Methodological Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-17
Author(s):  
Jay L. Garfield
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Buddhist Ethics ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Dependent Origination ◽  
Four Noble Truths

This chapter explores some of the methodological issues that arise from studying Buddhist ethics. It gives an overview of the four noble truths, and it argues that Buddhist ethical theory is grounded in the Buddhist metaphysical outlook captured by dependent origination, selflessness, and impermanence. It further argues that Buddhist ethics is an attempt to solve the ubiquity of suffering that is grounded in these three characteristics of reality, and that this solution is reflected in the eightfold path. Also addressed are the six realms of transmigration on the Buddhist Wheel of Life, and their applications to the forms of suffering.

Naturalism

2021 ◽  
pp. 169-179
Author(s):  
Jay L. Garfield
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Ethical Orientation ◽  
Buddhist Ethics

This chapter argues that naturalism is a virtue in an account of human experience, and thus desideratum in any ethical theory, and that Buddhist ethics is indeed naturalistic. In particular, its ethical orientation relies on no transcendent or transcendental concerns; its theory of the good is rooted in an account of human nature and the nature of the natural world, and its account of agency and responsibility is thoroughly causal. The chapter also discusses some of the aspects and implications of karma, including karmic fruition, the ways that our future lives are conditioned by our present ones, and the idea of collective karma.

scholarly journals Buddhist teachings and racial and social justice: similar paths to peace

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marisela Gomez
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Injustice ◽  
Dependent Origination ◽  
The World ◽  
Four Noble Truths ◽  
The Way

This discussion will summarize the direct ways Buddhist teachings, like social justice work, seek to investigate the way we construct and perceive the world in order to relieve the suffering of the world or achieve peace. It will review the teachings of the four noble truths, dependent origination, fabrications, and mindfulness as paths that can be used not only for relieving individual suffering but provide a framework for the path away from social injustice. Various non-Buddhist activists’ actions of love, non-harming, and non-violence-major Buddhist teachings- are presented as an example of how Buddhist teachings have been informing social justice work for years. This review brings together these concepts and practices in one short and summary reading to remind us how Buddhist teachings and social justice provide us the tools to understand injustices so as to arrive at peace in ourselves and the world.

Coda

2021 ◽  
pp. 199-202
Author(s):  
Jay L. Garfield
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Ethical Perception ◽  
Buddhist Ethics ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Moral Cultivation ◽  
Ethical Debate

This brief concluding chapter argues that Buddhist ethics constitutes a distinctive voice in ethical theory. While Buddhist ethical thought is distinct in both form and content from any of the major Western metaethical systems, it is supplementary to, rather than inconsistent with them. Buddhist ethics encourages us to look at the subjective, phenomenological side of ethics, and to foreground ethical perception and experience in our account of moral cultivation, as opposed to actions, rules, and consequences. By examining Buddhist ethical theory in conjunction with Western ethical theory, we can discover new questions that make our ethical debate richer than before.

The Nature of a Buddhist Path

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bronwyn Finnigan
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Common Element ◽  
Buddhist Ethics ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Constitutive Analysis ◽  
Normative Ethical Theory

Is there a “common element” in Buddhist ethical thought from which one might rationally reconstruct a Buddhist normative ethical theory? Many construe this as the question Which contemporary normative theory does Buddhist ethics best approximate: consequentialism or virtue ethics? This essay argues that two distinct evaluative relations underlie these positions: an instrumental and a constitutive analysis. This chapter raises some difficulties for linking these distinct analyses to particular normative ethical theories but gives reasons to think that both may be justified as meta-ethical grounds for rationally reconstructing Buddhist thought as an ethical theory. It closes with some reflections on the complexity involved in trying to establish a single and homogeneous position on the nature of Buddhist ethics.

“When You Know for Yourselves”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jake H. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Buddhist Ethics ◽  
Ethical Evaluation ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
External Stimuli

This essay offers a naturalistic reconstruction of Buddhist ethical theory, drawing on two central themes of early Buddhist thought. The early Buddhist dialogues of the Pāli Nikāyas and the Chinese Āgamas take as the primary focus of ethical evaluation an agent’s emotional motivations, qualities such as hatred or friendliness, craving or equanimity—what this essay terms “Qualities of Heart.” These dialogues emphasize that one can develop wisdom through the establishment of mindfulness (satipaṭṭhāna), a practice of becoming more fully and accurately aware of both internal and external stimuli. This paper brings these two proposals together with empirical and philosophical considerations to argue for the plausibility of a thesis that lies at the heart of Buddhist ethics: that for all human beings (at least) certain Qualities of Heart are unskillful (akusala); that other qualities are skillful (kusala); and that we can come to discern the difference for ourselves.

Suffering, Buddhist views of origination of

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marek Mejor
Keyword(s):  
General Formula ◽  
Dependent Origination ◽  
Buddhist Tradition ◽  
Buddhist Doctrine ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Buddha ◽  
Four Noble Truths ◽  
The Way

The Sanskrit term pratītyasamutpāda (Pāli, paṭiccasamuppāda) literally translates as ‘arising [of a thing] after encountering [its causes and conditions]’. This term, conventionally translated as ‘dependent origination’, ‘conditioned co-arising’ or ‘interdependent arising’, signifies the Buddhist doctrine of causality. This doctrine is usually applied to explain the origin of suffering (duḥkha) as well as the means of liberation from it. According to the Buddhist tradition, the Buddha discovered the law of dependent origination during his meditation on the night he attained his awakening. According to traditional accounts, he saw all his former lives and the lives of all other beings, understood the principle governing transmigration, and found the way of liberation. He then formulated the so-called Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Noble Path and the Law of Dependent Origination. The twelve elements of the chain of dependent origination were designed to explain the mechanism of entanglement of a sentient being in a wheel of consecutive lives, and, at the same time, to explain how this entanglement is possible without admitting the concept of a permanent principle, like ‘self’, ‘ego’, and the like. These twelve members are: (1) ignorance, (2) formations (volitional dispositions), (3) consciousness, (4) name and form, (5) six bases of cognition, (6) contact, (7) feeling, (8) desire, (9) attachment, (10) existence, (11) rebirth, (12) ageing and death. In addition to the twelvefold formula, there is also the so-called ‘general formula’ of dependent origination, which goes ‘when this is, that arises; when this is not, that does not arise.’

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