Path as a Structure for Buddhist Ethics

This chapter examines the use of the path metaphor in Buddhist ethics, connecting it to the emphasis on moral phenomenology and to the particularism of Buddhist ethics. It discusses how the concept of a path is used in Buddhist literature, in both the internal and external sense, as well as how these paths may be both followed and cultivated by practitioners. Various uses of this metaphor are addressed throughout the chapter, as well as the objectives and methods associated with each. Discussion includes the eightfold path, the path of purification, the graduated path, the bodhisattva path, and the tantric path.

The Broad Structure of Buddhist Ethics

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

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

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.

Evaluative experiences: the epistemological significance of moral phenomenology

Recently, a number of phenomenological approaches to experiential justification emerged according to which an experience's justificatory force is grounded in the experience’s distinctive phenomenology. The basic idea is that certain experiences exhibit a presentive phenomenology and that they are a source of immediate justification precisely by virtue of their presentive phenomenology. Such phenomenological approaches usually focus on perceptual experiences and mathematical intuitions. In this paper, I aim at a phenomenological approach to ethical experiences. I shall show that we need to make a distinction between evaluative experiences directed at concrete cases and ethical intuitions directed at general principles. The focus will be on evaluative experiences. I argue that evaluative experiences constitute a sui generis type of experience that gain their justificatory force by virtue of their presentive evaluative phenomenology. In Sect. 1, I introduce and motivate the phenomenological idea that certain experiences exhibit a justification-conferring phenomenology. In Sect. 4, I apply this idea to morally evaluative experiences. In Sect. 5, I suggest that certain epistemic intuitions should be considered epistemically evaluative experiences and I outline a strong parallelism between ethics and epistemology.

Responsive Phenomenology of God: On Varying Divine Evidence

A ‘phenomenology of God’ will characterize human experience of God, at least regarding some of its distinctive aspects. This article contends that theism acknowledging a God worthy of worship owes its ultimate credibility to a morally relevant phenomenology of God, given the centrality of God’s unique moral character and will in all things divine. The neglect of such a phenomenology has left many versions of theism speculative and uncompelling, even if they call themselves a ‘phenomenology of the Spirit’. So, inquirers about a God worthy of worship should attend carefully to the prospect of a morally relevant phenomenology of God. The article explains that this phenomenology is interpersonally responsive and thus interactive in a manner foreign to typical moral phenomenology, and that it contributes to an illuminating approach to varying divine evidence among humans. The article also identifies a morally relevant challenge, based in conscience, for sincere inquirers about God.

To Trust the Liar: Løgstrup and Levinas on Ethics, War, and Openness

Despite their many similarities, one apparent difference between the ethics of K.E. Løgstrup and Emmanuel Levinas concerns trust: Levinas does not analyse trust as a morally significant phenomenon, whereas Løgstrup makes it a central component of his moral phenomenology. This paper argues that an analysis of Løgstrupian trust nonetheless reveals at least three important commonalities between Levinas and Løgstrup’s moral projects: an understanding of war and ethics as metaphysical opposites; an emphasis on openness to the other as something that transcends the prudential order of norms and laws; and a view of the ethical as that which breaks into and disrupts the order of human instrumental calculation.