Consequences of Compassion: An Interpretation and Defense of Buddhist Ethics-Review by Meyers
Description
In Consequences of Compassion, Charles Goodman sets out to define the theoretical structure of South Asian Buddhist ethics in order to demonstrate how Buddhist thought may contribute to ongoing theoretical and substantive projects in Anglo-American ethics. In service of this aim, Goodman draws on the conceptual resources of contemporary analytic philosophy to identify the forms of moral reasoning evinced in Theravāda, Mahāyāna, and Vajrayāna texts. Contrary to the commonly held view that Buddhist ethics is best understood as a form of virtue ethics, Goodman argues that these traditions of thought fall within the family of a welfare-based, universalist consequentialism. Even if one is not entirely persuaded that consequentialism provides a fully adequate interpretive framework for Buddhist ethics, or that Buddhism's primary contribution to contemporary ethics lies in this direction, Goodman makes a compelling case that scholars of Buddhist studies and Anglo-American ethical philosophy alike have much to gain by attending to the sophisticated consequentialist strategies deployed in Buddhist texts. (Meyers, "Review," 1) Read more here
