Monima Chadha on Responsibility Without Selves

Summary

Podcast Summary: Philosophy Bites

Episode: Monima Chadha on Responsibility Without Selves
Hosts: David Edmonds & Nigel Warburton
Guest: Monima Chadha (Professor of Indian Philosophy, Oxford University)
Date: May 18, 2026

---

Overview

This episode features Monima Chadha discussing a profound topic in both Buddhist philosophy and modern debates about personal identity: How can there be moral responsibility if, as both Buddhist thought and the work of Derek Parfit assert, there are no enduring selves? Chadha explores classic Buddhist arguments, notably that of Vasubandhu, and clarifies how moral responsibility and ethical living can be conceived without appealing to a "self" as an enduring, metaphysical substance.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Buddhist No-Self View (Anatta)

• Explanation of the Doctrine:
  • Chadha distinguishes between the metaphysical self (like Descartes’ soul or the Hindu Atman) and the everyday, intuitive sense of being an enduring agent.
    • “One popular understanding of the Buddhist view is that we don't have something like a metaphysical soul substance...The Buddhists want to deny that there is an enduring self in virtue of which you are the same person over a lifetime and even perhaps beyond lifetimes.” (Monima Chadha, [01:02])
• Vasubandhu’s Argument:
  • Vasubandhu not only rejects an enduring soul but also our everyday, agent-based conception of the self.
  • For Buddhists, what we call “persons” is a convenient shorthand for ever-changing psychophysical aggregates.
    • “Persons for them is just a conventional expression. It's a shorthand way of saying this particular psychophysical aggregate which keeps changing over time.” (Chadha, [02:52])

2. Moral Motivation Behind the No-Self View

• Reduction of Suffering:
  • The Buddha’s core teaching is about the reality, cause, and cessation of suffering. The sense of self breeds self-interest and therefore suffering.
    • “The most important thing, I think motivating the Buddhists is if we think of ourselves as enduring selves...then with it comes self interest and comes anxiety about the fate of this future self. So that's what is motivating the Buddhist.” (Chadha, [03:33])
• Desire & the Four Noble Truths:
  • Desire, which presupposes a self to desire, is central to suffering; thus, dismantling the illusion of self is crucial to Buddhist ethics ([04:15]).

3. The Illusion of Agency — But Ethics Remain Possible

• Agency as a Construct:
  • There is no “doer” behind action—only mental and physical aggregates conditioning each other (“psychophysical aggregates”).
  • Example: Buying (or stealing) a mango is broken down into a chain: sensory perception → memory → intention → deliberation → action. At no point is a permanent self required.
    • “We can give an account of agency. We can give an account of action without the self. So why should we posit a self?” (Chadha, [07:35])
• Difference from Behaviorism:
  • Though similar to behaviorism's causal stories, Buddhists allow for intention and deliberation, not just automatic reaction.
    • “The Buddhists want to say that along the way there is room for forming an intention. There is room for deliberation about what my options are.” (Chadha, [08:11])

4. Responsibility Without Selves

• Conventional "I" Language:
  • 'I' is just a label, like a name, for the process, not a substance.
    • “The I is just a way of speaking, just, you know, like the name Monima.” (Chadha, [08:59])
• Moral Responsibility and Karma:
  • The Hindu objection: Without selves, how can karma (moral responsibility) be meaningful?
  • Vasubandhu’s answer: Responsibility is accounted for by transformations in the continuum of mental and physical states (the “stream of aggregates”).
    • “As soon as you do something wrong...anxiety arises...regret arises. That’s a change in my continuum. So Vasubandhu says, the way the stream of aggregates transforms from this point on, responsibility is taken care of.” (Chadha, [09:53])
• Is This Sufficient for Agency?
  • Warburton presses: Is this just causality, like bits of paper in the wind?
    • Chadha: Humans are rational, and rational deliberation still takes place. The problem is self-interest, and removing the self-concept could foster a more impersonal—and possibly better—morality.
      • “Our choices become the wrong choices, so to say, when they're guided by self interest. Instead of thinking we're just part of the causal nexus like everyone else.” (Chadha, [12:15])

5. Individuality & Biological Continuity

• Biological Organism Objection:
  • Warburton suggests that being a biological organism—with a continuous body—gives us individual identity.
    • Chadha replies: Individuation is not denied, but we don’t need a metaphysical self to explain it. Space and time are enough.
      • “If you just think of yourself as, you know, a psychophysical organism at a certain place and time, that's enough to individuate you.” (Chadha, [14:18])

6. Practical Morality and Buddhist Contribution

• Chadha’s Philosophical Journey:
  • Chadha was raised Hindu but moved away from belief in the Atman through exposure to Parfit and Buddhist arguments ([14:44]).
  • She urges more work to flesh out “impersonal morality” and thinks Buddhist ideas about responsibility, gratitude, and emotional regulation have broader relevance.
    • “People do not spend the time to even lay out what an impersonal morality would look like...Let's really lay out an impersonal morality and look at how it can be done.” (Chadha, [16:50])
• Social Needs for Responsibility Regimes:
  • Buddhist societies have systems (“regimes”) to prevent harm—these do not require an enduring self but can function conventionally ([15:53]).

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Self as Convention:
  • “Persons for them is just a conventional expression. It's a shorthand way of saying this particular psychophysical aggregate which keeps changing over time.” (Chadha, [02:52])
• On Suffering and Self-Interest:
  • “If we give up the self, then there is no need to have self interest. And that addresses a lot of suffering in this world.” (Chadha, [03:33])
• On Agency Without Self:
  • “We can give an account of agency. We can give an account of action without the self. So why should we posit a self?” (Chadha, [07:35])
• On the Buddhist Regime of Responsibility:
  • “We have to look at Buddhist practices. We have to understand why they say we shouldn't get angry, how they are thinking of gratitude without thinking of distinct selves.” (Chadha, [16:17])
• Call for Open-Minded Moral Philosophy:
  • “Let's really lay out an impersonal morality and look at how it can be done.” (Chadha, [16:50])

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:02] — Chadha explains the Buddhist denial of a metaphysical self
• [02:52] — The notion of “person” as a conventional label
• [03:33] — Connection between the self, anxiety, and suffering
• [07:10] — The mango example: agency explained without a self
• [09:53] — Vasubandhu’s account of responsibility through transformation of aggregates
• [12:15] — Rationality and the possibility of better choices without self-interest
• [14:18] — Biological identity versus metaphysical self
• [16:50] — Chadha’s main message: the need to take impersonal morality seriously

---

Final Thoughts

Chadha proposes that both Buddhist and analytic traditions like Parfit’s can robustly support moral responsibility and ethical regimes without assuming metaphysical selves. She further advocates for greater engagement with Buddhist thought in contemporary moral philosophy, especially regarding the development of “impersonal morality.” The episode challenges listeners to reconsider assumptions about personal identity, agency, and what it means to be responsible moral agents.

Transcript

[A]

This is Philosophy Bytes with me, David

[B]

Edmonds and me, Nigel Warburton.

[A]

Philosophy Bites is available at www.philosophybytes.com. monima Chadha, professor of Indian philosophy at Oxford University, has been influenced by both Buddhist philosophers, such as the 4th to 5th century Indian thinker Vasa Bandhu, and by the Oxford philosopher Derek Parfit. Buddhists and Parfit both face a puzzle. They deny the existence of an enduring self. But without a self, how can there be moral responsibility?

[B]

Welcome to Philosophy Bites.

[C]

Thank you for inviting me, Nigel. It's a pleasure to be here.

[B]

The topic we're going to talk about today is responsibility without selves. There is an almost cliched view about Buddhism that at its heart, it has this view that we do not have a self. Could you just explain how that could possibly be so? Because most of us go around most of the time feeling very much that we have selves or a self.

[C]

One popular understanding of the Buddhist view is that we don't have something like a metaphysical soul substance, very much like Descartes thoughts. And even the Hindus in the Indian tradition thought of the Atman as the soul substance, which accounts for identity over time. That's the thing that makes us the same thing over time. So what the Buddhists want to say, they want to deny that there is an enduring self in virtue of which you are the same person over a lifetime and even perhaps beyond lifetimes. But I think their critique of the self goes deeper. The argument that I have in mind was given by a 4th, 5th century Abhidharma philosopher, Vasu Bandhu, who questions not just the metaphysical soul substance, but also our intuitive conception of the self, where we think of the self as the agent who acts as the subject of experiences and the person who bears responsibility. Vasubandhu wants to give an account of all of those phenomenon without a self.

[B]

If I've understood this correctly, at a metaphysical level, there's just flux. The self is a kind of illusion that is generated by that flux. So if you're talking about agency, that's in Buddhist terms, it's going to be the illusion of agency. It can't be real agency because there isn't an agent to do things.

[C]

Yes, that's exactly right, Nigel. It is an illusion of agency. But the Buddhists want to show how you can have moral responsibility, have a morality, have an ethics without agency. That's what the project is about.

[B]

What I don't understand is if you don't believe there are selves, how there could be any persons as it were? To have an ethic.

[C]

So that's an interesting question. Parfit also was thinking in a similar way and he said, you know, we can talk as if there are agents, we can talk as if they're subjects of experience. But really this is just a way of talking. And the Buddhists have a similar kind of thing. You can have persons if you like, but this is just a way of talking. Persons for them is just a conventional expression. It's a shorthand way of saying this particular psychophysical aggregate which keeps changing over time, its person is a shorthand for that ever changing aggregate.

[B]

And is it the changing over time that is the incentive to think in

[C]

terms of no self that is part of the incentive. The most important thing, I think motivating the Buddhists is if we think of ourselves as enduring selves, having enduring selves, then with the comes self interest and comes anxiety about the fate of this future self. So that's what is motivating the Buddhist. If we give up the self, then there is no need to have self interest. And that addresses a lot of suffering in this world.

[B]

It was suffering that started the Buddhist's journey, as it were, to self understanding or understanding of the nature of reality. So it is a moral motivation, at least.

[C]

That's right, the motivation is moral. I mean, the first ever lecture, if you like, that the Buddha gave, the first ever sutta is just the four Noble Truths. And the first of them is there is suffering. The second is the suffering has a cause. Third is the suffering can be removed by removing the causes. And the fourth is the ethical path which tells you how to remove the suffering. So that's at the core part of the cause is desire. And desire means someone who has the desire. And that's the second sutta. So the second sermon that the Buddha ever delivered was to do with the no self view.

[B]

Does that mean if we have a more realistic sense of what we truly are, which is not selves but just part of being, that selfishness will just evaporate because we could still have the illusion of selves despite that.

[C]

You're absolutely right. The sense of self, the Buddhists also agree, or the illusion of self, as you put it. All ordinary human beings have this sense of self, but the idea is to realize that that sense of self is an illusion and we have to work towards getting rid of it.

[B]

So how does agency come into this?

[C]

So when we are thinking about the agent, you know, a popular way of thinking in philosophy about the agent is that the agent is the doer. The thing that makes the decision. And then the mind forms an intention and the body moves in a certain way. But there is someone behind the mind and the body, the you that is making the decisions. That's the intuitive notion of agency. And that's how philosophers like to think of it. The Buddhist says, well, there is nothing but the psychophysical aggregates, so there's nothing but the mind body complex. There's no you behind it. So how are they going to think of agency? Well, they want to say that just by explaining how these mental and physical aggregates mutually condition each other, we can explain agency. So here's my pet example. So suppose you are in a market in India at the end of summer. It's a fruit market. The mangoes at the end of summer are absolutely delicious. You can smell it in the air when you smell the mangoes. At least someone like me gets this memory of the mango that I used to have as a child. From that memory, one mental state. I form the intention to acquire that mango. From that intention, I put my hand in my pocket to find my wallet to be able to buy the mango. But I realize I don't have my wallet today. Unfortunately, it's going to be my last day in India and I really, really want to have that mango. I've also been at Oxford for some time, so I know I can run. And that gives me a thought. Maybe I can just steal the mango and run. So the Buddhist just says, you know, see how the thinking goes here. You start with a certain sensory impression, the smell. Then you go to the memory. Then comes the intention to acquire the mango. From the int, certain options are weighed, and then you realize the best or perhaps the worst option is to run away with the mango. Well, there you go. Where was the self involved? And that is in fact the essence of Vasubandhu's argument. He thinks the self has no work to do. We can give an account of agency. We can give an account of action without the self. So why should we posit a self?

[B]

That almost sounds like B.F. skinner's description of a behaviorist world where you're conditioned to do things and the mind can be a kind of black box in that situation.

[C]

Not quite. The Buddhists want to say that along the way there is room for forming an intention. There is room for deliberation about what my options are. I could have at that point said, well, I don't have the money. I just quietly walk away and sit somehow not fulfill my desire. But of course, I didn't do that. I deliberated and thought, I can run and do it and I really wanted the mango. So that's what I did. Bad action.

[B]

But you're talking in terms of I. I did this, I formed this intention. Ultimately we suggested there isn't a self behind everything. And so that's a kind of illusion. So where does any responsibility for action come from?

[C]

So the I is just a way of speaking, just, you know, like the name Manima. It's just a conventional expression. Responsibility is a very tricky issue. So this is an objection that is raised by the Hindus against the Buddhist in the text. And Vasubandhu's response to the Hindu who says you can't accept karma, which is the Indian version of moral responsibility and no self at the same time. Vasubundhu's response is to say that we can account for responsibility just by explaining how the continuum of mental and physical states. Remember, instead of an enduring cell, you've got a continuum of mental and physical states which keep changing over time. How the continuum transforms over a period of time, you don't need to posit anything over and above which stays the same you in order to account for responsibility. So let me give you an example. So as soon as you do something wrong, or even when you are contemplating doing something wrong, anxiety arises. That's a change in my continuum. After you've done something wrong, regret arises. That's a change in my continuum. So Vasubandhu says, the way the stream of aggregates transforms from this point on, responsibilities taken care of.

[B]

I don't see that that takes care of responsibility because it's just given me a chain of cause and effect. I can imagine two situations, one where somebody's responsible and one where somebody's irresponsible. Are we just going to say they just have different causal histories? Because that doesn't sound to me like agency. That sounds like being a subject to forces outside oneself.

[C]

That's a very good question, Nigel. I think that question arises because we are working with the assumption that we ourselves what we are wanting to do when we make that assumption, and this is where I think there is a dualist kind of tendency coming in, is because we want to posit something that is outside the causal nexus. But according to the Buddhists, me and you are just like everything else in the real world. We are just part of the causal nexus. If we have to posit something more than that to explain agency and responsibility, it's kind of going beyond what there is in the world.

[B]

Is this a bit like that example Wittgenstein used of a couple of bits of paper blowing about in the wind. And one says to the other one, oh, I think I'll go to the left now. And then it gets blown to the left and the other one says, I go to the right now, gets blown to the right. Is that what we're like just commenting on things which are really ultimately nothing to do with this?

[C]

I don't think the Buddhist is saying that. I mean, we are rational beings. The whole reason the Buddhist gives you a lot of arguments in favor of the no self is that we are rational beings. And so as, as rational beings we have the capacity to make right choices and in our deliberations bring in the kind of considerations that matter. Go back to my mango example. If I really thought that I am not a continuing self, I could have just put my self interest in acquiring that mango aside and gotten on with my day. But no, because we think we are important and our desires need to be fulfilled, we are hung up. Our choices become the wrong choices, so to say, when they're guided by self interest. Instead of thinking we're just part of the causal nexus like everyone else. And you know, we should make the best choices that we can to make sure that it's a better world for everyone, less suffering for everyone. It's not only less suffering for me in the future, what the Buddhist has in mind is to move towards a world where there is less suffering full stop.

[B]

And it's the most effective way of minimizing suffering in the world to maximize the number of people who realize that selves don't exist.

[C]

Well, that is a target that the Buddhists picked up on. But I think the reason why we tend not to take the no self view really seriously is we worry about, you know, what are we going to do about moral responsibility, what are we going to do about agency? It's because we have been enculturated into thinking in a certain way with the self behind the mental states. And that's what we need to get rid of.

[B]

To put another side of this, look, I'm a biological being that kind of gives me a kind of historical continuity because of the way my skin and cells and internal organs work and so on, and a kind of finite existence with a beginning, a middle and an end that feels like the source of myself to me. You could redescribe this all as part of the general flux, but I've been biologically separated out from other people. I'm not connected with you physically. We're in the same room. But I'M not growing out of your arm or something. We have these distinct selves. It seems quite a reasonable way to go about to think. Okay, I'm a biological organism. I need a certain amount of energy to keep going, and so I pursue things that will allow me to maximize my chance of survival.

[C]

If you just think of yourself as, you know, a psychophysical organism at a certain place and time, that's enough to individuate you. You're a human being at a certain place and time. Why do we need the self behind you? We need individuation. But there is space and time to put us in our place.

[B]

I can see from the passion with it you're speaking now that you're sympathetic to this view. Is this the way that you were brought up to be a Buddhist?

[C]

I was brought up as a Hindu, so I should be believing in the Atman if I followed what I was born as. But no philosophy has got me to this. Started thinking about Parfit, and then that took me to the Buddhist no self view. I just feel that people do not spend the time to even lay out what an impersonal morality would look like. Parfit, he says that in the last few years he worried very much about why people rejected that no one deserves to suffer. And you know, in some sense, I'm kind of thinking about why do we want to hold on to this, holding people responsible for the bad things they have done in the past because of a sense of justice or fairness? Perhaps we can think of doing morality better.

[B]

I suppose the answer to your last question is we sometimes want to hold people responsible because we're trying to stop them doing the same thing again. So we're saying that wasn't just your genes and your environment, but you actually at a certain point took a decision which resulted in you harming somebody else.

[C]

Yes, we're going to need some kind of a regime to stop human beings from harming others. Any kind of society that is successful has to have some kind of regime like that. And I think the Buddhists do have a regime like that. There are Buddhist societies all over the world, and there are Buddhists, Buddhist sanghas and monasteries. The idea here is to look at how responsibility is done. Rather than thinking that we can't do responsibility without ourselves, we have to look at Buddhist practices. We have to understand why they say we shouldn't get angry, how they are thinking of gratitude without thinking of distinct selves. All of that is work that needs to be done.

[B]

Would it be fair to say that your general approach is to show that Buddhist philosophy has actually got a lot to offer the Anglo American tradition, far beyond just a simple kind of human view that if you introspect, you can't find the self.

[C]

I think it has got something to offer, something more. And I think as philosophers, we should be open to laying out the modern landscape and just seeing for ourselves, is this a better world? My main message is we should not shy away from this enterprise just because we think giving up on the self means giving up on morality. Let's really lay out an impersonal morality and look at how it can be done.

[B]

Manama Cheddar. Thank you very much.

[C]

Thank you, Nigel.

[A]

You've been listening to Philosophy Bites. This episode was made in association with the Institute of Philosophy and supported by the Ideas Workshop, part of Open Society Foundations. For more philosophy bytes, go to philosophybytes. Com.