Owen Flanagan (Duke University)
With responses from Wayne Proudfoot (Columbia University)
"Buddhist Ethics and Moral Modularity"
In his book Varieties of Moral Personality: Ethics and Psychological Realism, Owen Flanagan suggests that the modularity of morals is a topic worth serious consideration. Since the publication of that book in 1991, Jonathan Haidt has posited the following five universal domains that socio-moral life typically engages: 1) suffering/compassion, 2) fairness/reciprocity, 3) purity/sanctity, and 4) hierarchy/respect. (A fifth one that is sometimes included is ingroup/loyalty).
In the following lecture, Owen Flanagan explores the possibility that moral moduality might be supported in certain non-western intellectual traditions (e.g. Buddhism). Flanagan poses the following questions:
Does Buddhist ethics support moral modularity?
How psychologically realistic is Buddhist ethics?
And what might Buddhist ethics look like from the point of view of contemporary moral psychology?
This lecture was recorded on Friday, October 24, 2008 at 80 Claremont Avenue (the Department of Religion, Columbia University).
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