethicization in the theory of karma from the moral agent. Proponents of some Buddhist schools suggest that the concept of karma merit transfer encourages religious giving and that such transfers are not a mechanism to transfer bad karma (i.e., demerit) from one person to another.

In Hinduism, Sraddha rites during funerals have been labelled as karma merit transfer ceremonies by a few scholars, a claim disputed by others.<ref>Ronald Wesley Neufeldt, Karma and Rebirth: Post Classical Developments, State University of New York Press, {{ISBN|978-0-87395-990-2}}, pp 226, see Footnote 74</ref> Other schools in Hinduism, such as the [[Yoga (philosophy)|Yoga]] and [[Advaita Vedanta|Advaita Vedantic]] philosophies, and Jainism hold that karma can not be transferred.<ref name=wdointro/><ref name=wdochapter1/>

===The problem of evil===
There has been an ongoing debate about karma theory and how it answers the [[problem of evil]] and related problem of [[theodicy]]. The problem of evil is a significant question debated in monotheistic religions with two beliefs:<ref>{{cite book |author=R. Green |year=2005 |chapter=Theodicy |title=The Encyclopedia of Religion |edition=2nd |editor=Lindsay Jones |volume=12 |publisher=Macmillan Reference |isbn=978-0-02-865733-2}}</ref>

# There is one God who is absolutely good and compassionate ([[Omnibenevolence|omnibenevolent]]); and
# That one God knows absolutely everything ([[Omniscience|omniscient]]) and is all powerful ([[Omnipotence|omnipotent]]).

The problem of evil is then stated in formulations such as, "why does the omnibenevolent, omniscient and omnipotent God allow any evil and suffering to exist in the world?" Sociologist [[Max Weber]] extended the problem of evil [[Sociology of Religion (book)|to Eastern traditions]].<ref>Max Weber (Translated by Fischoff, 1993), The Sociology of Religion, Beacon Press, {{ISBN|978-0-8070-4205-2}}, pp. 129–153</ref>

The problem of evil, in the context of karma, has been long discussed in Eastern traditions, both in theistic and non-theistic schools; for example, in ''[[Uttara Mīmāṃsā]]'' Sutras Book 2 Chapter 1;<ref>Francis Clooney (2005), in The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism (Editor: [[Gavin Flood]]), Wiley-Blackwell, {{ISBN|0-631-21535-2}}, pp. 454–455</ref><ref>Francis Clooney (1989), "Evil, Divine Omnipotence and Human Freedom: Vedanta's theology of Karma", ''Journal of Religion'', Vol. 69, pp 530–548</ref> the 8th century arguments by [[Adi Shankara|Adi Sankara]] in [[Brahma Sutras|''Brahma Sutra'']] ''[[Bhashya|bhasya]]'' where he posits that God cannot reasonably be the cause of the world because there exists moral evil, inequality, cruelty and suffering in the world;<ref name="bilimoria">P. Bilimoria (2007), Karma's suffering: A Mimamsa solution to the problem of evil, in Indian Ethics (Editors: Bilimoria et al.), Volume 1, Ashgate Publishing, {{ISBN|978-0-7546-3301-3}}, pp. 171–189</ref><ref>See Kumarila's ''Slokavarttika''; for English translation of parts and discussions: P. Bilimoria (1990), "Hindu doubts about God {{en dash}} Towards a Mimamsa Deconstruction", ''International Philosophical Quarterly'', 30(4), pp. 481–499</ref> and the 11th century theodicy discussion by [[Ramanuja]] in ''[[Sri Bhasya]]''.<ref name="bilimoria2013" /> Epics such as the ''[[Mahabharata]]'', for example, suggest three prevailing theories in ancient India as to why good and evil exist {{en dash}} one being that everything is ordained by God, another being karma, and a third citing chance events (''yadrccha'', यदृच्छा).<ref name="ehudson" /><ref>Manmatha Nath Dutt (1895), English translation of The Mahabharata, Udyoga Parva, Chapter 159, verse 15</ref> The ''Mahabharata'', which includes Hindu deity [[Vishnu]] in the [[Vishnu#Avatars|avatar]] of [[Krishna]] as one of the central characters, debates the nature and existence of suffering from these three perspectives, and includes a theory of suffering as arising from an interplay of chance events (such as floods and other events of nature), circumstances created by past human actions, and the current desires, volitions, dharma, adharma and current actions (''purusakara'') of people.<ref name="ehudson" /><ref>Gregory Bailey (1983), Suffering in the Mahabharata: Draupadi and Yudhishthira, Purusartha, No. 7, pp. 109–129</ref><ref>[[Alf Hiltebeitel]] (2001), Rethinking the Mahabharata: A Reader's Guide to the Education of the Dharma King, University of Chicago Press, {{ISBN|978-0-226-34053-1}}, Chapters 2 and 5</ref> However, while karma theory in the ''Mahabharata'' presents alternative perspectives on the problem of evil and suffering, it offers no conclusive answer.<ref name="ehudson">Emily Hudson (2012), Disorienting Dharma: Ethics and the Aesthetics of Suffering in the Mahabharata, Oxford University Press, {{ISBN|978-0-19-986078-4}}, pp. 178–217</ref><ref>P.B. Mehta (2007), The ethical irrationality of the world {{en dash}} Weber and Hindu Ethics, in Indian Ethics (Editors: Billimoria et al.), Volume 1, Ashgate, {{ISBN|978-0-7546-3301-3}}, pp. 363–375</ref>

Other scholars<ref>Ursula Sharma (1973), Theodicy and the doctrine of karma, ''Man'', Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 347–364</ref> suggest that [[Nontheism|nontheistic]] Indian religious traditions do not assume an omnibenevolent creator, and some<ref>The Nyaya-Vaisesika school of Hinduism is one of the exceptions where the premise is similar to the Christian concept of an omnibenevolent, omnipotent creator</ref> theistic schools do not define or characterize their God(s) as monotheistic Western religions do and the deities have colorful, complex personalities; the Indian deities are personal and cosmic facilitators, and in some schools conceptualized like Plato's [[Demiurge]].<ref name="bilimoria2013">P. Bilimoria (2013), Toward an Indian Theodicy, in The Blackwell Companion to the Problem of Evil (Editors: McBrayer and Howard-Snyder), 1st Edition, John Wiley & Sons, {{ISBN|978-0-470-67184-9}}, Chapter 19</ref> Therefore, the problem of theodicy in many schools of major Indian religions is not significant, or at least is of a different nature than in Western religions.<ref>G. Obeyesekere (I968), Theodicy, sin and salvation in a sociology of Buddhism, in Practical religion (Ed. Edmund Leach), Cambridge University Press, {{ISBN|978-0-521-05525-3}}</ref> Many Indian religions place greater emphasis on developing the karma principle for first cause and innate justice with Man as focus, rather than developing religious principles with the nature and powers of God and divine judgment as focus.<ref>B. Reichenbach (1998), Karma and the Problem of Evil, in Philosophy of Religion Toward a Global Perspective (Editor: G.E. Kessler), Wadsworth, {{ISBN|978-0-534-50549-3}}, pp. 248–255</ref> Some scholars, particularly of the [[Nyaya|Nyaya school]] of Hinduism and Sankara in ''Brahma Sutra bhasya'', have posited that karma doctrine implies existence of god, who administers and affects the person's environment given that person's karma, but then acknowledge that it makes karma as violable, contingent and unable to address the problem of evil.<ref>Bruce R. Reichenbach (1989), Karma, Causation, and Divine Intervention, Philosophy East and West, Vol. 39, No. 2, pp. 135–149</ref> Arthur Herman states that karma-transmigration theory solves all three historical formulations to the problem of evil while acknowledging the theodicy insights of Sankara and Ramanuja.<ref>Arthur Herman, The problem of evil and Indian thought, 2nd Edition, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, {{ISBN|81-208-0753-7}}, pp. 5 with Part II and III of the book</ref>

Some theistic Indian religions, such as Sikhism, suggest evil and suffering are a human phenomenon and arises from the karma of individuals.<ref>P. Singh, Sikh perspectives on health and suffering: A focus on Sikh theodicy, in Religion, Health and Suffering (Editors: John Hinnells and Roy Porter), Routledge, {{ISBN|978-0-7103-0611-1}}, pp. 111–132</ref> In other theistic schools such as those in Hinduism, particularly its Nyaya school, karma is combined with [[dharma]] and evil is explained as arising from human actions and intent that is in conflict with dharma.<ref name=bilimoria2013/> In nontheistic religions such as Buddhism, Jainism and the Mimamsa school of Hinduism, karma theory is used to explain the cause of evil as well as to offer distinct ways to avoid or be unaffected by evil in the world.<ref name=bilimoria/>

Those schools of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism that rely on karma-rebirth theory have been critiqued for their theological explanation of suffering in children by birth, as the result of his or her sins in a past life.<ref>Whitley Kaufman (2005), Karma, rebirth, and the problem of evil, Philosophy East & West, Vol. 55, No. 1, pp. 15–32</ref> Others disagree, and consider the critique as flawed and a misunderstanding of the karma theory.<ref>Chadha and Trakakis (2007), Karma and the Problem of Evil: A Response to Kaufman, Philosophy East & West, Vol. 57, No. 4, pp. 533–556</ref>