Ethics in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism (Stanford Encyclopedia of ...

Ethics in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism
Buddhism represents a vast and rich intellectual tradition which,
until recently, received very little influence from Western
philosophy. This tradition contains a variety of teachings about how
to live and what to do in various situations. Buddhism tells us to
purify our own minds and to develop lovingkindness and compassion for
all beings. The various forms of Buddhism offer systematic frameworks
for understanding the traits of character and types of actions that
cause problems for ourselves and others, as well as those qualities
and actions that help to heal the suffering of the world. When
starting a Buddhist path, one agrees to follow rules of moral
discipline that forbid various destructive actions; but once the mind
has reached a very high degree of spiritual development, the rules are
transcended and one acts spontaneously for the benefit of others.
Buddhism upholds lofty and demanding ethical values, but recognizes
the need to adapt those values to the conditions of the real world.
From a Buddhist point of view, animal life is precious, and human life
is even more so. Ideally we should refrain from killing animals, adopt
a vegetarian diet, renounce all forms of violence and live in harmony
with nature. Yet there are some difficult cases in which violence and
killing seem almost unavoidable. Some Buddhist writers have offered
guidance on how to act appropriately and realistically in such
situations, without abandoning the compassion and lovingkindness that
form the basis of the Buddhist approach to ethics.
The main goal of Buddhist practice is to reach freedom from suffering
by coming to see the world as it actually is and abandoning the
distorted projections that our thoughts and emotions create. A very
important means to reach this goal is to refrain from destructive
actions, since these actions cause harm to others and create mental
disturbances in us that generate suffering and keep us from seeing
things as they are. Moreover, according to Buddhist teachings, those
who reach the goal of freedom thenceforward act in a loving and
compassionate manner towards others, helping these others in turn to
be more happy and free. Ethical action is thus both an important part
of the Buddhist path and an important aspect of the results said to
flow from that path.
There is no word in Buddhist languages such as Sanskrit, Pāli and
Tibetan that exactly corresponds to the English word
“ethics.” The term most commonly translated as
“ethics” is Sanskrit śīla (Pāli
sīla, Tib. tshul khrims.) But this word
actually means something more like “moral discipline”;
someone has śīla when, having made a commitment to
follow a certain set of moral rules, she is actually disposed to
follow those rules.
There are central concepts of Western ethical theory that have no
exact equivalent in Buddhist texts. It’s not clear that Buddhist
thinkers have a concept of moral obligation at all. Moreover, Buddhist
texts often make points which we can understand in terms of the
distinction between intrinsic and instrumental value – that is,
the distinction between what is valuable in itself and what is
valuable as a means to bring about something else. But they have no
technical terms that correspond to “intrinsic value” and
“instrumental value.” And many statements that can be read
as being about ethics can also be understood in a non-normative way,
as descriptions of how a spiritually developed being actually
behaves.
Nevertheless, there are many statements in Buddhist scriptures and
treatises that are hard to understand otherwise than as ethical
claims. The Sanskrit terms kuśala and
śubha are used in a strongly evaluative way and often
translated as “good,” though in some contexts there are
other possible translations (“skillful” for
kuśala, “beautiful” for
śubha). Buddhist texts talk about what we should do, and
hold up models of spectacular altruism for our admiration and
emulation. And Buddhism attaches considerable importance to systems of
rules that codify moral discipline.
A consideration that has motivated many Buddhists to vow to follow
rules of moral discipline is a wish to avoid the karmic consequences
of actions that harm others. These consequences have traditionally
been understood largely in terms of rebirth in the various realms of
cyclic existence. In the earliest texts, there are five such realms:
the hells, the worlds of hungry ghosts, animals, and humans, and the
heavenly worlds of the gods (Skt. deva). Later texts add a
sixth realm, that of the titans (Skt. asura).
The hells are terrible places of torture and suffering, in which
beings who are dominated by anger and hatred are cut to pieces,
burned, frozen, and tormented by demonic apparitions that are in fact
projections of their own distorted minds. Hungry ghosts are depicted
with large bellies and tiny mouths; driven by greed, they seek
endlessly for something to eat or drink, but even when they find a
morsel they can swallow, it turns into filth or fire in their mouths.
Animals are seen as dominated by stupidity, limited to a fixed set of
possible behaviors and primarily trying simply to survive. In this
system, the human world is primarily characterized by the instrumental
pursuit of objects of desire. The titans are powerful beings who live
in relatively pleasant circumstances, but are driven by
competitiveness and obsessively envious of the splendor of the gods.
They continually plot to invade the heavens. Unfortunately for the
titans, when they actually do battle with the gods, they always lose.
The gods of the lower heavens, the heavens of desire, live in palaces
of astonishing beauty and exquisite sensual pleasure. Blinded by
pride, they disregard the suffering of those below them and ignore the
fact that their high status is impermanent: they, too, will die. At
the top of cyclic existence, in the heavens of form and the formless
heavens, other gods rest in a state of peaceful, quiet bliss, with
almost no manifest suffering and for vast, but finite, periods of
time.
Actions motivated by greed, hatred and delusion have a tendency to
drive those who do them into the three lower realms of suffering: the
hells, the hungry ghost realm, and the animal realm. Actions carried
out with better motivations, but still infused with a sense of self,
tend to produce rebirth in the three higher realms of titans, humans,
and gods. Vast numbers of sentient beings are trapped in this cycle,
continually wandering from one realm to another, unable to escape and
forced to experience the forms of suffering that exist in each realm.
The human realm is particularly fortunate, because it is only in this
realm that one can attain Awakening, which liberates one from the
whole cycle.
Some modern teachers have interpreted the doctrine of the six realms
as a psychological process unfolding in this one life: the realms are
understood as the different ways we understand the world when under
the influence of the reactive emotions of anger, greed, stupidity,
desire, competitiveness, and pride. (See, e.g., McLeod 2002,
146–51.) But historically, most Buddhists have taken this system
literally, as a cosmological account of how the world works and what
happens when we die. Therefore, to avoid the actions most likely to
drive them into the lower realms, many Buddhists have undertaken to
obey rules of moral discipline.
The two most important systems of moral discipline in Buddhism are the
Five Precepts, which apply to lay people, and the Vows of Individual
Liberation (Skt. prātimokṣa) which apply to monks
and nuns. Accepting these commitments is a crucial part of what
defines someone as a Buddhist lay person or as a Buddhist monastic.
The Five Precepts are quite similar to basic lists of prohibitions in
other great world religions: those who take them make a commitment to
refrain from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and
drunkenness. The Vows of Individual Liberation are stricter, ruling
out all forms of sexual activity and laying down detailed regulations
for monastic etiquette and deportment.
Following the Five Precepts is said to lead to rebirth as a human and
prevent rebirth in one of the lower realms of suffering. This form of
moral discipline helps people develop self-respect, so that they are
confident in appearing in any gathering. It prevents many forms of
trouble and suffering that harmful actions produce for both the agent
and others. Meanwhile, the Vows of Individual Liberation help the
monastic community function in a way that serves the spiritual
development of the monks and nuns. They also create a foundation for
meditation practice that leads toward freedom.
Other notable aspects of Buddhist moral discipline are captured in a
list known as the Ten Good Courses of Action (Pāli
dasa-kusala-kamma-patha). In the Tibetan tradition, these are
referred to simply as the Ten Virtues (dge ba bcu). They are
negatively phrased: each of the Ten Good Courses of Action just
consists in refraining from the corresponding element of the Ten Bad
Courses of Action (mi dge ba bcu). The Ten Bad Courses of
Action are:
Taking life
Stealing
Sexual misconduct
Lying
Divisive speech
Harsh speech
Idle chitchat
Covetousness
Malice
Wrong view
(See Keown, 1992, 30 for this list, with somewhat different
translations.) Note that the behaviors forbidden by four of the five
precepts are included in this list, with the exception of drunkenness.
The reason for omitting drunkenness may be that getting drunk does not
necessarily harm others, though it may put one in a state in which the
risk of harming others is much greater.
The Ten Bad Courses of Action are traditionally classified into three
actions of the body (1–3), four forms of speech (4–7), and
three mental states (8–10). Among the actions of speech,
divisive speech means speaking in a way as to aggravate conflict and
divide friends from each other. Harsh speech is speech motivated by
anger that wounds another emotionally through insulting and severely
critical words. Idle chitchat is speech which fills time and absorbs
attention without communicating anything of practical or spiritual
importance.
The three mental states on the list are closely related to the three
poisons, which are among the most fundamental psychological causes of
the cycle of existence and the suffering that comes with it. The three
poisons are attraction, aversion and indifference. When we encounter
an experience that appears to strengthen and confirm our sense of
self, we are attracted to that experience and attempt to prolong or
repeat it. When an experience appears to threaten our sense of self,
we react with aversion, trying to avoid it or push it away. Any
experience that doesn’t fall into these two categories seems
unimportant; since we are indifferent to it, we ignore that
experience. Thus, in Buddhist teachings, indifference is very closely
associated with ignorance, confusion, and incorrect understandings of
the way things are. Completely overcoming these three poisons leads to
liberation from cyclic existence, compassion, joy, freedom, and
happiness.
The lineages of Buddhism that have survived to the present day can be
grouped into three traditions: Theravāda, Mahāyāna, and
Vajrayāna. The Theravāda, or “Teaching of the
Elders,” is the dominant form of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and in
the Southeast Asian nations of Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, and Laos.
The Mahāyāna, or “Great Way,” originated in
India, but is now the principal form of Buddhism in the Chinese
cultural sphere, which includes China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. East
Asian forms of the Mahāyāna are outside the scope of this
article, but I will discuss Indian texts from the early period of this
tradition. The Vajrayāna, or “Diamond Way,” is
practiced by Buddhists in the Himalayas and parts of Central Asia,
including Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, and Mongolia. A small number of
Japanese Buddhists also belong to the Vajrayāna.
Both historically and doctrinally, the principal difference between
the Theravāda and the Mahāyāna lies in the goals they
recommend. Most Theravāda practitioners aspire to become Saints
(Skt. Arhat, Pāli Arahant). The life in which
someone becomes a Saint is that person’s last life; this person
will no longer be reborn, but will instead enter Nirvana at death. A
small minority of Theravādins, however, aspire to become Buddhas.
As they understand that goal, a Buddha is someone who rediscovers the
truths of Buddhism after they have been lost to the world, and teaches
them to others so as to benefit them. The Theravāda tradition
maintains that, like Saints, Buddhas pass into Nirvana at death.
Becoming a Buddha is believed to be more difficult and take more time
than becoming a Saint; it is a demanding path for a small minority. A
practitioner who is on the way to becoming a Buddha is known in
Sanskrit as a bodhisattva (Pāli bodhisatta).
By contrast, all serious Mahāyānists take the bodhisattva
vow, promising to become Buddhas in order to help all beings. Indeed,
some scholars have concluded that the Mahāyāna movement
began within the framework of early Buddhism as a group of
practitioners holding the same doctrines and embracing the same
rituals as their fellow Buddhists, and distinguished only by their
common choice to follow the path to Buddhahood. However, over time,
many other differences evolved. In particular, mature
Mahāyāna traditions tend to hold that those who have become
Buddhas, even after they die, continue to manifest in various forms
and in various parts of cyclic existence in order to carry on the work
of benefiting beings. They will remain in cyclic existence until all
sentient beings have reached liberation.
Followers of Vajrayāna also embrace the commitment to become
Buddhas for the benefit of all beings. The Vajrayāna can be seen
as a branch of the Mahāyāna, since it shares the same
spiritual goal. The main differences between the Vajrayāna and
other forms of Mahāyāna concern ritual, iconography, and
meditation techniques. Those who practice Vajrayāna seek to
attain Mahāyāna goals using Tantric means.
The Theravāda is the only surviving tradition of Buddhism that is
not Mahāyāna. But at one time, there were many such
traditions: eighteen, according to one influential classification.
However, apart from the Theravāda, all of these traditions have
died out. There is no generally accepted term to refer collectively to
all the Buddhist lineages that held Sainthood as their primary
spiritual aspiration. In Mahāyāna texts, these forms of
Buddhism are called Hīnayāna, the “lesser
vehicle”, a pejorative term. More neutrally, these texts
sometimes refer to Buddhists who aspire to Sainthood as Disciples
(Skt. Śrāvaka) and their path as the Way of the
Disciples (Skt. Śrāvaka-yāna). Some scholars
have proposed the term “Mainstream Buddhism.”
Mahāyāna texts repeatedly affirm the superiority of their
approach to the non-Mahāyāna forms of Buddhist practice.
According to these texts, the Disciples wish to attain Nirvana for
themselves alone, so that they disregard the needs of others. Since
they choose a less difficult path, their aspiration is inferior. Since
they propose to abandon other beings trapped in the prison of cyclic
existence, on this account, the Disciples lack compassion.
These criticisms may be unfair; it can be argued that they are
directed at a straw man and not at the real Theravāda tradition.
Most lineages of Buddhism, including the Theravāda, value and
practice the Four Divine Abidings (Pāli
brahma-vihāra), also known as the Four Immeasurables.
These are lovingkindness (Pāli metta), compassion
(karuṇā), joy (pamudita) and equanimity
(upekkhā). The content of lovingkindness is a wish for
others to be happy. Lovingkindness, which can be a very enjoyable
state, is a kind of opening to others and to the reality of their
lives. The content of compassion is a wish for others to be free from
suffering. This quality makes it possible to be fully aware and
present in the face of others’ suffering. Joy is traditionally
understood as the ability to rejoice in the happiness and good
qualities of others. To operate in someone, joy requires the absence
of envy, jealousy and self-hatred. Equanimity makes it possible to see
situations as they are, without preference or prejudice. It makes it
possible to extend the other three Divine Abidings equally to all
beings.
Most emotions that ordinary people experience are overcome or
transformed by the path; someone who was fully awake would not abide
in or act from greed, hatred, competitiveness, or pride, for example.
But the Four Divine Abidings are emotions in which awake people rest
and from which they act. Not only are these qualities recognized in
the Theravāda, they are extensively practiced in that tradition.
In fact, the Metta Sutta, the Discourse on
Lovingkindness, is one of the most important and frequently
recited scriptures in Southeast Asia today. Any discussion of
similarities and differences between Theravāda and
Mahāyāna should take these facts into account.
The Mahāyāna path to awakening, like many textual
discussions of that path, is organized around the qualities known as
the Six Perfections (Skt. pāramitā). The Six
Perfections are:
Generosity (dāna)
Moral discipline (śīla)
Patient endurance (kṣānti)
Perseverance (vīrya)
Meditative stability (dhyāna)
Wisdom (prajñā)
Kṣānti, the third perfection, is a complex
concept, difficult to render with a single English word. It has three
main aspects. One is the ability to endure and maintain one’s
calm and clarity of intention in the face of obstacles such as
frustrations, delays, and unpleasant sensations.
“Patience” would be a plausible translation for this
aspect of kṣānti. The second, and most important,
aspect of the perfection is the ability to remain peaceful, not
becoming angry, when other people harm us or cause difficulties for
us. This second and primary aspect could justify a translation as
“forbearance”. When insulted, someone with strong moral
discipline would not retaliate, but might become angry and restrain
the expression of the anger; someone with strong patient endurance
would not become angry in the first place. The term
kṣānti is also often used to refer to the ability
to remain calm and not react with fear or anger when hearing
presentations of the ultimate truth, the way things really are.
Perseverance, the fourth perfection, is the ability to pour energy
enthusiastically into constructive activities that benefit oneself and
others. Meditative stability, the fifth perfection, is the ability to
maintain clear, stable attention during meditation practice. Though
thoughts may arise during meditation, they do not cause distraction in
someone with strong meditative stability, but merely appear as
movements of mind. Prajñā, which could be
translated as “wisdom” or as “discernment,” is
difficult to define and varies subtly in meaning among different
Buddhist lineages. This quality allows those who have it to make
distinctions between phenomena and to understand things as they
actually are. It is often described as intuitively based and can only
partially be put into words.
The term pāramitā, which I have been translating as
“perfection,” could also be rendered as
“transcendence.” In order to awaken fully, a bodhisattva
must train in these qualities so deeply as to transcend how they are
ordinarily understood. This is done by achieving what is known as
“the threefold purity,” meaning that the bodhisattva does
not regard either herself, the action being performed, or the object
of that action as being a real, objectively existing thing. So, for
example, someone who thinks that he has a substantial self and is
giving real food to an objectively existing recipient would be showing
worldly generosity. But someone who can give while regarding herself,
the gift, and the recipient as like mirages, existing only from a
certain point of view and not in objective reality, can practice the
transmundane perfection of generosity. (On this see, e.g., Huntington
trans. 1989, 150.)
Buddhist texts don’t often take up the question of the general
theoretical principles that differentiate between good and bad, or
right and wrong; they more often tend to lay down a variety of
particular moral rules, guidelines, virtues, and vices, and leave the
matter there. But when the texts do address what differentiates right
from wrong in general, they tend to focus on the consequences of our
decisions and actions. Take, for instance, this passage from the
Advice to Rāhula at Ambalaṭṭhikā:
When you reflect, if you know: ‘This action that I wish to do
with the body would lead to my own affliction, or to the affliction of
others, or to the affliction of both; it is an unwholesome bodily
action with painful consequences, with painful results,’ then
you definitely should not do such an action with the body. But when
you reflect, if you know: ‘This action that I wish to do with
the body would not lead to my own affliction, or to the affliction of
others, or to the affliction of both; it is a wholesome bodily action
with pleasant consequences, with pleasant results,’ then you may
do such an action with the body. (Ñānamoli and Bodhi
trans. 1995, 524–25)
This passage identifies the criterion of permissible action in terms
of consequences, and in particular, consequences that consist of
happiness and suffering. Passages such as this one suggest the
possibility of regarding Theravāda ethics as having a
consequentialist foundation.
Most Buddhist authors don’t say enough about the overall
structure of their normative commitments to make it possible to
attribute any particular ethical theory to them. One exception would
be Śāntideva (late 7th-mid 8th century CE), whose writings
contain a number of passages of great interest from the perspective of
ethical theory. Perhaps the most revealing of these can be found in
the Training Anthology
(Śikṣā-samuccaya) at standard page 15 (see
Goodman 2016a, 17). The passage reads:
If a bodhisattva does not make a sincere, unwavering effort in
thought, word, and deed to stop all the present and future pain and
suffering of all sentient beings, and to bring about all present and
future pleasure and happiness, or does not seek the collection of
conditions for that, or does not strive to prevent what is opposed to
that, or does not bring about small pain and suffering as a way of
preventing great pain and suffering, or does not abandon a small
benefit in order to accomplish a greater benefit, if he neglects to do
these things even for a moment, he undergoes a downfall.
Here Śāntideva focuses our attention on the future
consequences that our actions can causally “stop” or
“bring about”; at least in this passage, he seems to be
advocating consequentialism. In particular, what Śāntideva
is concerned with here is the experienced quality of certain feelings;
he is trying to stop “pain and suffering” and bring about
“pleasure and happiness.” Philosophers use the term
“hedonism” to refer to the view that takes the presence of
happiness and the absence of suffering to constitute well-being.
Moreover, the view Śāntideva advocates is universalist,
because it extends moral concern to all sentient beings. It’s
fairly clear, moreover, that Śāntideva is an advocate of
maximization: he regards it as mandatory to bring about a small amount
of suffering to prevent a greater amount, and to sacrifice a small
amount of happiness to achieve a larger amount. And since he does not
say anything about constraints or important considerations arising
from the distribution of happiness and suffering, the most plausible
reading of this passage would involve accepting aggregation, in which
the happiness and suffering of all beings are considered together,
without attaching significance to how these are distributed. Now the
ethical view called “classical utilitarianism” can be
defined as aggregative, maximizing, universalist, hedonist
consequentialism. This passage, then, can most naturally be
interpreted as a statement of the classical utilitarian form of
consequentialism.
Though this passage gives us strong reasons to accept that
Śāntideva is committed to assigning impartial benevolence a
central role in how we should live and behave toward others, a number
of scholars have questioned whether we have enough evidence to
interpret him as a utilitarian (e.g., Harris 2015). And as Michael
Barnhart and others have argued, even if Śāntideva himself
actually was a utilitarian, it does not follow that such a view can be
attributed to the Buddhist tradition as a whole (Barnhart 2012,
19).
According to many of the world’s intellectual traditions, each
person is a real, individual substance with a true essence or self.
According to Buddhism, this widely held view is false; you are not a
substance. Instead, all there is to a person is a complex, rapidly
changing stream of mental and physical phenomena, connected by causal
links and inextricably interrelated with the rest of the universe.
This view is known as the doctrine of no self (Pāli
anattā; Skt. anātman.) Śāntideva
draws on this teaching to argue that egoism is irrational, and that we
should work for the benefit of all sentient beings. As he writes,
“Without exception, no sufferings belong to anyone. They are to
be warded off simply because they are suffering. Why is any limitation
put on this?” (Crosby and Skilton trans. 1995, 97) If you are
not a real thing, there is no reason to place any greater intrinsic
importance on preventing your own future suffering than on preventing
the future suffering of others. As writers such as Mark Siderits
(2003, ch. 9) have often noted, this strategy for justifying altruism,
which many scholars now call the Ownerless Suffering Argument, closely
resembles the arguments for consequentialism in Parfit 1984 (ch. 15).
In fact, it’s hard to see how the Ownerless Suffering Argument
could support any moral view that is not some form of universalist
consequentialism.
From the perspective of this argument, your suffering has no greater
significance than that of anyone else, but it also has no less. You
are one of the many sentient beings whose welfare is to be promoted.
Moreover, you may have more effective means available to advance your
own happiness than you do to advance the happiness of others. And you
often know much more about yourself than you do about others. So there
is scope within this view to justify prudential concern for your own
future; in the early and middle stages of the path, you may end up in
practice spending more time taking care of your own future needs than
those of others. This kind of prudential concern is compatible with
the doctrine of no self, and is not the same as egoism. Here egoism
would mean attaching more intrinsic significance to your own welfare
than to that of others, or even disregarding others’ welfare and
merely making an effort to promote your own. Buddhists would see
egoism as reflecting a damaging lack of perception of the absence of
self.
Any interpretation of Buddhist ethics must find room for the
absolutely crucial role of intention. There are many contexts in which
Buddhism seems to emphasize the intention with which an act was
performed much more than the benefit or harm that actually resulted.
One case often cited is that of Channa, who presented a gift of food
to the Buddha which gave him dysentery and thus caused his death.
Since Channa’s intention was to perform a meritorious act of
generosity, the Buddha tells his followers not to condemn Channa;
since he did not know that the food was contaminated, he actually
gained goodness from this action.
Less dramatically, the amount of good or bad karma generated by an
action is said to be strongly dependent on the motivation with which
it was carried out. Thus actions performed out of hatred are more
karmically damaging than those performed out of greed. Meanwhile, some
Buddhist texts seem to say that any action performed with good
intentions is a good action, whereas any action performed with bad
intentions is a bad one. These suggestions may support a theoretical
reconstruction that focuses more on motivation than on
consequences.
As we will see in Section 6, most forms of Buddhism also take a
strongly negative attitude to killing. Sometimes, this opposition is
taken to an extent which may be difficult to justify from a
consequentialist perspective. Many consequentialist theories, such as
classical utilitarianism, notoriously make it much easier to justify
killing than it would be on other moral perspectives. The most
straightforward application of utilitarianism would imply that it is
sometimes morally permissible to kill someone when doing so would
bring about benefits or prevent harms sufficient to outweigh the value
of the future existence that would otherwise be enjoyed by the person
to be killed. Many Buddhists, especially in the Theravāda, would
recoil from this implication and place a much higher standard on the
justification of killing, if it can be justified at all. This issue
poses a significant problem that a consequentialist interpretation
needs to solve.
Another way of understanding Buddhist ethics is to read it as similar,
not to consequentialism, but to virtue ethics. This account was first
proposed by Damien Keown (in Keown 1992) and has since been followed
by several scholars. The virtue ethics approach begins from the
undoubted fact that Buddhist texts devote a great deal of attention to
what kind of people we should strive to be and what virtues we should
seek to cultivate in ourselves. In this respect, Buddhist ethics may
seem more similar to the views of ancient Greek thinkers such as
Aristotle than to more modern Western thought. For Aristotle, the goal
we should aim at in life is eudaimonia, often translated
“happiness” or “human flourishing.” This
condition of eudaimonia is the good for humans. Keown argues
that the role of Nirvana in Theravāda ethics is analogous:
Nirvana is the good. The various abilities and virtues that are
cultivated on the Buddhist path would then derive their value from
their relation to this good, either as means to attaining Nirvana or
as constituent aspects of the awakened life.
One way to settle the issue between consequentialist and virtue ethics
interpretations of Buddhist teachings would be to identify the most
fundamental aim of the Buddhist worldview. Is it the perfection of the
individual’s character, as in virtue ethics, or the welfare of
all sentient beings, as in universalist, welfarist
consequentialism?
Now on a traditional Buddhist view, the Law of Karma says that those
of our actions that are intended to harm others will evolve into
misery for us, whereas those of our actions that are intended to
benefit others will evolve into happiness for us. Moreover, the
highest states of well-being we can attain are also characterized by
lovingkindness and compassion for others. In all or nearly all cases,
then, the action that is best for the agent and the action that is
best for all beings will coincide, on this view. There is no deep
conflict between self-interest and morality.
This is wonderful, if true, but it makes our theoretical task much
harder. Should we say that the most fundamental aim of Buddhist
practice is to benefit all sentient beings everywhere and advance
their welfare, and that it so happens that the most effective way for
each agent to do this is to work toward her own awakening? Or should
we say that the most fundamental aim of practice is the
practitioner’s own awakening, and that it so happens that
pursuing this aim will turn out to benefit others as well?
Mahāyāna texts are full of passages that focus on the
importance of the welfare of all beings and extol those who promote
this goal. Therefore, the virtue ethics interpretation appears more
plausible when applied to the Theravāda than when applied to the
Mahāyāna. And in fact, Keown proposed his account primarily
in relation to the Theravāda; he offers a rather different
interpretation of the Mahāyāna, which in fact involves a
certain kind of consequentialism. We should not necessarily assume
that all forms of Buddhism have the same structure at the level of
ethical theory.
It is possible to construct an interpretation that acknowledges the
central importance of virtue and the cultivation of character in
Buddhism within an overall framework that is consequentialist. One
approach is character consequentialism, in which the good consequences
that are to be maximized are defined by the welfare of sentient
beings, and the welfare of sentient beings is understood to consist in
both happiness and virtue. On this view, we have a non-instrumental
reason to promote the virtue of ourselves and others. (This theory is
defended at length in Goodman 2009.) Character consequentialism thus
rejects hedonism, the view that identifies welfare with happiness, and
advances a theory in which the good has two major components. This
approach allows us to avoid some of the damaging philosophical
objections that have been raised against hedonism. But it also creates
questions about how to compare the value of greater virtue against the
value of greater happiness, should these considerations ever
conflict.
Another approach is aretaic consequentialism, an indirect form of
consequentialism in which the primary objects of evaluation are
character traits, not actions or rules. This theory tells us to
develop in ourselves those states of character which are conducive to
the happiness of sentient beings. (See Siderits 2007, 292–93)
This elegant interpretation explains why Buddhist texts so often focus
on character traits, but it also retains a hedonist view of
well-being. It allows us to interpret instructions on moral discipline
not as inflexible rules, but as advice about what traits of character
to cultivate.
How plausible is it to interpret Buddhist authors as committed to a
hedonist view of well-being––or indeed, to any view of
well-being at all? South Asian Buddhist texts often use terms such as
artha and hita that plausibly express the same
concept as our term “well-being,” so it is reasonable to
ask what account the authors of those texts might have given of what
they meant. Given the central importance of the prevention of
suffering in Buddhism, as expressed in such teachings as the First
Noble Truth, it must be true that well-being in Buddhism includes
freedom from suffering as, at least, one of its components. Meanwhile,
given the strongly negative Buddhist view of desire, it would not be
plausible at all to regard Buddhism as holding a desire-fulfillment
theory of well-being.
However, hedonism is not our only interpretive option.
Śāntideva claims in several passages that the Buddhist
virtues work together and reinforce each other. This makes it possible
to read him as holding a “homeostatic cluster” view of
well-being like that of Richard Boyd (see Goodman 2016b, 149-152.)
Those who defend the analogy between Buddhist ethics and Aristotelian
virtue ethics could advance a nature-fulfillment theory as the proper
interpretation of well-being in Buddhism. Mark Siderits (2007) rejects
this interpretation on the grounds that it conflicts with the doctrine
of no self, which implies that, ultimately, humans have no nature to
fulfill. But Christopher Gowans has pointed out that, if we regard
well-being as existing at the conventional level of truth, this
objection may lose its force (see Gowans 2015, 117).
Some scholars, such as Charles Hallisey (1996) and Jay Garfield, have
concluded that it is futile and misleading to try to interpret
Buddhist ethics as a systematic theory fitting into one of the
recognized types of ethical theories in the West. Rather, they suggest
that Buddhist ethics is pluralist, in that it draws on various kinds
of moral considerations in different cases, and particularist,
rejecting the entire enterprise of formulating general moral
principles to cover all cases. This view can easily accommodate
textual evidence of various kinds of moral reasoning used by Buddhists
in different situations. But since the resulting interpretation lacks
an overarching structure, it has few theoretical resources to
adjudicate conflicts between different values, and it may become quite
unclear what the view says about particular difficult cases.
Buddhist texts say relatively little about metaethics, and attempts to
construct metaethical views that would be consistent with Buddhist
philosophical commitments have encountered many difficulties. One
fascinating recent attempt to provide a metaethics for early Buddhism,
in the work of Jake Davis (2016 and Forthcoming,) takes statements
about what the wise would approve or criticize as indicating the
source of ethical normativity. This kind of formulation is frequently
encountered in canonical texts, as for instance in the Metta
Sutta: “Let them not do the slightest thing that the wise
would later reprove.” Buddhists accept that a mind that is calm,
clear and stable sees the truth more accurately than disturbed,
fluctuating ordinary consciousness. For Davis, the ethical truth just
consists of those normative statements that would be accepted
unanimously by those whose inner life exhibits, to a sufficient
degree, these qualities of mental clarity and insight. Thus, on his
view, even if the wise would often approve of taking actions that
would have valuable consequences, it is not those consequences but the
approval of the wise that makes those actions morally right.
The theoretical structure of Buddhist ethics is a subject of
continuing research and debate among a number of scholars, and further
developments are likely in our understanding of this field.
Buddhist texts contain a large number of enigmatic statements, of
various different types, seemingly to the effect that once a
practitioner reaches a sufficiently advanced stage of spiritual
development, moral discipline is no longer necessary. These statements
have been interpreted in dramatically different ways by various Asian
traditions, and Western scholars disagree about how we should
understand them.
The Pāli Canon contains the claim that Saints have
“abandoned goodness (puñña) and vile
actions (pāpa).” Some writers have interpreted
this statement as meaning that ethical norms no longer apply to
Saints. But Damien Keown has argued quite convincingly against this
interpretation (1992, ch. 4). “Goodness” and “vile
actions” refer to actions which have karmic effects in the
future, projecting a future existence that includes happiness or
suffering, respectively. Since the life in which one becomes a Saint
is one’s last life, it is impossible that any actions that occur
after Sainthood is attained could project future existence through
karma. The change which stops the accumulation of karma is most
plausibly identified as the abandonment of clinging to the belief in a
substantial self. Someone who no longer thinks of actions as stemming
from and having effects on a real, persisting self is no longer
trapped in cyclic existence.
Theravāda texts contain intriguing suggestions that Saints no
longer have to worry about following rules of moral discipline; they
just spontaneously act in appropriate ways. But there are also
statements in Theravāda texts to the effect that a Saint would
never knowingly and intentionally break any of the rules of monastic
discipline. These rules forbid many actions which the Buddhist
tradition regards as reprehensible merely by convention, such as
eating after noon. If someone has not taken a vow that prohibits
eating after noon, then doing so is not wrong: the wrongness of the
action stems merely from the fact that it infringes a valuable system
of discipline that the agent has chosen to undertake. If Saints just
act spontaneously and aren’t psychologically bound by rules,
it’s not clear why they would, in all circumstances, avoid
actions which are wrong merely because they are forbidden by rules of
monastic discipline. There seems to be a serious tension here.
Writers expounding Mahāyāna ethics face somewhat similar
issues, but handle them rather differently. According to
Mahāyāna philosophers such as Asaṅga and
Śāntideva, an advanced practitioner who is motivated by
compassion may sometimes see that an action which is forbidden by the
usual rules of Buddhist moral discipline would actually be more
effective at preventing suffering and promoting happiness than any
action the rules would permit. Under such circumstances, that
practitioner can permissibly break the rules out of compassion.
For example, Asaṅga tells us that it would be permissible to
tell a lie to save another sentient being from being killed or
seriously harmed. If someone takes up with bad friends, it would be
permissible to criticize those friends to him, a case of divisive
speech, in order to protect him from being corrupted by them. It would
be permissible to overthrow a wicked king or remove a corrupt temple
administrator from office. If a thief steals items belonging to the
monastic community, it would be permissible to steal them back in
order to protect him from the severe bad karma of consuming those
items. In fact, if a bandit is planning to murder a large number of
spiritually advanced beings, it would be permissible to kill the
bandit preemptively, thus saving him from the terrible torment of
aeons in the hells. In all such cases, according to Asaṅga,
these acts, if done with the right kind of motivation, would result in
much merit for the one who carries them out. (Tatz trans. 1986,
70–73)
One thing that many of these cases seem to have in common is that the
rule-violating action proceeds from a compassion that includes in its
scope not only the potential victims of the harms that are to be
prevented, but also the perpetrator of those harms. When people hear
of the Buddhist commitment to nonviolence, one question they often ask
is whether someone with foreknowledge of the events of the 1940s would
be permitted by Buddhist principles to assassinate Hitler in 1930. If
we follow Asaṅga, the answer would seem to be: yes, you may kill
Hitler, if you have compassion for him and you do it partly for his
sake. Thus, in extreme cases, violence may be permissible; but hatred
is never justified.
One way to understand Asaṅga’s view here would be to
imagine that one of your loved ones, such as your brother or son, is
slipped a drug which makes him temporarily insane, and he then attacks
you with a knife. To remain passive and let him kill you would not be
the best thing you could do for him. If you are able to knock him
down, take the knife away and restrain him, you thereby protect him
from a lifetime of regret and distress resulting from having killed
you. This use of coercive force would therefore naturally flow from
your love for him.
In addition to particular examples of permissible violations of the
rules of moral discipline, both Asaṅga and Śāntideva
give us general statements about when the rules should be broken.
These statements are strikingly consequentialist in flavor. Thus
Asaṅga tells us this: “If the bodhisattva sees that some
caustic means, some use of severity would be of benefit to sentient
beings, and does not employ it in order to guard against unhappiness,
he is possessed of fault, possessed of contradiction; there is fault
that is not defiled” (Tatz trans., 1986, 76).
Śāntideva’s view is similar; he writes:
“Realizing this, one should always be striving for others’
well-being. Even what is proscribed is permitted for a compassionate
person who sees it will be of benefit.” (Crosby and Skilton
trans., 1995, 41). According to these statements, an agent who is
truly motivated by compassion can break the usually applicable rules
of moral discipline whenever doing so would benefit those involved in
the situation.
Several Mahāyāna texts, then, allow for certain cases in
which advanced practitioners may violate the rules of moral
discipline. Texts from the Vajrayāna, or Tantric, traditions of
Buddhism go further than this. Revered Tantric masters such as
Nāropa, Kukkurīpa, and Padmasambhava are shown engaging in
shocking actions that flagrantly violate the conventions of society
and the rules of Buddhist moral discipline. But these stories do not
necessarily mean that the Vajrayāna rejects all forms of ethics.
Numerous texts make it clear that even as they break the rules,
Tantric adepts are motivated by compassion for all sentient beings.
They see that given the situation, unconventional and even grotesque
actions are the most effective means to bring about the welfare of
others. Since they are totally free of all bonds of ideology or social
conditioning, they spontaneously do what will be best on the whole,
without worrying about what others might think or what the rulebook
might say. They have transcended moral discipline completely, while
remaining, in a deeper sense, ethical exemplars.
Like several other Asian traditions, Buddhism does not regard humans
as fundamentally different from other animals. Through the process of
rebirth, what is in some sense the same entity can be a human now, but
an animal in the past and in the future. One consequence of this claim
is that any animal you meet is likely to have been a human at one
time, and may even have been your own mother in a previous life.
Moreover, animals are seen as just as capable of suffering as humans
are; they are also appropriate objects of the emotions of compassion,
lovingkindness and equanimity. Thus we have powerful reasons not to
cause them unnecessary suffering and to refrain from harming or
killing them.
Though animals are sentient beings and possess consciousness, just as
humans do, there is one reason why human lives are more precious than
animal lives. Only in a human body can one attain awakening; in an
animal body, this is not possible. Therefore, Buddhists maintain that
it is worse to kill a human than to kill an animal.
Though all Buddhist traditions attach moral significance to animal
life and animal suffering, not all Buddhists practice vegetarianism.
For example, Theravāda monks, who live by begging, are expected
to eat whatever food is placed in their bowl, including meat, without
preference or discrimination. However, they are forbidden to eat meat
from an animal if they have seen, heard, or suspected that the animal
in question was killed specifically for them.
The Tibetan plateau is at a high altitude and has a very cold, dry
climate. Over much of Tibet, the only form of food production possible
is nomadic pastoralism, with sheep and yaks as the major sources of
food. Moreover, under premodern conditions, and given the cold
weather, people living in Tibet needed to eat calorie-dense food in
order to survive. A strict vegetarianism was therefore quite
impractical. As a result, many Tibetans came to accept meat eating as
a necessary part of their lifestyle. Today, however, with more
vegetarian food options available and with many Tibetans living in
exile, important spiritual leaders in the Tibetan tradition have begun
to advocate a switch to a vegetarian diet.
Some sources in the Buddhist tradition hold that it is worse to kill
an animal yourself than to eat the meat of an animal someone else has
killed. Many faithful Buddhists go to great lengths not to kill
animals. Moreover, the professions of hunting and fishing are
classified as “wrong livelihood,” and Buddhists are
expected not to follow them. In majority Buddhist countries, butchers
are often members of non-Buddhist religious minorities.
Before the time of the historical Buddha, animal sacrifice was an
important part of Indian religious practice. The Buddha expressed his
unqualified opposition to animal sacrifice, holding that far from
creating religious merit, it would only produce bad karma for those
engaged in it. As a result of his teachings, along with those of
Mahāvīra, the founder of Jainism, ideals of nonviolence
became more prevalent in India, and animal sacrifice declined rapidly
in frequency and prestige. Among a few marginal Buddhist or
quasi-Buddhist groups in the Himalayas, animal sacrifice is still
practiced today; but Buddhist monastic institutions have fairly
consistently opposed the killing of animals for religious
purposes.
Most Buddhist texts hold that plants are not sentient beings and do
not have moral status in and of themselves. Although a few scattered
sources suggest that plants might be sentient, the mainstream of the
tradition sees it as morally unproblematic in itself to use, kill, or
eat plants. However, since animals depend on plants, there are
sometimes instrumental reasons to protect plants for the sake of
animal welfare. We do find guidance, for example, to be careful in
cutting down trees to refrain from harming the animals who live in and
around them. In Southeast Asia, some Buddhist monks have been very
active in protecting forests from logging.
Buddhism does not see a great gulf between humans and non-human
animals, as some adherents of Western religions do; the suffering of
animals is morally significant, just like the suffering of humans.
Moreover, Buddhist theories of causality stress that things arise in
dependence on a diverse collection of causes and conditions, implying
that human life is interdependent in complex ways with other forms of
life on Earth. And as mentioned above, the cultivation of
lovingkindness and compassion for all sentient beings is an important
part of most systems of Buddhist meditation practice. As a result of
these teachings, many contemporary Buddhists, especially in the West,
place great value on ecological awareness and environmental
sustainability. They seek to develop a way of life for humanity that
supports spiritual practice and can coexist in harmony with the
non-human animals who share our planet.
The Buddhist tradition generally sees war and violence as deeply
morally problematic. War is seen as tragic and typically unnecessary,
and the position of a soldier is seen as highly karmically dangerous.
Violence directly causes harm and suffering to sentient beings,
pollutes the minds of those who use it, and creates cycles of hatred
and retribution that can inflict terrible damage, both physical and
psychological.
In general, the Buddhist attitude toward violence is expressed in
verses X. 1–2 of the Dhammapada:
Everybody fears being struck by a rod.
Everybody fears death.
Therefore, knowing this, feeling for others as for yourself,
Do not kill others or cause others to kill.
Everybody fears being struck by a rod,
Life being dear to all.
Therefore, knowing this, feeling for others as for yourself,
Do not kill others or cause others to kill.
(Maitreya, trans, 1995, 37)
The phrase translated “feeling for others as for yourself”
is the Pāli attānaṃupamaṃkatvā, which might be more literally rendered as
“having made an analogy with oneself.” Here a form of
moral reasoning is used that is quite similar to the Golden Rule:
imaginatively put yourself in the place of others, and you will see
that certain ways of treating them are morally impermissible. The
Dhammapada also tells us:
Whoever withholds the rod from creatures
Both weak and strong,
Abstaining from killing and causing killing
Him do I call a Noble One.
(Maitreya, trans, 1995, 107)
Buddhists explicitly reject the Hindu teaching that a soldier in a
just war will be reborn in a heavenly realm. Instead, Buddhists hold
that those who die in battle are likely to be reborn as animals or in
the hells, especially if they die with a feeling of anger or hatred
toward the soldiers on the other side. In his commentary on the
Four Hundred Stanzas (Catuḥśataka) of
Āryadeva, Candrakīrti expresses a very low opinion of those
who give their lives in battle for their king and country: “In
this world people who give up all of their possessions for gambling,
liquor, and prostitutes are not entitled to respect. Virtuous-minded
people do not honor the sacrifice of these people, since they pursue
an addiction. In the same way, the sacrifice of life in battle should
not be respected, since this is the basis for harmful actions”
(Lang trans., 2003, 200). He also criticizes the view that kings may
permissibly engage in warfare, and offers what looks like a general
statement of pacifism: “a sage is inferior when his treatises
explain violence as virtuous behavior. A mediocre sage has doubts:
‘it may be so or it may not be so.’ A superior sage does
not regard violence as virtuous behavior” (Lang trans., 2003,
197).
Buddhist monks, especially in the Theravāda tradition, are
expected to practice a strict form of non-violence; they should prefer
being killed to killing others, and should even practice
lovingkindness and compassion toward those who harm them or their
families. The Buddha himself is said to have mediated a dispute over
water rights between two neighboring kingdoms, preventing it from
escalating into an armed conflict. In troubled times, Buddhist monks
have often sought opportunities to bring about peace and the
resolution of conflict through dialogue. Normative Buddhist texts
praise the role of peacemaker and an attitude of impartial benevolence
toward all parties to a conflict (see, e.g., Thurman trans. 2000, 70).
The Buddhist attitude toward war is thus quite negative, and passages
glorifying military victory or sanitizing the realities of warfare are
hard to find in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist texts.
Nevertheless, the common perception of Buddhism as a whole as an
unequivocally pacifist tradition is questionable. Many forms of
Buddhism have arrived at the position that in rare cases, war may be
necessary.
One way that Buddhist ethical theory might be used, in certain extreme
cases, to justify war relies on Asaṅga’s account of
justifiable killing, discussed in section 4 above. For example, if the
officials of a militarily powerful state, monitoring the situation in
a small developing country, see that a genocide has begun to take
place there, they might reflect that those who are now committing
genocide are not only causing terrible harm to their victims, but also
accumulating severe negative karma for themselves. These officials
might decide to intervene to stop the genocide, motivated by
compassion for everyone involved, including the killers. If they are
sincerely motivated in this way, Mahāyāna Buddhists might
see their actions as acceptable, even if they involved using military
force and killing many people, because less suffering would result and
the overall consequences would therefore be much better.
As Stephen Jenkins has shown in an important recent article, a number
of influential Mahāyāna texts provide arguments of this
general type. Both Candrakīrti and Nāgārjuna offer the
example “of a physician, certainly one of the most important and
pervasive metaphors for a bodhisattva, amputating a finger that has
been bitten by a poisonous snake, thus preventing the spread of
greater suffering” (Jenkins 2011, 12). Candrakīrti then
develops this theme through another example,
of a hunter who kills one of his sons to prevent both from dying. The
two sons are arguing at the edge of a precipice and one of them grabs
the other with the intention of hurling them both over. Since he
cannot reach them, and so has no other option, the hunter shoots one
son with an arrow to prevent them both from dying. This case shows a
concern for reducing the proportional extent of harm, as in the
example of amputation (Jenkins 2011, 15–16).
How could the permissibility of shooting one son to save
both be reconciled with the seemingly pacifist statements offered
elsewhere by Candrakīrti? Jenkins suggests (at 2011, 13) that we
can see the passages as consistent if we realize that the Sanskrit
word himsā, though translated by Lang and many other
writers as “violence,” does not exactly correspond to our
concept of violence, and is somewhat closer in meaning to
“harm.” In killing one son to save both, it can be argued
that the hunter does not harm anyone, since the son who was shot with
an arrow would have died anyway. Similarly, killing thugs intent on
genocide would clearly be an example of violence, but we would not
necessarily describe it as a harmful act, and it may not count as
himsā.
Several Mahāyāna scriptures also contain statements
inconsistent with an unqualified pacifism. For instance, the
Mahā-parinirvāṇa Sūtra states that it is
permissible for someone with a pure intention to kill those who
persecute Buddhism (Jenkins 2011, 18). Another scriptural text, the
Range of the Bodhisattva
(ārya-bodhisattva-gocara), explicitly endorses defensive
warfare, when carried out with strict limitations and in order to
protect the people:
Although in war, injury and death may be inflicted on the opposing
army, a ruler by his skillful means will commit less unspeakable and
less nonvirtuous action and may not necessarily experience
retribution, since he undertook such measures with heedfulness and
compassion. (Jamspal trans. 2010, 61)
In practice, Buddhist societies have not always refrained from war.
For example, between 1635 and 1642, the Mongol leader Gushri Khan
invaded Tibet, suppressed various warring factions, and placed supreme
political power over the region in the hands of the dGe lugs tradition
and its leader, His Holiness the Fifth Dalai Lama. In the Song of
the Queen of Spring, a text published in 1643, the Fifth Dalai
Lama describes Gushri Khan as an emanation of the great Bodhisattva
Vajrapāni, and justifies his warlike actions as motivated by
compassion (Maher 2008, 186–90). In Sri Lanka, Buddhist monks
and rulers have endorsed the use of military force to defend their
island, seen as a sacred land and a sanctuary for the Buddhist
religion, against Hindu invaders from South India. During the recent
civil war, similar justifications were used to defend the use of
military measures against separatist rebels, mostly Hindus belonging
to the Tamil minority. In general, Buddhist kings in many parts of the
world, including Southeast and Central Asia, have called on their
military forces to resist foreign invasions.
Buddhist discussions of the ethics of punishment are fairly rare, but
there is an important passage about punishment in the Precious Garland
(Ratnāvalī), a letter to a king from the great
Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna. Whether or not Buddhist
ethics in general is consequentialist, the theory of punishment
Nāgārjuna presents is clearly a consequentialist one. To
maintain social order, punishment is a regrettable necessity. But the
king should not punish out of anger or a desire for revenge. Instead,
he should inflict punishment out of compassion, especially compassion
for the criminals themselves, whose destructive actions may have
condemned them to many lifetimes of suffering. (See Hopkins 1998 for a
translation of the text and Goodman 2009, ch. 9, for discussion.)
Moreover, punishment should be as mild as is consistent with achieving
the goal of restraining crime. Prisoners should be treated well and
held under humane conditions. Moreover, those prisoners who are
physically weak, and therefore pose less danger to society, should be
released early. It’s fairly clear that Nāgārjuna would
reject retributivist theories of punishment, which hold that prisoners
should be punished because they deserve to suffer or in order to take
away any unjust advantage they may have gained by their actions. From
the point of view of retributivism, the physical strength or weakness
of prisoners is irrelevant to how much punishment they deserve.
Moreover, some forms of retributivism, especially cruder, popular
versions, would endorse harsh conditions of punishment in order to
ensure that prisoners have to undergo the degree of suffering that
they deserve.
Just as Asaṅga’s theory can be used to justify certain
kinds of military action, it could also help justify punishment.
Punishment can have a number of beneficial effects: it can
incapacitate criminals, physically preventing them from repeating
their crimes; it can deter criminals, inducing them to follow the law
from fear of further punishment; it can rehabilitate criminals by
giving them education and skills that provide them with better options
than a life of crime; sometimes, it can even reform criminals, helping
them change their character to become better people, so that they will
no longer wish to commit crimes. These good effects of punishment
benefit society, since they reduce the crime rate; but from a Buddhist
point of view, they also benefit criminals themselves by preventing
them from creating more bad karma. Thus punishment can be motivated by
compassion for both criminals and their victims, and so it could be
acceptable in Buddhist ethics.
Some people see Buddhism as maintaining unqualified pacifism and
rejecting violence completely in general. In fact, some Buddhist
scriptures and treatises do allow for extreme cases in which
compassionately motivated punishment, violence, and even war could be
justified. They reserve their unqualified opposition for the reactive
emotions that often lead to violence, such as anger, hatred, malice,
and the desire for revenge. Buddhists should cultivate lovingkindness
and compassion for everyone, even those guilty of the worst actions,
and even while recognizing that some people need to be forcibly
restrained from doing even more damage. In a world that has been so
terribly scarred by violence and cruelty, the Buddhist rejection of
most forms of warfare seems wise and appropriate. But in a complicated
world of difficult choices, allowing for the necessity of violence in
rare instances may be difficult to avoid.
There is considerable controversy about the moral status of abortion
in Buddhist ethics, with the majority of writers taking a pro-life
position. The basic premise of the traditional understanding of
abortion in Buddhism is that reincarnation is a discrete event which
happens at the time of conception. This claim can be found in
discussions of reincarnation in prestigious sources such as the
Treasury of Metaphysics (Abhidharma-kośa) of
Vasubandhu. It implies that an embryo, even during the first week of
pregnancy, is a human being. As discussed in section 5, what is
distinctively valuable about human life is the possibility of
awakening. When the life of a fetus is taken through abortion, this
possibility is foreclosed. It follows that abortion is seriously
wrong, almost as serious as the deliberate murder of an adult. This is
the view of most Buddhists on the mainland of Asia today.
It’s important to keep in mind that the technological and social
context of abortion has changed dramatically since the time when the
Pāli Canon was composed. Today, a woman might be informed by her
doctor that the fetus she is carrying suffers from a severe genetic
abnormality; if she gives birth, her baby will live for a few days or
a few months in great pain before its inevitable early death. At the
time of the Buddha, medical technology was obviously far too
undeveloped to make such a situation possible. In the Pāli Canon,
many of the cases that involve abortion relate to a woman in a
polygamous marriage who is jealous of her co-wife’s pregnancy
and wishes to cause her rival to miscarry. Buddhist teachers who
formulated a blanket prohibition on abortion with this latter type of
case in mind might reconsider if they were aware of the former type of
case.
Unlike some other world religions, Buddhism does not have any moral
objection to contraception. Thus Buddhists could easily agree to
support programs to reduce the need for abortion by making
contraception more widely available and educating people in its
use.
Some Buddhists might question the premise that a human being exists
from the time of conception onward. Some Buddhists in the contemporary
West do not read the traditional teachings about reincarnation
literally, and so would not have reason to accept that reincarnation
happens at the moment of conception. Moreover, there are scientific
reasons to believe that consciousness does not begin until at least
the twentieth week of pregnancy (McMahan 2002, 267). There can be no
reincarnation without consciousness. If we want both to believe in
reincarnation and to accept what science tells us about the physical
bases of consciousness, we should perhaps hold that reincarnation is a
gradual process that slowly brings about a new conscious being that is
connected with one who has recently died. This concept of a gradual
beginning of life may be counterintuitive in some respects, but it
harmonizes well with the fundamental Buddhist doctrine of no self. If
we accept this understanding, then early abortion would not constitute
killing a sentient being.
Despite these counterarguments, most Buddhists today would accept
that, in their ethical system, abortion is morally wrong. It does not
necessarily follow that they would advocate making abortion illegal.
In many ways, it is contrary to the spirit of Buddhism to impose
Buddhist values on others by force. Buddhists were early advocates of
religious toleration, and the political environment of India before
the Islamic invasions was mostly quite a tolerant one in practice.
Moreover, Buddhist states have usually not chosen to prohibit such
practices as slaughtering and eating animals, even when their rulers
have held that these practices are immoral. Some writers have argued
that due to the severity of the offense of killing a human, abortion
in particular should not be legally tolerated by Buddhist societies
(for example, see Harvey 2000, 342–350). In fact, in some
Buddhist countries, such as Japan, abortion is legal; in others, it is
technically illegal, but the law is not strictly enforced. In a
diverse society where the moral status of fetuses is controversial, a
strict prohibition on abortion is likely to be difficult and costly to
enforce, and doing so would lead to intense social controversy,
alienating people from their own government. The inevitable use of
coercion and violence in law enforcement, in the form of police and
prisons, itself represents a grave karmic cost of imposing any penal
law on segments of the population who do not accept it as legitimate.
Thus many of the reasons internal to the Buddhist tradition that could
be used to argue in favor of religious toleration would also seem to
support a legal regime that permits abortion, even if Buddhist ethical
views imply that abortion is wrong.
The Buddhist tradition is less strongly opposed to suicide than some
other world religions. For a young, healthy person to complete suicide
is seen unequivocally as a destructive action. Yet the texts have a
perspective of greater ambivalence and complexity toward the suicide
of the gravely ill. Nevertheless, since the overall outlook of their
religion encourages Buddhists to value life and oppose killing, they
tend to be quite concerned about the moral status of euthanasia and
assisted suicide.
Traditional Buddhist beliefs imply that to die mindfully, with full
awareness of the processes of death, is a powerful spiritual practice.
The vivid, direct experience of impermanence and the strong sense of
non-attachment that result from dying this way could contribute
profoundly to the spiritual progress of that person in future lives.
This consideration motivates some Buddhists to allow death to take its
natural course, neither hastening it through suicide nor putting it
off briefly through desperate measures of little benefit. Those who
lack the needed depth of spiritual training may not be able to die
mindfully, and therefore may be better candidates for aggressive
medical intervention to prolong life. Even for them, though, the
chaos, excitement, confusion and fear of dying in the midst of
aggressive medical intervention may increase the risk of an
unfavorable rebirth. If the intervention promises no more than a
chance of a few more hours or days of life, with no hope of a genuine
recovery, those who believe in future lives may see it as a poor
option.
The very strong emphasis on the relief of suffering we find in
Buddhist ethics might lead us to conclude that Buddhists should favor
assisted suicide or euthanasia when a patient is in severe pain, wants
to die, but is unable to complete suicide due to physical limitations.
A doctor who carries out such procedures, though, even with the
consent of the patients involved, is in a karmically perilous
position. If the doctor’s motives for killing terminal patients
are in any way impure, the karmic consequences could be very serious.
The same applies to family members who cause the death of their
relative while motivated, even in part, by greed or by dislike of that
person.
For more information on these issues, see the detailed and helpful
discussion by Peter Harvey (Harvey 2000, 286–310). The questions
of euthanasia and assisted suicide involve several important Buddhist
values which may be in tension with each other. In looking at these
matters from a Buddhist perspective, we are unlikely to find any easy
answers.
Davis, Jake H., 2016, “‘The Scope for Wisdom’:
Early Buddhism on Reasons and Persons”, in The Bloomsbury
Research Handbook of Indian Ethics, ed. Shyam Ranganathan,
Bloomsbury Academic.
–––, Forthcoming, “When You Know For
Yourselves: Mindfulness and the Development of Wisdom,” in A
Mirror is For Reflection: Understanding Buddhist Ethics, ed. Jake
H. Davis, Oxford: Oxford University Press.