- The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Ethics
- Dedication
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
- Introduction
- Karma
- The Bodhisattva Precepts
- Ethics, Meditation, and Wisdom
- Moral Development in the <i>Jātaka</i>s, <i>Avadāna</i>s, and Pāli <i>Nikāya</i>s
- The <i>Vinaya</i>
- <i>Bhikṣuṇī</i> Ordination
- The Changing Way of the Bodhisattva: Superheroes, Saints, and Social Workers
- Madhyamaka Ethics
- Ethics in Pure Land Schools
- A Perspective on Ethics in the <i>Lotus Sūtra</i>
- Ethics in Zen
- Tantric Ethics
- Buddhist Ethics in South and Southeast Asia
- East Asian Buddhist Ethics
- Buddhist Ethics in Contemporary Tibet
- Buddhist Ethics Compared to Western Ethics
- The Psychology of Moral Judgment and Perception in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Ethics
- Ethics without Norms?: Buddhist Reductionism and the Logical Space of Reasons
- The Buddhist Just Society
- Buddhist Economics: Problems and Possibilities
- Buddhist Environmental Ethics: An Emergent and Contextual Approach
- Buddhism, War, and Violence
- The Ethics of Engaged Buddhism in Asia
- The Ethics of Engaged Buddhism in the West
- Human Rights
- Buddhism and Women
- Buddhism and Sexuality
- Buddhist Perspectives on Abortion and Reproduction
- Euthanasia
- Being and Its Other: Suicide in Buddhist Ethics
- Buddhism and Animal Rights
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
There are two main loci of contemporary debate about the nature of Madhyamaka ethics. The first investigates the general issue of whether the Madhyamaka philosophy of emptiness (śūnyavāda) is consistent with a commitment to systematic ethical distinctions. The second queries whether the metaphysical analysis of no-self presented by Śāntideva in his Bodhicaryāvatāra entails the impartial benevolence of a bodhisattva. This chapter critically examines these debates and demonstrates the ways in which they are shaped by competing understandings of Madhyamaka conventional truth or reality (saṃvṛtisatya) and the forms of reasoning admissible for differentiating conventional truth from falsity and good from bad.
Keywords: Madhyamaka, emptiness, Śāntideva, conventional truth, ethics, compassion, prāsaṅgika, altruism, no-self
Bronwyn Finnigan is Lecturer in the School of Philosophy, RSSS, at the Australian National University. She works primarily in metaethics, moral psychology, and philosophy of mind in Western and Asian philosophical traditions. She is a member of the Cowherds that authored Moonshadows: Conventional Truth in Buddhist Philosophy (Oxford, 2010), and has published on Buddhist and Madhyamaka metaethics.
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- The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Ethics
- Dedication
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
- Introduction
- Karma
- The Bodhisattva Precepts
- Ethics, Meditation, and Wisdom
- Moral Development in the <i>Jātaka</i>s, <i>Avadāna</i>s, and Pāli <i>Nikāya</i>s
- The <i>Vinaya</i>
- <i>Bhikṣuṇī</i> Ordination
- The Changing Way of the Bodhisattva: Superheroes, Saints, and Social Workers
- Madhyamaka Ethics
- Ethics in Pure Land Schools
- A Perspective on Ethics in the <i>Lotus Sūtra</i>
- Ethics in Zen
- Tantric Ethics
- Buddhist Ethics in South and Southeast Asia
- East Asian Buddhist Ethics
- Buddhist Ethics in Contemporary Tibet
- Buddhist Ethics Compared to Western Ethics
- The Psychology of Moral Judgment and Perception in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Ethics
- Ethics without Norms?: Buddhist Reductionism and the Logical Space of Reasons
- The Buddhist Just Society
- Buddhist Economics: Problems and Possibilities
- Buddhist Environmental Ethics: An Emergent and Contextual Approach
- Buddhism, War, and Violence
- The Ethics of Engaged Buddhism in Asia
- The Ethics of Engaged Buddhism in the West
- Human Rights
- Buddhism and Women
- Buddhism and Sexuality
- Buddhist Perspectives on Abortion and Reproduction
- Euthanasia
- Being and Its Other: Suicide in Buddhist Ethics
- Buddhism and Animal Rights
- Index
