With this in mind, we can explain how persons can count as the
natural facts on which at least some moral facts supervene. At the conventional-level,
persons exist and facts about them count as facts about
the natural world. At the ultimate-level, of course, persons do not exist,
but that’s irrelevant. What is relevant is that talking about persons coheres
with
common
sense
(because
we
commonly
recognize
that
persons
exists)
and
reliably
promotes
successful
practice
(because
even
the
Buddha
has to communicate his teachings with reference to persons). As a
result, goodness supervenes on facts about persons who count as natural
in the special sense that they reflect how we effectively talk about both
the world and ourselves. It might seem best to avoid talking of natural
facts and talk instead of conventional facts, but this would suggest a constructivism
and relativism not present in the Pāli Buddhist tradition.
Whatever the conventional facts about persons might be, they hold for
all persons. We all share in the human condition. We are all empty. We
all share in suffering, at least initially, and we must all strive to eliminate
suffering. In these important respects, we are all the same.
Another way to put the point is in terms of the classical doctrine
of samsāra. Instead of talking about our ultimate nature, whatever that
might be, we can talk instead about our samsāric nature, which is such
that we are all suffering in the round of death and rebirth. What’s important
to note is that, although beings that can suffer (sentient beings
like us) are not ontologically basic according to the Pāli Buddhist tradition,
they
are
morally
basic
according
to
the
Nirodha
View.
The moral primacy of persons is another important feature of the
Nirodha View because it helps us understand the often puzzlingly ways in
which the Buddha talks about parinirvāṇa in particular. According to the
early Buddhist tradition, parinirvāṇa is, at the very least, (a state?) beyond
samsāra—that
is,
beyond
the
conventional
realm
in
which
we
suffer
and with which we are conceptually familiar. This means that sentient