Contains chapter or part
Examines verses in the 8th chapter of the Bodhicaryāvatāra with attention paid to the argument that given the nonexistence of a self we ought to commit to impartial benevolence.
Article
Ethics without Self, Dharma without Atman
From Bodhicitta
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Ethics without Self, Dharma without Atman
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Description
This volume of essays offers direct comparisons of historic Western and Buddhist perspectives on ethics and metaphysics, tracing parallels and contrasts all the way from Plato to the Stoics, Spinoza to Hume, and Schopenhauer through to contemporary ethicists such as Arne Naess, Charles Taylor and Derek Parfit. It compares and contrasts each Western philosopher with a particular strand in the Buddhist tradition, in some chapters represented by individual writers such as Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Santideva or Tsong Khapa. It does so in light of both analytic concerns and themes from the existentialist and phenomenological traditions, and often in an ecumenical spirit that bridges both analytic and continentalist approaches.
Some of the deepest questions in ethics, dealing with the scope of agency, value-laden notions of personhood and the nature of value in general, are intertwined with questions in metaphysics. One set of questions addresses how varying conceptions of selfhood relate to moral values (e.g. the concern of self or selves for the well-being of others); another set of questions addresses how a conception of oneself or one’s selves should or should not affect how one thinks of happiness, or eudaimonia, or – in classical Indian terms – artha, sukha or nirvana. Western philosophy has featured discussion of both, but some would argue that certain traditions of Asian philosophy have offered a more sustained and even treatment of both sets of questions. The Buddhist tradition in particular has not only featured much discussion on both fronts, but has attracted many contemporary philosophers to its distinctive spectrum of approaches, and to what is – from many ‘Western’ points of view – a seemingly subversive analysis of ego, selfhood and personhood, whether in metaphysical, phenomenological or other incarnations. (Source: Springer)
Citation
Davis, Gordon F., ed. Ethics without Self, Dharma without Atman: Western and Buddhist Philosophical Traditions in Dialogue. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures 24. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2018.
Publisher Link
- 1. Self-Sceptical Ethics and Selfless Morality: A Historical and Cross-Cultural Overview1
- Gordon F. Davis
- 2. The Ethics of Self-Knowledge in Platonic and Buddhist Philosophy21
- Michael Griffin
- 3. Detachment in Buddhist and Stoic Ethics: Ataraxia and Apatheia and Equanimity73
- Emily McRae
- 4. Skepticism and Religious Practice in Sextus and Nagarjuna91
- Ethan Mills
- 5. Spinoza Through the Prism of Later 'East-West' Exchanges: Analogues of Buddhist Themes in the Ethics and
the Works of Early Spinozists107 - Gordon F. Davis and Mary D. Renaud
- 6. Hume as a Western Madhyamika: The Case from Ethics131
- Jay L. Garfield
- 7. Anatta and Ethics: Kantian and Buddhist Themes145
- Erner O'Hagan
- 8. The Contingency of Willing: A Vijñānavāda Critique of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche161
- Douglas L. Berger
- 9. Selfless Care? Heidegger and anatta179
- Sonia Sikka
- 10. Echoes of Anattā and Buddhist Ethics in William James and Bertrand Russell?197
- Nalini Ramlakhan
- 11. Altruism in t he Charnel Ground: Śāntideva and Parfit on Anātman, Reductionism, and Benevolence219
- Stephan Harris
- 12. The Ethics of Interconnectedness: Charles Taylor, No-Self, and Buddhism235
- Ashwani Peetush
- 13. Variations on Anātman: Buddhist Themes in Deep Ecology and in Future-Directed Environmental Ethics253
- Gordon F. Davis and Pragati Sahni
- Index275
