The Broad Structure of Buddhist Ethics

2021 ◽  
pp. 18-28
Author(s):  
Jay L. Garfield
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Theory ◽  
Buddhist Ethics ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Moral Phenomenology ◽  
Deontological Theory ◽  
Consequentialist Theory ◽  
Broad Structure ◽  
The Way

This chapter argues that Buddhist ethics does not fit into any of the standard Western metaethical theories. It is neither an instance of a virtue theory, nor of a deontological theory, nor of a consequentialist theory. It is closer to a sentimentalist theory, but different from those as well. Instead, it defends a reading of Buddhist ethics as a moral phenomenology and as particularist, utilizing casuistic reasoning. That is, Buddhist ethics is concerned primarily with the transformation of experience, of the way we perceive ourselves and other moral agents and patients. This chapter also argues that the metaphor of path structures Buddhist ethical thought.

Buddhist Ethics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay L. Garfield
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Buddhist Philosophy ◽  
Ethical Reflection ◽  
Buddhist Ethics ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Buddhist Literature ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Moral Phenomenology ◽  
Distinct Approach ◽  
The Way

This volume is one of a series of monographs on Buddhist philosophy for philosophers. It presents an outline of Buddhist ethical thought, presenting Buddhist ethical reflection as a distinct approach, or rather set of approaches, to moral philosophy. The book draws on a range of Buddhist philosophers to exhibit the internal diversity of the tradition as well as the lineaments that demonstrate its overarching integrity. This includes early Pāli texts, medieval Indian commentarial literature and philosophical treatises, Tibetan commentaries and treatises, and contemporary Buddhist literature. It argues that Buddhist ethics is best understood not as a species of any Western ethical tradition, but instead as a kind of moral phenomenology, and that it is particularist in its orientation. The book addresses both methodological and doctrinal issues and concludes with a study of the way that Buddhist ethical thought is relevant in the contemporary world.

Buddhist Ethics as Moral Phenomenology

2021 ◽  
pp. 29-42
Author(s):  
Jay L. Garfield
Keyword(s):  
Moral Experience ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Buddhist Ethics ◽  
Moral Self ◽  
Moral Phenomenology ◽  
Buddhist Practice ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

This chapter explains Buddhist ethics as moral phenomenology, that is, as a theory of the transformation of our moral experience of ourselves, others, and the world. It compares Buddhist “input ethics” to Western “output ethics” and explains how Buddhist practice aims at developing a less pathological, less egocentric view of our place in the world by cultivating a sense of interdependence. The discussion is grounded in Śāntideva’s Bodhicāryāvatāra, and explores his insights on anger, aversion, vice, and generosity. Śāntideva argues for the importance of developing our moral self-awareness, and changing the way we view suffering, both of ourselves and others.

scholarly journals Brutus' Ultimum dilemma or Is there a moral justification for killing Caesar?

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 517-534
Author(s):  
Evgenij Derzhivitskij ◽  
Vadim Perov ◽  
Andrey Polozhentsev
Keyword(s):  
Public Good ◽  
Public Utility ◽  
Moral Justification ◽  
Moral Choice ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Philosophical Reflection ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Purpose ◽  
Political Works ◽  
The Way

The article examines how to apply moral and philosophical reflection in the commission of a crime. An action is the result of solving an equation with many variables. This is overcoming legal, moral, philosophical, and emotional contradictions. However, modern legal and ethical thought closes the way for understanding its causes and motives. As an example, we examine the conspiracy and murder of Caesar in Rome in 44 BC. The article reveals objective differences in the understanding of morality in antiquity and in modern ethical science. Here we analyze the philosophical and ethical grounds that will help solve this dilemma. First of all, we considered the philosophical and political works and letters of Cicero. His reasoning about the duties of a citizen might have influenced Brutus' decision to participate in the conspiracy against Caesar and accept the moral choice as his fate. Brutus did not act as a murderer, but as an exponent of public purpose and public utility, for whom the purpose of the act was the public good, incompatible with tyranny.

A Mirror Is for Reflection

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Owen Flanagan
Keyword(s):  
Early Career ◽  
New Work ◽  
Buddhist Ethics ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Ethical Imperative ◽  
Cultural Perspectives ◽  
Philosophical Dialogue ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Contemporary Work

This volume offers a snapshot of the present state of academic investigation into the nature of Buddhist ethics. Over the past decade many scholars have come to think that the project of fitting Buddhist ethical thought into Western philosophical categories may be of limited utility, and the focus of investigation has shifted in a number of new directions. Contributions to these recent investigation from many of the leading figures in the academic study of Buddhist philosophy are collected here alongside exciting new work from a number of early-career scholars. Topics include the nature of Buddhist ethics as a whole as well as the role in Buddhist ethics of karma and rebirth, mindfulness, narrative, intention, personhood, agency, free will, politics, anger, and equanimity, among other areas. The volume offers a rich and accessible introduction to contemporary work on Buddhist thought for students and scholars new to this area of philosophy, as well as chapters taking up more technical philosophical and textual topics. The contributors aim to engage Buddhist traditions in a rigorous, critical, and respectful philosophical dialogue, rather than to document these traditions as historical curiosities. The chapters of this volume stand as contributions to the emerging field of cosmopolitan philosophy, demonstrating by example why considering ethical questions such as how we ought to live, act, and train our minds from a plurality of cultural perspectives is itself an ethical imperative today.

The Rule Worship and Idealization Objections Revisited and Resisted

2020 ◽  
pp. 131-155
Author(s):  
David Copp
Keyword(s):  
Order Theory ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Virtue Theory ◽  
Rule Consequentialism ◽  
Act Consequentialism ◽  
The Way

There are two familiar and important challenges to the rule consequentialist picture, Smart’s “rule worship objection” and the “idealization objection.” This chapter defends rule consequentialism (RC) against these challenges. It argues that to satisfactorily meet the rule worship objection, we need to reconceptualize RC. We need to think of it as not fundamentally a rival to act consequentialism or deontology or virtue theory. Instead, it can potentially adjudicate among these views. It is best viewed as a “second-order” theory that rests on a view about the nature and point of morality. The rule worship objection can be answered if we interpret RC in this way. The idealization objection can seem more difficult because it appears to arise from the basic RC approach to evaluating rules. This chapter suggests, however, that the idealization objection boils down to a familiar problem about conflicts of pro tanto duties. RC can handle it in the way that it handles such conflict.

scholarly journals Sobre a possibilitação noética da felicidade – Uma aproximação sistemática entre Duns Scotus e Mestre Eckhart

2005 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Guerizoli
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Duns Scotus ◽  
Human Happiness ◽  
The Way

Este estudo compara elementos do pensamento ético de Duns Scotus e de Mestre Eckhart. Na base desta relação, está a ética de Tomás de Aquino e a sua doutrina da felicidade, cuja análise, aqui, se centra particularmente na noção de lumen gloriae. Interessa ao autor a forma como o tema tomasiano foi abordado sistematicamente por Duns Scotus e Eckhart, oportunizando uma aproximação teórica entre os dois filósofos. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Duns Scotus. Mestre Eckhart. Felicidade humana. “Luz da glória”. ABSTRACT This study compares the ethical thought of Duns Scotus and Master Eckhart. Based on this comparison stays the ethics of Thomas Aquinas and his doctrine of human happiness. The analysis of that doctrine is made here particularly through the notion of lumen gloriae. The author is interested on the way this theme from Thomas Aquinas was approached systematically by Duns Scotus and Eckhart, opening the way for a theoretical dialogue between both philosophers. KEY WORDS – Duns Scotus. Master Eckhart. Human happiness. “Light of glory”.

scholarly journals The Ethical Importance of Close Relationships

Etyka ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 9-30
Author(s):  
Joanna Iwanowska
Keyword(s):  
Moral Agency ◽  
Close Relationships ◽  
Narrative Identity ◽  
Main Task ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
The People ◽  
Narrative Truth ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
The Way

The main task of this paper is to draw a normative picture of close interpersonal bonds and demonstrate why they are ethically relevant and important. I start by showing that the notion of ‘close relationships’ is a notion in its own right—overlapping with but not reducible to the notion of ‘love,’ ‘friendship,’ or ‘kinship.’ Then, I go on to discuss particular features of close relationships. I start with consensuality, reciprocity, persistence in time. After that, I move on to non-instrumental treatment and the mutual sharing of responsibility, which is connected with treating the interests of the close other as one’s own. Another features I discuss are truthfulness in the way we narrate our autobiographical stories, openness to the close other’s co-creation of our narrative truth, and the readiness to co-create the narrative truth of the close other in return. Finally, I focus on trust; I show that the kind of trust which is characteristic of close relationships is connected with particular competences that a person should manifest in order to be a trustworthy close-relationship partner. From the fact that no person is morally infallible, it can be inferred that we need to depend on competent others in order to take full respon­sibility for ourselves as moral agents (we need to be inter-responsible). The people we choose to be in close relationships with are precisely such competent others; they are the guardians and the co-authors of our moral agency and our narrative identity.

scholarly journals Schopenhauer and Wittgenstein: Assessing the Buddhist influences on their conceptions of ethics

2004 ◽  
pp. 163-187
Author(s):  
Milan Vukomanovic
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Inappropriate Use ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Specific Sense ◽  
The Way

In the first part of this essay, the author discusses certain aspects of the Hindu and Buddhist philosophical and religious conceptions that could have made some impact on the European ethics before Schopenhauer. In the second part, he deals with various channels of possible Buddhist influence on Schopenhauer's ethical thought. Finally, in discussing Buddhist-Wittgenstein relationship, one is confronted with convergent, yet independent, responses to similar sets of problems. Independently, and less systematically than Buddhist philosophical schools, Wittgenstein indicates the way of liberation that cures from the "metaphysical pain " emerging from inappropriate use of language. His own project, however, was not metaphysical, but meta-linguistic in a very specific sense. The philosophical "cure" from the language disease leads ultimately to the "purification " and "decontamination " of thought: in turn, the mind rests in peace and silence before the senseless, paradoxical questions of the moral, esthetical religious or metaphysical character.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jake H. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Buddhist Ethics ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Ethical Imperative ◽  
The Third ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
Academic Study

This introduction offers a brief overview of the academic study of Buddhist ethics. Employing an analogy drawn from the P?li Buddhist texts, the first section discusses how the study of Buddhist texts on ethics can serve as a means of reflection on our actions and on our ways of thinking, both in traditional contexts and in the modern world. The second section briefly surveys some key principles of Buddhist ethical thought and their historical context. The third section offers an overview of the volume, its parts and individual chapters, drawing out key connections between the topics discussed. The introduction concludes with a discussion of the continuing legacy of colonialism in the academic study of Buddhist ethics, arguing that engaging (also) with non-Western systems of ethical thought—in a rigorous, critical, and respectful way—is itself an ethical imperative today.

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