Virtue, utility, categorical imperative – these are reasons for oughts that may not be reconciled. I find this debate timeless and am constantly drawn to it. Thanks for posting.

Jagadish,
Interesting indeed! I need to think more about this, but I admit I am puzzled by Sen calling Arjuna’s position consequentialist and Krishna’s deontological. I am inclined to say it’s just the reverse!
After all, Arjuna thinks that no matter what the justification or eventual outcome of the war, it is simply wrong for him to go against and kill so many, including uncles and teachers he so reveres. He is powerfully swayed by his desire to preserve life and to love/respect his elders (much like a categorical imperative) and not by any calculation of a greater good for the world that may follow the war.
Krishna, on the other hand, despite his earlier opposition, now supports going to war from arguably a consequentialist standpoint (the “utility” he upholds is the pursuit of duty/dharma, deemed necessary for social order and well-being), in the service of which end all sorts of deontological concerns of Arjuna are dismissed and many devious acts justified (for e.g., Krishna’s advice to kill Karna when he is down, to get Bhima to hit Duryodhana “below the belt”, to sacrifice Bhima’s son Ghatotkacha, and to essentially lie to Drona about the death of his son Aswathaman). It seems to me that Krishna only preaches non-attachment to the consequence / outcome (perhaps to appeal to Arjuna’s deontological leanings?), but is himself extremely attached to it in practice, as his repeated violations of the protocols of war suggest.
What am I missing and why am I so far apart from Sen? I think Sen is speaking of something broader than mere utilitarianism, including agent-relative valuations in assessing consequences, which I’ll have to dig into further. Look for “Sen” in this article on consequentialism.

Jagadish,
Thanks for the useful links. As I see it, the world of the Mahabharata makes a big deal about respecting and honoring elders (gurus, parents, uncles, etc.; recall Bhishma’s vow of celibacy, or Eklavya giving up his thumb). In the Gita, Arjuna expresses a paralyzing, visceral distaste at the mere thought of killing them and his friends and cousins. It’s programmed into him as simply the wrong thing to do. To not harm his elders is to him an end in itself. That’s deontological, no? See, for instance, how Arjuna expresses his doubt:

O Krishna, I see my own relations here anxious to fight, and my limbs grow weak; my mouth is dry, my body shakes, and my hair is standing on end. My skin burns, and the bow Gandiva has slipped from my hand. I am unable to stand; my mind seems to be whirling. These signs bode evil for us. I do not see that any good can come from killing our relations in battle. O Krishna, I have no desire for victory, or for a kingdom or pleasures. Of what use is a kingdom or pleasure or even life, if those for whose sake we desire these things—teachers, fathers, sons, grandfathers, uncles, in-laws, grandsons, and others with family ties—are engaging in this battle, renouncing their wealth and their lives? Even if they were to kill me, I would not want to kill them, nor even to become ruler of the three worlds. How much less for the earth alone? … How can we gain happiness by killing members of our own family?
How can I ever bring myself to fight against Bhishma and Drona, who are worthy of reverence? How can I, Krishna? Surely it would be better to spend my life begging than to kill these great and worthy souls! If I killed them every pleasure I found would be tainted. I don’t even know which would be better, for us to conquer them or for them to conquer us.

However, Sen sees Arjuna’s distaste for this war as arising from “consequence-sensitive reasoning”. Indeed, a possible consequence is that he might end up killing lots of people. But I’m not at all convinced that this is a better reading of Arjuna’s doubt. He is after all a warrior. He is not turned off by the idea of war itself or its generally destructive consequences, but by the idea of fighting his kin and elders.
Krishna’s invocation of duty does seem deontological, though his actual behavior is so full of utilitarian calculus that one wonders whether he pitched duty to Arjuna as a means to an end. 🙂 That said, is it not possible that what we have here is a conflict entirely within deontology, i.e., about which of two deontological considerations is more precious? In the end, Krishna manages to persuade Arjuna that a warrior’s duty is weightier than a nephew’s obligation—both deontological—not the least by dazzling him with his godly form. 🙂

Namit,
At the outset let me state that it can be frustrating to hammer down ‘Hindu’ thoughts/ideas/ethics onto a ‘European’ grid. I think we are doing just that.:-)
You make me see an important point here when you state
“the world of the Mahabharata makes a big deal about respecting and honoring elders. In the Gita, Arjuna expresses a paralyzing, visceral distaste at the mere thought of killing them and his friends and cousins. It’s programmed into him as simply the wrong thing to do. To not harm his elders is to him an end in itself.”
I would call such respect/love for elders or familial piety as virtues. And virtues by their very nature can be conflicting and can stand as an ethical system only by many virtues moderating amongst themselves. So such virtues cannot be seen as deontology. Deontology would mean duties/imperatives that are independent of human emotions. Arjuna viscerally recoils at the thought of the killings. For Kant ‘will’ is the most important thing. Consequences of your will can be ( are?) accidents and hence cannot form the basis for a moral rule/evaluation. If you willed good the consequences of your act does not matter. Arjuna has already willed good, else he wouldn’t be at Kurukshetra, to seek/establish justice. It is only in considering the consequences – slaughter of his kin – he recoils. His emotions play a big part in his dilemma. His emotions come to life only when he considers the consequence. His emotions supercedes his will. Hence I cannot see Arjuna’s position as deontological. This is when Krishna asks him to do his duty and not consider the fruits/consequences of it. Isn’t this like what Kant says?
“He is after all a warrior. He is not turned off by the idea of war itself or its generally destructive consequences, but by the idea of fighting his kin and elders.”
I think you are making a distinction between killing per se and killing one’s kin/elders. As a warrior he doesn’t care about killing but does care about killing his kin because of some decree?. Does Manu Smriti say anything like this? It does makes many stupid demands like this
“Throughout India, Manu’s dharmasastra is held in the highest esteem. In Tamil Nadu there was a king who earned the name of “Manu-niti-kanda-Cola” for the exemplary manner in which he administered justice. Once a calf got crushed under the wheel of the chariot ridden by his son. The king was so fair and strict that, when the aggrieved cow, the mother of the calf, sought justice, he ordered his son to be crushed to death under the wheel of the same chariot.”
So is ‘Thou shall not kill your kin’ a inviolable law like ‘Thou shall not kill a calf’? I guess not.
Krishna does use utilitarian calculus/realpolitik throughout the epic. But as I quoted Sen before – “Indeed, with Krishna’s gradual transformation from being a noble but partisan patron of the Pandavas in the epic to being an incarnation of God, as he is in later Hinduism, the conversation with Arjuna has become a document of great theological importance” – Krishna addresses Arjuna as a God in Gita. In this sense, as I see it, there is a demand to view the conversation independently. He is a Kantian if you can grant that( or Kant was Gita’s Krishna ;-)).