Karma

Karma is the doctrine, central to Indian philosophical and religious traditions, that intentional actions produce consequences that condition the agent's future experience. The Sanskrit word means action or deed, and the philosophical doctrine builds out from a moral physics in which every voluntary act leaves a residue that ripens, sooner or later, in the agent's own life — or, on most classical accounts, across a series of lives.

Different Indian schools develop the doctrine differently. The orthodox Hindu schools (Mimamsa, Vedanta) treat karma as a real metaphysical mechanism that ties the soul (atman) to the cycle of rebirth (samsara), with liberation (moksha) consisting in the cessation of karma. Buddhist philosophy retains the doctrine of karma but reframes it without an enduring soul: it is the stream of conditioned states, not a substantial self, that bears the consequences of action. Jain philosophy gives karma the most physicalized account, treating it as a kind of subtle matter that adheres to the soul.

The Indian schools developed sophisticated technical accounts of how karma operates. The Mimamsa school treats karmic residues as a kind of unseen potency (apurva) generated by ritual action. The Yoga school analyzes them as samskaras — psychological imprints that condition future cognition and action. Buddhist philosophy reframes karma without an enduring soul: it is a stream of conditioned states, not a substantial self, that bears the consequences of action.

Western philosophy has historically treated karma either as a religious doctrine outside its proper subject matter or as a useful contrast case for thinking about moral causation and personal identity. Recent comparative philosophy — Roy Perrett, Jonardon Ganeri, Owen Flanagan — has read the Indian discussions as serious philosophical contributions to debates over moral responsibility, the metaphysics of agency, and the relation of the moral and the natural orders.