Points of Controversy

16.7. Of Matter as Morally Good or Bad

Controverted Point: That material qualities are (i.) good or moral, (ii.) bad or immoral.

Theravādin: Do you mean to imply that material qualities have a mental object, and the properties of mental adverting, of adjustment, etc.? Surely you agree that the opposite is true? And that, whereas you can predicate those things of the three moral motives or conditions, and of the five moral controlling powers, they do not fit the case of material qualities… .

(ii.) The same argument holds good for material qualities as immoral.

the Mahīsāsakas and Sammitīyas: But is not karma (moral action) of body and of speech either good or bad? Surely then material qualities engaged therein are also either good or bad?

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

This SuttaCentral edition was prepared by Bhikkhu Sujato, assisted by Jatin Patel and team from Hi-Tech Outsourcing, in 2013–2014. It contains several minor changes in terminology, the intent of which was to bring the translation in line with more commonly accepted renderings, while eliminating some ambiguities and archaisms. These were particularly apparent in the verses, so I have newly translated most of these. In addition, the corrections listed on pp. lv–lvi of the original edition incorporated in the text. Much of the text is highly compressed, and is often a paraphrase rather than a translation. All notes and excerpts from the commentaries have been omitted, with the exception of the identification of schools, which is marked with each argument. These do not entail that these schools existed at the time of the Kathāvatthu’s composition.

In May 2013, this volume was kindly released by the Pali Text Society under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 licence (CC BY-NC 3.0). The current SuttaCentral edition, including all revisions, corrections, additions, and modifications, is released under the same terms.

Prepared for SuttaCentral by Bhikkhu Sujato.