There are competing assertions, within comparative ethics, concerning what species of moral theory (or normative ethics) Buddhism best resembles. Damien Keown and Charles Goodman have put forth persuasive arguments for virtue ethics and consequentialism respectively. Still others have seen, especially in the early Buddhist stories of moral exemplars, a kind of ethical “particularism” that would resist systemization. It may be asked, as well, how such classifications account for ethics on the ground—what some in the West would call “practical wisdom.” Whatever category of ethics Buddhist theorizing may be seen to occupy, the question must still be put—just how does Buddhism fit? Is this an instance of a complex tradition being forced into a Procrustean bed? If so, or if not, what are the goals of such comparisons? For instance, in what ways could the classification of Buddhist ethics serve to extend, challenge, or resolve issues within standard philosophical categories?
Panelists
Charles Goodman (SUNY Binghamton)
Christopher Gowans (Fordham University)
Barry Schwartz (Swarthmore College)
Jin Y. Park (American University)
Moderator
Graham Priest (CUNY Graduate Center)
For Charles Goodman:
Two small questions.
1. You make a good case for why utilitarians ought to be able to accept a tame interpretation of karma. But does a tame version of karma eliminate the element of karma most Buddhists and even pre-Buddhist Indians see as a moral element?
2. Why should believers in a tame sense of karma (the meaning of which depends on your answer to 1 above) accept utilitarianism?
Posted by: Rick Repetti | 10/08/2011 at 11:26 PM
Jin,
You said toward the end of your talk that Buddhism is all about tension (e.g., one cannot move a muscle without it), but how is there agentless tension when there is no duality for an enlightened being? How does the Buddha walk, speak, have intentions, etc.?
Posted by: Rick Repetti | 10/11/2011 at 08:27 AM