Buddhist Ethics Research Articles

Introduction to the Special Issue on Buddhist Moral Emotions

ABSTRACTThis introduction to the special issue on “Buddhist Moral Emotions” explains the need for analyzing affect and emotion for a full understanding of Buddhist ethics. The introduction surveys major works in the turn to affect and advocates for ethnographic research on Buddhism as a lived religion in order to address the role of emotion in Buddhist ethics.

Response to Focus Issue: Buddhist Moral Emotions

ABSTRACTHeim responds to the five articles by anthropologists concerned with contemporary Buddhist practices and ideologies of emotions, arguing that a history of emotions approach that attends to the centrality of emotions and their evaluations can be important for ethics. She submits that while sometimes studies of moral psychology in Buddhist ethics have focused on individuals, these articles suggest how emotions can have a very public and collective impact on social, economic, and political life. She is also interested in how these anthropological studies of contemporary Buddhist communities trouble textual accounts of Buddhist ethics on central questions of giving, karma, merit, and compassion.

Thai Conversation Learning and Teaching for Foreigners Based on Thai Culture Context in the CTLF Program at Kasetsart University: Evolution and Inno-Creative Approach

The objectives of this research article were to survey the evolution of Thai conversation learning based on Thai culture studies for foreign students in the International B.A. Program in Communicative Thai Language for Foreigners (CTLF) at Kasetsart University from the Program’s beginning up until the present day, and to explore the inno-creative approaches to be added in the digital era. The findings revealed that Thai conversation for foreigners was first offered as one of the core subjects in the International B.A. Program in the CTLF at Kasetsart University, which was founded in 2008. It has evolved and grown from the first program to the current program. Its course outlines have been revised based on content relevant to Thai culture studies. This has helped to achieve success in learning. To help Thai conversation learning become more successful in the digital era, the following 10 inno-creative approaches should be focused on, namely, 1. Digital and Innovative Learning and Teaching 2. Touch screen materials and inno-creative textbooks 3. Intellectual Networking and Joint Thai Learning and Teaching 4. Cross-cultural Communication through Inter-culture Diffusions 5. Learning and teaching based on multiculturalism 6. International Student Exchange Programs 7. Knowledge-career-life Skills 8. Continuing and Thai Language Learning and teaching Networking 9. High Technology-based Learning and teaching in the Digital Era and 10. Buddhist Moral knowledge and balanced development in the digital era. Furthermore, digital technologies and inno-creative learning such as devices and innovative textbooks as keys to success should be taken into account in order to drive Thai conversation learning.

Этика буддизма в свете западных нормативных этических теорий: этика добродетели

In the last two decades, a comparative trend has developed within the discipline of Buddhist ethics in which scholars argue which of the major Western normative ethical theories is closest to early Buddhism: virtue ethics, consequentialism, or deontology. This article is devoted to the view of Buddhist ethics as a variant of virtue ethics. The article begins with a statement of the basic provisions of Buddhist ethics on which researchers rely when constructing the theory of Buddhist ethics. The purpose of this article is to show why the comparison of Buddhist ethics with the virtue ethics of Aristotle seems to be a successful and productive variant of the conceptualising Buddhist ethics, able to compete with the equally popular consequentialist approach. The work is mainly based on the consideration of the argumentation proposed by Damien Keown, a researcher who was the first to thoroughly approach the study of Buddhist ethics from a comparativist point of view, opening a wide field for discussion. Keown defends the view of Buddhist ethics as a variant of Aristotle’s virtue ethics and offers a critique of the consequentialist interpretation of the ethics of Buddhism. In conclusion, I propose the following solution to the comparative question: from my point of view, Theravada ethics is closest to virtue ethics in its basic positions. However, in Mahayana ethics, the features of consequentialism are more pronounced. Although comparative thinking is certainly interesting and productive, in the end I agree with the position that Buddhist ethics does not fit completely into any of the Western normative theories, but is an independent phenomenon.

The Problem of “Knowing” and “Doing” in Shinran's Buddhist Ethics

For Shinran (親鸞1173-1262), the founder of Japan's Shinshū (True Pure Land) school of Pure Land Buddhism, the question of how to do the right thing was constrained by the larger problem of how to discern the right thing to do. In his view, human behaviour was constrained by two large issues: the problem of the times and context in which human beings live, mappō, and the consequent problem that human beings were not capable of properly distinguishing between right and wrong, good and evil, and thus could commit any kind of act. This paper argues, drawing upon Merleau-Ponty’s account of “flesh” and the “horizon”, that the possibility of living and acting ethically in the present, among others, depends upon relationships of care and compassion between and among others, within close networks of human relationality, rather than upon abstract ethical absolutes.

Toward a Buddhist Ecological Ethic of Care

This article thinks alongside the feminist ethic of care tradition to articulate a Tibetan Buddhist ethical approach to the more-than-human world. It begins by unpacking the characterization of Tibetan Buddhist ethics as a moral phenomenology before highlighting the major parallels between Buddhist moral phenomenology and the ethic of care tradition. Having made these parallels evident, this article then looks at how the ethic of care tradition has been applied to issues in animal ethics and environmental ethics to similarly think through how a Buddhist moral phenomenology might function in these more-than-human contexts. To further nuance this ecological application of Buddhist ethics, this article then takes up the question of veganism and argues that a Tibetan Buddhist care ethic would ideally adopt the positions of ethical veganism while also recognizing the socio-economic barriers to doing so in certain contexts. Ultimately, this article argues that when Buddhist moral phenomenology is applied to the more-than-human world, it presents as a Buddhist ecological ethic of care which recognizes the interconnected nature of duhkha, the necessity of approaching situations with care as one’s primary conative mode, and an emphasis on context, relationships, and positionality.

Cause and Effect: A Study on the Concept of Karma in the Buddhist Tradition

The most fundamental aspect of the Buddhist tradition is the concept of Karma. Karma is the basis of Buddhist ethics and principles that maintain that the entire universe is bound to a similar law. Our actions will decide what will happen to us, for we caused it. The current state of our existence is with our past Karma, and the present action will determine our future condition of existence. Karma is a special instance of cause and effect, according to which all our actions of body, speech, and mind are causes and all our experiences are their effects. The Law of Karma explains why each individual has a unique mental disposition, a unique physical appearance, and unique experiences. These are the various effects of the countless actions that each individual has performed in the past. We cannot find any two people who have created the same history of actions throughout their past lives. So we cannot find two people with identical states of mind, identical experiences, and identical physical appearances. Therefore, each person has different individual Karma, and each individual has to face the action of one's own Karma. Thus, the significance of this study is to determine the true concept of karma and its implication beyond our life in the Buddhist tradition.

A Case of Chinese Commercial Spirit: Humanistic Buddhism in Taiwan, USA and China

Humanistic Buddhism regards the Noble Eightfold Path as the core teaching of practicing Buddhism, and it is the path to guide practitioners to liberation. Business ethics is an important part of a businessperson's spirit. Business ethics refers to the moral principles and codes of conduct that should be followed in the business environment. Humanistic Buddhist ethics and businessman's spirit can promote and harmonize each other. Businessmen can practice the spirit of Buddhist ethics in business by focusing on the well-being of others, being honest and trustworthy, operating responsibly, and making charitable donations. In this case, we take Dr. Kai-Fu Lee as an example and introduce his story of being born in Taiwan, studying in the United States, and starting a business in China. From the case of Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, the important influence of Humanistic Buddhism on the commercial spirit of contemporary Chinese can be observed.

Possessing Enlightenment: Sorcery, Selfhood, and Tragic Responsibility in a Chinese Buddhist Apocryphon

Abstract This article explores how the Lengyan jing, or Śūrangama Sūtra – an apocryphal Buddhist scripture written in China around 705 CE – remapped Chinese Buddhist understandings of moral responsibility in consequential ways. Although grounded in the orthodox doctrinal premise that all sentient beings innately possess buddha-nature, the Lengyan jing is punctuated by warnings about the danger that even the most earnest seekers of enlightenment might be possessed by demons, embark on evil behavior, and end up fully demonic. Such warnings depart from longstanding norms in Buddhist ethics, according to which responsibility for fault is measured in terms of a person’s intentions. Instead, I argue that the Lengyan jing articulates a moral logic of what Sandra Macpherson calls “tragic responsibility.” This logic informed important but overlooked aspects of the soteriological vision found in key texts from the Chan (Japanese Zen) tradition, which rose to prominence in the centuries following the Lengyan jing’s composition.

Karmic Opacity and Ethical Formation in a Tibetan Pilgrim's Diary

ABSTRACTHow do abstract doctrinal ideas become visible and meaningful in the lives of religious practitioners? This article approaches this question by examining the diary of the Tibetan pilgrim Khatag Zamyak (kha stag 'dzam yag) (1896–1961) to explore how he engages with the idea of karma. Scholars of Buddhism often define karma as a law of cause and effect that is fundamental to Buddhist ethics, but this third‐person approach to understanding karma can lead scholars to overlook what it feels like to live in a world structured by karma. This article explores how Khatag Zamyak confronts the fact that he does not know his own karma and how he undertakes specific practices to be able to see and tell stories about his own karma. It further argues that Khatag Zamyak's process of engaging with karma is integral to his formation as an ethical subject.

Presentation of “Living Being” in Early Indian Buddhism and Its Ethical Implications

This article focuses on the presentation of the notion of “living being” and its link to ethics in the Pāli Buddhist canon and its commentaries. This objective is achieved by examining the key Pāli terms that refer to “living being” (i.e., satta, pāṇa, and bhūta) in different contexts with the aim of identifying their sematic ranges. The article then discusses how the notion of “living being” in the Pāli sources can be situated within the main doctrinal models developed in early Buddhism such as the six sense bases (āyatana), dependent origination (paticcasamuppada), and the Abhidhammic presentation of cognition, which are linked to a larger ethical framework that axiomatically repudiates the existence of a human “self” as the centre of all analysis. Instead, complex systems that link all living beings serve as the foundation for Buddhist praxis, and lead to a new understanding of the lived experience, which is founded on an ethics of behaviour, centred around non-violence or the non-harming of all beings. The article concludes by exploring the important contribution of Buddhist ethics to the current environmental challenges by underscoring the essential role played by the doctrine of non-self (anattā) as the very source and foundation of an ethical stance from which ethical actions can proceed.

Sentience and the Primordial ‘We’: Contributions to Animal Ethics from Phenomenology and Buddhist Philosophy

This paper explores the ontological bases for ethical behaviour between human animals and non-human animals drawing on phenomenology and Buddhist philosophy. Alongside Singer and utilitarianism, I argue that ethical behaviour regarding animals is most effectively justified and motivated by considerations of sentience. Nonetheless, utilitarianism misses crucial aspects of sentience. Buddhist ethics is from the beginning focused on all sentient beings, not solely humans. This inclusivity, and refined interrogations of suffering, means it can furnish more nuanced understandings of sentience. For phenomenology, sentience includes the capacities for self-awareness and, I will argue, a plural self-awareness; the ‘I’ belongs to a ‘we’, and the ‘we’ is constitutive of the ‘I’. This ‘primordial we’ provides the basis for rethinking the moral relations between human animals and non-human animals. I contend finally we thus have an ontological basis in ‘interanimality’ to explain why we most often do and should care about all sentient beings.

Этика буддизма в свете западных нормативных этических теорий: деонтология

Introduction. Сomparative studies conducted within the young discipline of Buddhist ethics have taken shape around the controversy between those researchers who see the consequentialist character of moral motivation in it and those who defend the similarity between Buddhist ethics and virtue ethics. Despite the fact that such major scholars as Damien Keown or Charles Goodman do not attach much importance to deontological features in Buddhist ethics, there is a small camp of researchers who defend the similarity between Buddhist teaching and deontology. Theoretical analysis. The purpose of this article is to critically examine the grounds on which it is possible to build a defense of comparing the ethics of Buddhism with Kant’s deontology. This analysis should answer the question why the deontological interpretation of Buddhist ethics currently has the least number of supporters. Conclusion. The conclusion is that Buddhist ethics proceeds from other metaphysical premises than Kant’s ethics, and by its nature does not accept the absolutization of moral rules, which is why it is problematic to consider it as a kind of deontological ethical theory. Nevertheless, such comparative studies contribute to a better understanding of both Buddhist teaching and, possibly, Kant’s ethical theory.

BUDDHIST ETHICS: A PHILOSOPHICAL EXPLORATION. By Jay L.Garfield. Buddhist Philosophy for Philosophers. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. . Pp. xiv + 231. Hardback, $99.00; Paperback, $24.95.

Religious Studies ReviewVolume 49, Issue 1 p. 104-104 Short Reviews of Recent Publications: Buddhism BUDDHIST ETHICS: A PHILOSOPHICAL EXPLORATION. By Jay L. Garfield. Buddhist Philosophy for Philosophers. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. . Pp. xiv + 231. Hardback, $99.00; Paperback, $24.95. First published: 24 April 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.16374Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Volume49, Issue1Special Issue: Unique Approaches to Christianity in Africa and BeyondMarch 2023Pages 104-104 RelatedInformation

Attention as Practice

The “attention economy” refers to the tech industry’s business model that treats human attention as a commodifiable resource. The libertarian critique of this model, dominant within tech and philosophical communities, claims that the persuasive technologies of the attention economy infringe on the individual user’s autonomy and therefore the proposed solutions focus on safeguarding personal freedom through expanding individual control. While this push back is important, current societal debates on the ethics of persuasive technologies are informed by a particular understanding of attention, rarely posited explicitly yet assumed as the default. They share the same concept of attention, namely an individualistic and descriptive concept of attention that is a cognitive process, an expendable resource, something that one should control individually. We step away from a negative analysis in terms of external distractions and aim for positive answers, turning to Buddhist ethics to formulate a critique of persuasive technology from a genuinely ethical perspective. Buddhist ethics points at our attention’s inescapable ethical and ontological embeddedness. Attention as practice requires “the right effort” to distinguish desirable and undesirable states, the “right concentration” to stop the flow we are caught in, and the “right mindfulness” to fortify the ability to attend to the present situation and keep in mind a general sense of life’s direction. We offer input for further philosophical inquiry on attention as practice and attention ecology. We put forward comfort/effort and individualism/collectivism as two remaining central tensions in need of further research.

Hickman, Buddhism, and Algorithmic Technology

Abstract This paper is a further reflection on my dialogue with Larry Hickman, director emeritus of the Center for Dewey Studies, and Daisaku Ikeda, president of the lay Buddhist organization Soka Gakkai International (sgi). One surprising outcome of this dialogue is how similar Deweyan pragmatism is to many forms of Mahayana Buddhism such as sgi. Here I survey some similarities between Hickman’s philosophy of technology and Buddhism by emphasizing value creation and criticism. (Soka Gakkai means value creating society.) I then explore Peter D. Herschock’s, Buddhism and Intelligent Technology relying on Hickman to rectify Herschock’s philosophy of technology before discussing how Herschock’s insightful application of Buddhist ethics to ai and the internet accord with Hickman.

Freeing Animals: Sino-Tibetan Buddhist Environmentalism and Ecological Challenges

Buddhist environmentalism in its varieties across the world is an integral part of the global environmental discourse centered on exploring new planetary ethics for sustainable futures. While recognizing the Buddhist role in global environmental movements, the author of this article proposes that the observable strength of Buddhist environmentalism is in local and global environmental advocacy grounded in the Buddhist ethics of interdependence, even as, canonically, Buddhism does not offer what is commonly recognized by scientists and scholars as traditional ecological knowledge or religious ecology. To substantiate this, this article offers a textual assessment of the Buddhist canon’s lack of systematic ecological knowledge, and a case study of how freeing domestic animals and advocating vegetarianism among contemporary Tibetan Buddhists in China, inclusive of non-Tibetan converts, mainly benefits human wellbeing and at the same time is entangled in social affairs that have little to do with the ecological wellbeing of the Tibetan Plateau and urban China. This debate is by no means intended to negate the successes of Buddhist environmentalism; instead, it draws fine lines between the claimed canonic basis of Buddhist ecology, the strength of Buddhist environmental advocacy, the everyday practices of Buddhism, and the aspirations for strengthening the ecological foundation of Buddhist environmental activism. Thinking in line with eco-Buddhists, the author concludes the article by proposing an Earth Sutra, a hypothetical future canonic text as the ecological basis of Buddhist environmentalism.

Расцвет буддийских этических исследований в англоязычных странах

From the second half of the 20th century, Buddhist texts have been attracting close attention of English-speaking philosophers, in particular, the interest has been drawn to the ethical teaching contained in the texts. The purpose of this review paper is to describe the history of the emergence and development of an interest in the ethical aspect of Buddhist teachings in the West. The author notes the Buddhist sources containing the ethical elements and identi­fies possible reasons for the absence of a developed ethical theory in classical Buddhism. Hav­ing analyzed the place of ethics in traditional Buddhism, the author proposes to distinguish three periods of research, of which the last began in the 90s of the 20th century and was marked by the formation of Buddhist ethics as an independent discipline: thematic academic journals appear and a philosophical community is formed around them, which in a new way inter­prets the traditional provisions of Buddhism from the perspective of problems characteristic of Western philosophy. The last part of the paper describes the main topics developed within the discipline of Buddhist ethics. One of the research areas is related to the systematization and understanding of ethical positions within Buddhism through their comparison with Western normative ethical theories such as virtue ethics, deontology and consequentialism. Within the framework of another approach, Buddhist ethical theory is constructed through the study of the questions of determinism and free will, agency and moral responsibility. The third sig­nificant approach to studying the ethical aspect of Buddhism focuses on looking at the modern theoretical and practical problems in the light of Buddhist teaching. In the end it is concluded that, despite the great success of the development of the discipline of Buddhist ethics, it has not yet acquired integrity, and that many important advances remain to be made.

Buddhist Environmental Ethics

There is no greater threat today to the security of life on this earth than environmental degradation covering all aspects of Nature—plants, animals and human. It is imperative to take interest in a future which lies beyond the boundary of our short-sighted outlook and self-interests. Non-western and indigenous cultural approaches to environmental issues are relevant today. Following Buddhist Ethics we can extend love, compassion, and non-violence in practice and limit our greed, and also we can take interest in protecting the right to happiness of future generations. In the light of the ethical teachings contained in the texts of Buddhism, I propose two different methodological models, namely the “Honey-Bee Model” and “Mother-Child Model,” for addressing an ideal relation between humans and Nature. The Buddhist approach to environmental issues is based on the law of Dependent Origination and the theory of Not-Self or Relational Self. I shall also argue that Buddha’s teaching integrates all aspects of the ecosphere—individuals and general species—in terms of mutual interdependence, which in a sense an attempt to institutionalize care and welfare ethics beyond the human domain to also reach the animal and plant worlds. This paper is an attempt to address current ecological problems from the moral perspective of Buddhism.

The Role of Volunteerism and Buddhist Ethics for the Covid-19 Pandemic Response in Thailand

Thailand was the first country outside of China where a case of COVID-19 was found when a tourist entered the country from China in February 2020. Still, up until now, the overall mortality from covid-19 remains much lower than in most other countries. What are the factors of this success? In this paper, we focus on the role of volunteerism and argue that its seamless integration into the Thai public health care system is founded upon the predominantly Buddhist religious culture in the country and corresponds to the cultivation of Buddhist virtues, such as karuṇā (compassion), and the motivation to tham bun (do/make merit). We suggest that Buddhist ethics and its habituation constitutes the key factor that underlies the country’s strong volunteer culture. We address our topic by surveying the existing literature conducting semi-structured interviews with seven health volunteers in May and June 2022. We deal with the possible objection that Theravāda Buddhism practiced in Thailand is an individualistic religion and a rather negative motivating factor for volunteerism and efficient pandemic response.