bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Neural Correlates of Self-Generated Imagery and Cognition Throughout the Sleep Cycle
Authors: Fox Kieran C.R. , Girn Manesh
Published: April 2018

Humans have been aware for thousands of years that sleep comes in many forms, accompanied by different kinds of mental content. This chapter reviews the first-person report literature on the frequency and type of content experienced in various stages of sleep, showing that different sleep stages are dissociable at the subjective level. It then relates these subjective differences to the growing literature differentiating the various sleep stages at the neurophysiological level, including evidence from electrophysiology, neurochemistry, and functional neuroimaging. The authors suggest that there is emerging evidence for relationships between sleep stage, neurophysiological activity, and subjective experiences. Specifically, they emphasize that functional neuroimaging work suggests a parallel between activation and deactivation of default network and visual network brain areas and the varying frequency and intensity of imagery and dream mentation across sleep stages; additionally, frontoparietal control network activity across sleep stages may parallel levels of cognitive control and meta-awareness.
The Mind Wanders with Ease
Authors: Stan Dylan , Christoff Kalina
Published: April 2018

Although mind-wandering has received increased attention in the field of cognitive neuroscience, definitions have not always aligned. Most have emphasized the contents of thought, treating it as synonymous with either task-unrelated thought or stimulus-independent thought. Such definitions miss an important aspect of what it means to let one’s mind wander: the easeful way that thoughts move about. A more recent definition looks, instead, at the dynamics of thought—the way that thoughts unfold over time—positioning mind-wandering as a type of spontaneous thought. By doing so, it is therefore more readily equipped to incorporate this quality of ease. While the term mind-wandering can sometimes refer either to a momentary event or to an ongoing activity, both usages, this chapter argues, will be unsatisfactory if they do not address this gentle mode of movement. Some benefits that ease can provide for future research are proposed.
Spontaneity in Evolution, Learning, Creativity, and Free Will
Authors: Simonton Dean Keith
Published: April 2018

This chapter proposes that spontaneous variation has a central role in biological evolution, operant conditioning, creative thinking, and personal agency. But to support these advantageous outcomes, this spontaneity must be joined with some selection process or procedure that decides which alleles, behaviors, ideas, or choices are most adaptive or useful. The argument begins with spontaneous variations in evolutionary theory, and then turns to operant conditioning, with emphasis on the origins of spontaneous behaviors. That analysis leads directly to a discussion that introduces a three-parameter definition of both creativity and sightedness, two concepts that provide the foundation for the blind-variation and selective-retention model of creativity. The latter is then linked with the chance-then-choice theory of free will, a linkage that makes spontaneous choice generation the first of two steps leading to personal agency. In all four phenomena, spontaneity is defined as the production of variants in ignorance of their actual utilities.
Spontaneous Thought, Insight, and Control in Lucid Dreams
Authors: Windt Jennifer M. , Voss Ursula
Published: April 2018

Dreams are sometimes described as an intensified form of spontaneous waking thought. Lucid dreams may seem to be a counterexample, because metacognitive insight into the fact that one is now dreaming is often associated with the ability to deliberately control the ongoing dream. This chapter uses conceptual considerations and empirical research findings to argue that lucid dreaming is in fact a promising and rich target for the future investigation of spontaneous thought. In particular, the investigation of dream lucidity can shed light on the relationship between metacognitive insight and control, on the one hand, and the spontaneous, largely imagistic cognitive processes that underlie the formation of dream imagery, on the other hand. In some cases, even lucid insight itself can be described as the outcome of spontaneous processes, rather than as resulting from conscious and deliberate reasoning. This raises new questions about the relationship between metacognitive awareness and spontaneous thought.
Spontaneous Thought in Contemplative Traditions
Authors: Eifring Halvor
Published: April 2018

For more than two millennia, contemplative traditions across the Eurasian continent have seen spontaneous thought as a distraction that binds the devout to the phenomenal world, clogs the gateway to fundamental aspects of reality, and is used by demons to tempt the pious away from their prayer or meditation. At the same time, many traditions have believed the fruits of contemplative practice to come about spontaneously, rather than as a result of deliberate effort, and they have treated certain aspects of spontaneous thought as helping the process forward. Various traditions have recommended different approaches to spontaneous thought, including active suppression, mindful observation, harmonious regulation, reluctant or wholehearted acceptance, and either gently or forcefully turning one’s attention to the object of meditation or prayer. Specific antidotes have included the recital of sacred texts or mantras, as well as the performance of good deeds, ascetic exercises, or rituals of repentance and confession.
Wandering and Direction in Creative Production
Authors: Dobson Charles
Published: April 2018

The broad field of creative production offers many anecdotal books devoted to various methods for generating ideas. Most of these pay scant attention to such difficulties as figuring out an initial direction; sorting out which ideas are worth pursuing, and preventing a critical frame of mind nurtured by years of schooling from stymying the flow of ideas. With the literature missing much of what would be useful in everyday practice, and lacking the research that would answer basic questions, some productive professionals have developed unusual habits through years of trial and error. Many of these seem to involve shifting back and forth between a focus on wandering or going somewhere new, and a focus on direction or arriving at a specific place.
Spontaneous Mental Experiences in Extreme and Unusual Environments
Authors: Suedfeld Peter , Rank A. Dennis , Malůš Marek
Published: April 2018

This chapter reviews the effects of a special category of environments on cognitive and cognitive/emotional processes. These extreme and unusual environments (EUEs) are characterized by drastic differences from the individual’s accustomed milieu, and by posing serious challenges to well-being, health, and survival. There is a massive and wide-ranging body of writing on this topic, from history, anthropology, sociology, literature, and biography, as well as from psychology. The chapter covers information from studies of religion and ritual, mysticism, exploration, spaceflight, artistic endeavor, psychotherapy, and laboratory experiments. Sojourners in EUEs have experienced changes in memory and cognitive performance, perceptual anomalies, states of dissociative fugue, and unusual flights of imagination, among other consequences. Both positive and negative effects have been found and are discussed.
How Does the Waking and Sleeping Brain Produce Spontaneous Thought and Imagery, and Why?
Authors: Antrobus John S.
Published: April 2018

Although mind-wandering and dreaming often appear as trivial or distracting cognitive processes, this chapter suggests that they may also contribute to the evaluation, sorting, and saving of representations of recent events of future value to an individual. But 50 years after spontaneous imagery—night dreaming—was first compared to concurrent cortical EEG, there is limited hard evidence on the neural processes that produce either visual dreaming imagery or the speech imagery of waking spontaneous thought. The authors propose here an outline of a neurocognitive model of such processes with suggestions for future research that may contribute to a better understanding of their utility.
When the Absence of Reasoning Breeds Meaning
Authors: Morewedge Carey K. , Kupor Daniella M.
Published: April 2018

Intuitions, attitudes, images, mind-wandering, dreams, and religious messages are just a few of the many kinds of uncontrolled thoughts that intrude on consciousness spontaneously without a clear reason. Logic suggests that people might thus interpret spontaneous thoughts as meaningless and be uninfluenced by them. By contrast, our survey of this literature indicates that the lack of an obvious external source or motive leads people to attribute considerable meaning and importance to spontaneous thoughts. Spontaneous thoughts are perceived to provide meaningful insight into the self, others, and the world. As a result of these metacognitive appraisals, spontaneous thoughts substantially affect the beliefs, attitudes, decisions, and behavior of the thinker. We present illustrative examples of the metacognitive appraisals by which people attribute meaning to spontaneous secular and religious thoughts, and the influence of these thoughts on judgment and decision-making, attitude formation and change, dream interpretation, and prayer discernment.
Introduction
Authors: Fox Kieran C.R. , Christoff Kalina
Published: April 2018

Enormous questions still loom for the emerging science of spontaneous thought: What, exactly, is spontaneous thought? Why does the human brain engage in spontaneous forms of thinking, and when is this most likely to occur? And perhaps the question most interesting and accessible from a scientific perspective: How does the brain generate, elaborate, and evaluate its own spontaneous creations? The central aim of this volume is to bring together views from neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, phenomenology, history, education, contemplative traditions, and clinical practice in order to begin to address the ubiquitous but poorly understood mental phenomena collectively known as “spontaneous thought.” Perhaps no other mental experience is so familiar in daily life, and yet so difficult to understand and explain scientifically. The present volume represents the first effort to bring such highly diverse perspectives to bear on answering the what, when, why, and how of spontaneous thought.
Dreaming Is an Intensified Form of Mind-Wandering, Based in an Augmented Portion of the Default Network
Authors: Domhoff G. William
Published: April 2018

This chapter argues that dreaming is an intensified form of mind-wandering that makes use of embodied simulation. It further hypothesizes that the neural network that enables dreaming is very likely an augmented portion of the default network. This network is activated whenever there is (1) a mature and intact neural substrate that can support the cognitive process of dreaming; (2) an adequate level of cortical activation; (3) an occlusion of external stimuli; (4) a cognitively mature imagination system (a necessity indicated by the virtual lack of dreaming in preschoolers and its relative paucity until ages 8–9); and (5) the loss of conscious self-control, which may be neurologically mediated in the final step in a complex process by the decoupling of the dorsal attentional network from the anterior portions of the default network. If this testable theory proves to be correct, then dreaming may be the quintessential cognitive simulation.
Cortical Plasticity
Authors: Marik Sally A. , Gilbert Charles D.
Published: April 2018

The cerebral cortex is a learning engine. The ability to encode information about sensory experience or practiced movements is a universal property of all cortical areas. This capacity, known as cortical plasticity, is seen in experience dependent changes in the functional properties of cortical neurons and in the alteration of cortical circuits. Certain properties are mutable only during a short period in postnatal life, which is known as the critical period, while others retain the ability to change throughout life. The same changes associated with assimilating normal experiences can be implemented for functional recovery following lesions of the central nervous system.
Missionary Art and Architecture of the Society of Jesus between China and Brazil
Authors: Bailey Gauvin Alexander
Published: April 2018

This chapter discusses Jesuit strategies in mission art and architecture in the early modern world through two eighteenth-century case studies, one in China and the other in Brazil. The first is an episode in the Jesuit artistic campaign at the Qing court in Beijing when Jesuit artists worked closely with court artists and the Chinese emperor Qianlong to create the Xiyanglou (European-style buildings) at the imperial gardens at Yuanming Yuan. The second is the Jesuits’ introduction of Chinese style decor into church interiors in colonial Brazil as a symbol of Christian victory over paganism. These two episodes will also complicate our idea of Jesuit exceptionalism since non-Christians, Franciscans, and other orders were involved in these activities, sometimes as much as the Jesuits.
Jesuit Mathematics
Authors: Gatto Romano
Published: April 2018

Despite its difficult gestation, the Jesuit mathematical schools, thanks to Christoph Clavius, gained great prestige in a short time. The Society of Jesus, therefore, provided a fertile ground for mathematical and astronomical studies. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, many generations of scholars had been trained in schools of the Society of Jesus. Jesuit mathematicians were interested in scientific innovation and they contributed original research to all scientific disciplines of the time, in addition to playing a key role in spreading scientific knowledge. Many Jesuits have an important place in the history of mathematics. Their handbooks and scientific texts were used and highly regarded by the greatest European mathematicians. In this chapter, we give an account of the events that characterized the birth and the developments of the Jesuit mathematical education, by focusing mainly on European assistances in addition to a brief account of Jesuit mathematical missions in Asia.
Conversations on the Body and the Soul
Authors: Mills Bruce
Published: April 2018

This article examines how Edgar Allan Poe’s angelic and mesmeric dialogues explore the nature of the body and soul, as well as the capacity of language to transcend death. These esoteric conversations respond to two dimensions of Poe’s oeuvre: an ongoing terror in the imminence of death and an effort to enact an aesthetic transcendence. Speaking from an in-between consciousness following physical death and/or through a sixth or mesmeric sense, these tales diminish the terror of death and instead imagine a more complete knowing unimpeded by the corporeal senses. In channeling his views of God and the soul through the interlocutors’ speculations, he brings to the living the redemptive designs of divine creation. Thus, these dialogues mark Poe’s mesmeric effort to retrieve the irretrievable: the divine thought that sets in motion and affirms the power of his own words.
Poe’s Lives
Authors: Kopley Richard
Published: April 2018

This essay proceeds chronologically, describing and evaluating noteworthy book-length biographies of Poe, from William Fearing Gill to James Hutchisson. The quality of these biographies ranges from the problematic (especially Woodberry, Allen, and Krutch) to the preeminent (especially Quinn, Thomas and Jackson, and Silverman). Discussions of the biographies include such matters as accuracy and insight, style and pace, and research and regard. Cruxes include Poe’s drinking, Poe’s sexuality, Poe’s will, the conclusion of Poe’s Pym, and the value of Poe’s Eureka. Though we never finally really know Poe, we may, by reading and rereading the best of these biographies, approach him more closely than we have approached him before.
Introduction
Authors: Labrador Angela M. , Silberman Neil Asher
Published: April 2018

The field of cultural heritage is no longer solely dependent on the expertise of art and architectural historians, archaeologists, conservators, curators, and site and museum administrators. It has dramatically expanded across disciplinary boundaries and social contexts and now includes vernacular architecture, intangible cultural practices, knowledge, and language, performances, and rituals, as well as cultural landscapes. Heritage has become entangled with the broader social, political, and economic contexts in which heritage is created, managed, transmitted, protected, or destroyed. Heritage protection now encompasses a growing set of methodological approaches whose objectives are not necessarily focused upon the maintenance of material fabric, traditionally cultural heritage’s primary concern. Rather, these objectives have become explicitly social with methods foregrounding public engagement, diverse values, and community-based action. Thus, we introduce the term “public heritage” as a way of bringing together these emerging practices. This handbook charts major sites of convergence between the humanities and the social sciences—where new disciplinary perspectives are being brought to bear on public heritage. This introduction outlines the potential contributions of development studies, political science, anthropology, management studies, human geography, ecology, psychology, sociology, cognitive studies, and education to the field of public heritage.
Heritage and Management, Professional Utopianism, Administrative Naiveté, and Organizational Uncertainty at the Shipwrecks of Pisa
Authors: Zan Luca , Shoup Daniel
Published: April 2018

In 1998, archaeologists discovered the first of sixteen Roman shipwrecks at San Rossore, Pisa, 500 m from the leaning tower. Shortly afterward a grand vision for a “museum with three vertices” was articulated: a public excavation area plus a conservation laboratory and museum of Mediterranean navigation, to be constructed in an under-used sixteenth-century barracks nearby. The grand vision of three interconnected institutions became an obstacle in itself: in the absence of an administrative culture that was able to bring projects “down to earth,” the universalist and utopian tendencies of professional discourse fostered a tendency to choose the “best” project over the most feasible one, adding costs, risks, and uncertainty to an already challenging project. Based on extensive archival research, this chapter reconstructs the fifteen-year history of the project and explores the emergent management issues at this unique site, including the role of professional optimism, bureaucratic myopia, urban planning, and uncertainty.
Intergenerational Learning
Authors: Cortellesi Giulia , Harpley Jessica , Kernan Margaret
Published: April 2018

This chapter explores the potential of intergenerational learning (IGL) occurring in communities around the globe to contribute to cultural conservation and cultural transformation. It builds on recent developments in theory and research to explore IGL as a mechanism for building and transforming cultural heritage between children and older adults. The benefits of IGL programs for both individual and community well-being are discussed, as well as the ability of IGL projects to foster social integration and acceptance in multicultural and diverse communities. The chapter makes a strong case for the integration of IGL programs within societies, especially migrant communities, to preserve and transform cultural heritage and build intercultural communities, for the benefit of all.
Folklore and Folklife of American Religious Communities
Authors: Clements William M.
Published: April 2018

Religious folklore yields to the same analytical approaches that contribute to understanding similar expression in other groups. Moreover, some groups develop systems of belief, behavior, organization, and symbolism that lie outside standard religious systems. Often ignored by scholars in other disciplines, this folk religion—manifested in forms such as the folk church, folk religious communities, complementary religion, and tribal religion—invites the attention of folklore studies, whose traditional focus has often been on cultures that stand alongside but apart from mainstream societies. Folklorists apply their empathetic research methods to folk religious groups through careful ethnography that accounts for what may be distinctive to the groups as well as what they share with other folk groups.
American Folk Speech, Names, and Gestures
Authors: Doyle Charles Clay
Published: April 2018

Comprising the briefest kinds of folklore, the category folk speech (including traditional nonoral “speech” like some gestures and conventions of electronic communication) is often misconstrued. Because folklore consists of consciously performed “texts,” folk speech cannot include words or pronunciations that normally—unconsciously—characterize a given speaker’s regional, social, or ethnic dialect. Many “classic” glossaries that folklorists cite in discussing folk speech are largely concerned, rather, with dialect or with argot specific to an occupation. As with other genres of folklore, folk speech is motivated by a wish to affirm one’s membership in a folk group, but folk speech can also feature an individual speaker’s wit, creativity, even originality. The desire to certify one’s “belonging” to a group can take the form of verbally derogating other groups or disfavored members of one’s own group.
Moral Development in the Jātakas, Avadānas, and Pāli Nikāyas
Authors: Adam Martin
Published: April 2018

In early Indian Buddhism the moral development of the individual is conceived of as taking place over many lives and through a number of distinct phases. The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of moral development as described in three categories of early Buddhist scripture: jātakas, avadānas, and the Pāli Nikāyas. Two related understandings of morality are distinguished in the texts, with the deeper of the two senses based on considerations of the agent’s inner constitution rather than outer behaviour. The argument proceeds in relation to two consecutive paths: one a path of worldly practice, the other a supramundane path that leads directly to the highest good, liberation. These paths are analysed in terms of a hierarchy of three kinds of spiritual actor: the ordinary person, the disciple in higher training, and the liberated being. The chapter concludes by contrasting these agents’ respective experiences of morality.
Buddhist Ethics in Contemporary Tibet
Authors: Gayley Holly
Published: April 2018

In recent years, Buddhist ethics are being marshalled in novel ways as a means to unify Tibetans and articulate a vision of ethnic identity and progress in line with Buddhist values. This chapter traces several contemporary strands of ethical mobilization, both on the Tibetan plateau and in the diaspora, with a keen interest in the formation of ethical Buddhist subjects. This chapter contrasts a new set of ten Buddhist virtues in eastern Tibet, articulated by cleric-scholars at Larung Buddhist Academy in 2008, with other incidents and movements, such as the fur-burnings of 2006, the Lhakar or ‘White Wednesday’ boycotts and pledges underway since 2009, the tragic wave of self-immolations that have escalated since 2011, and a distinct articulation of nonviolence with the ‘amulet for peace’ introduced in 2012.
The Bodhisattva Precepts
Authors: Groner Paul
Published: April 2018

This chapter has two major goals. The first is to introduce some of the major sets of bodhisattva precepts and to discuss their significance in both India and East Asia while paying attention to some of the areas that our current state of knowledge does not allow us to understand. Besides the contents of the precepts, bodhisattva ordinations and the expiation of wrongdoing are considered. The second part of the chapter, with particular emphasis on the Tendai school of Japan, focuses on how the bodhisattva precepts led to a more nuanced understanding of Buddhist ethics by focusing on such issues as killing and compassion.
Ethics in Zen
Authors: Ives Christopher
Published: April 2018

Ethics in Zen feature core components of broader Buddhist ethics: precepts, monastic codes, compassion, skill in means, and the bodhisattva ideal. Zen approaches to practice and awakening as well as such influences as Confucianism have coloured how Zen thinkers in East Asia have interpreted and practised these components. As a result, such constructs as the Five Precepts play a role in traditional Zen that differs from how they have functioned in other strands of Buddhism. Recently, in response to war, gender discrimination, and environmental degradation, Zen thinkers have been reinterpreting such constructs, often in ways that diverge from traditional Zen.
Human Rights
Authors: Keown Damien
Published: April 2018

Engaged Buddhists typically voice strong support for human rights, but not everyone is persuaded that Western concepts like ‘rights’ and ‘human rights’ are compatible with Buddhist teachings. While globalization has weakened claims that ‘Asian values’ are radically distinctive, the suspicion lingers that human rights are a ‘Trojan horse’ for hegemonic Western values. Fears are also expressed that the individualism implicit in ‘rights’ promotes egocentricity and conflict rather than selflessness and social cohesion. Here we explore first the conceptual compatibility of human rights with Buddhist teachings, before considering some proposed doctrinal foundations. The conclusion will suggest a way of grounding these different proposals in a common foundation.
Euthanasia
Authors: Keown Damien
Published: April 2018

This chapter explores the Buddhist perspective on euthanasia in the light of scriptural teachings and contemporary opinions. The chapter is divided into four parts. The first considers what does—and does not—constitute euthanasia, and includes a discussion of views expressed by contemporary Tibetan teachers. The second part discusses two moral values often invoked in support of euthanasia, autonomy and compassion. The third part considers how euthanasia is regarded in early textual sources. The fourth part offers a brief survey of contemporary attitudes to euthanasia in Japan and Thailand. It concludes that euthanasia is contrary to Buddhist teachings in that it involves intentional killing contrary to the First Precept. Buddhists rarely call for the legalization of euthanasia: their concerns centre instead on ‘dysthanasia’, or the unnecessary prolongation of the dying process. In response to this concern it is suggested that Buddhism imposes no obligation to preserve life at all costs.
Bhikṣuṇī Ordination
Authors: Analayo Bhikkhu
Published: April 2018

This chapter examines the legal details surrounding the full ordination of women into the Buddhist monastic traditions. These legal details need be appreciated in order to understand difficulties involved in current attempts to revive an order of female monastics, bhikṣuṇīs, where it has come to be extinct. The chapter begins with the account of the foundation of the bhikṣuṇī order in the way this is found in the Dharmaguptaka, Mūlasarvāstivāda, and Theravāda Vinayas. Next it surveys the legal parameters that emerge from one of these gurudharmas, which concerns bhikṣuṇī ordination, and how according to these three Vinayas subsequent ordinations were carried out. Then it turns to the transmission of the bhikṣuṇī ordination lineage until modern times to set the frame for appreciating the present situation.
The Ethics of Engaged Buddhism in Asia
Authors: King Sallie B.
Published: April 2018

This chapter examines the ethics of contemporary Engaged Buddhism, also known as Socially Engaged Buddhism. The introductory section defines Engaged Buddhism and gives an overview of its history, the various forms of social engagement undertaken by Engaged Buddhists in different Asian countries, and its most important leaders. The chapter then analyses the ethical principles of Engaged Buddhism—first, those found throughout the Engaged Buddhist movement as a whole, then those that characterize what may heuristically be seen as three major kinds of Engaged Buddhism: nondualistic (exemplified by Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama), prophetic (exemplified by B. R. Ambedkar), and humanistic (exemplified by Venerable Cheng Yen and Tzu Chi).
The Vinaya
Authors: Prebish Charles S.
Published: April 2018

This chapter focuses on the Vinaya Piṭaka, which is the first of the three traditional components of Buddhist scripture. Following an introduction that contextualizes this literature and its role in regulating the moral and ethical behaviour of Buddhist monks and nuns, it considers the Vinaya in its three traditional components: Paracanonical, Canonical, and Non-Canonical Vinaya Literature. The Paracanonical Vinaya literature is comprised of two basic components: the Prātimokṣa Sūtra, or those rules governing the individual lives of monks and nuns, and the Karmavācanā, which governs the basic life of the Buddhist saṃgha. As these two texts were expanded into fully canonical versions, noted as Buddhavacana, they developed into texts known as the Sūtravibhaṅga and Skandhaka, which included stories explaining the promulgation of the Vinaya rules, their applications, and exceptions. Finally, we consider the Non-Canonical Vinaya Literature, which includes commentaries and miscellaneous texts providing additional information about the Buddhist disciplinary tradition.
The Ethics of Engaged Buddhism in the West
Authors: Queen Christopher
Published: April 2018

This chapter identifies challenges facing Engaged Buddhism in the West and proposes new models of ethical interpretation to account for its originality and persistence. Taking Engaged Buddhism to mean the application of Buddhist principles and practices to address social sources of human suffering and environmental harm—in contrast to other modes of Buddhist ethics, such as discipline, virtue, and altruism—we consider the degree to which Buddhist social engagement has been embraced, repudiated, or ignored by influential Buddhists and by the sponsors of mindfulness meditation programmes that have proliferated in the West. In comparing these expressions of contemporary religion and secularity, we find a range of conditions for the practice of Engaged Buddhism. We conclude by offering John Dewey’s pragmatism and Joanna Macy’s systems theory as resources for Engaged Buddhist ethics, as supplements to the virtue ethics and consequentialism others have proposed to account for traditional Buddhist ethics.
Buddhist Economics
Authors: Shields James Mark
Published: April 2018

Despite the strong historical relationship between the early Indian Buddhist saṅgha and the merchant classes, Western scholars have for only a few decades explored in detail the deep and abiding connections between Buddhist ideas and practices and the broad sphere of human activity called ‘economics’. This chapter investigates the connections between Buddhist ethical teachings and economic ideas and practices, particularly in the context of modernity. After analysing the concept of ‘economics’ as it has been understood and employed in Western and Asian thought, it moves into a discussion of economic ethics for the Saṅgha and laypersons, both in the early tradition and in the East Asian cultural context. Finally, the chapter provides a critical examination of more recent attempts to formulate a ‘Buddhist economics’, focusing in particular on both the problems and possibilities of such in the work of E. F. Schumacher and P. A. Payutto.
Buddhist Ethics Compared to Western Ethics
Authors: Vasen Sīlavādin Meynard
Published: April 2018

The three main ethical theories in Western philosophy can be used as a framework from which to bring out the features of Buddhist ethics; hermeneutical questions regarding the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of comparison; a consideration of Buddhist ethics as virtue ethics, centring around the notions of practices, narratives, and traditions, as proposed by MacIntyre, including a discussion of relativism in the context of naturalism, the fact/value gap, and cognitivism/non-cognitivism; a critique of consequentialism including a discussion of Goodman and Singer on altruism and compassion, agent-neutrality, and personhood, especially the bodhisattva-ideal; a critique of deontology that argues that there are no moral absolutes, and that only the wise can establish in a particular situation what is right, that is, what leads to a more awakened state. Conclusion: a discussion of why it is fruitful to see Buddhist ethics as a member of the family of (neo-Aristotelian) virtue ethical theories.
Buddhism and Animal Rights
Authors: Waldau Paul
Published: April 2018

The Buddhist tradition is justifiably known for its commitment to the primacy of ethical reflection. On the issue of nonhuman animals, the tradition-wide commitment to an undertaking to refrain from killing, known as the First Precept, offers a moving example of humans’ abilities to apply ethics to nonhuman animals on questions about animal protection for companion animals, food animals, entertainment animals, wildlife, and captive animals. Buddhist reflections on humans’ relationship to nonhuman animals, including questions of non-lethal harms, also have features that are illuminated, as is the First Precept, by a comparison with contemporary animal rights and animal protection debates.
Introduction
Authors: Cozort Daniel , Shields James Mark
Published: April 2018

In the past twenty years, the sub-discipline of Buddhist ethics has expanded in terms of the breadth of methodological perspective and depth of inquiry. Scholars have used Buddhist resources to analyse a number of contemporary controversies, including human rights, women’s rights, animal rights, sexuality, war, terrorism, violence, social, economic and retributive justice, as well as various issues of concern to biomedical and environmental ethics. Beyond matters of philosophical and applied ethics, anthropologists and sociologists have studied the effect of Buddhism upon various cultures of Asia. The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Ethics is intended as a comprehensive overview of the state of the field of Buddhist ethics in the second decade of the twenty-first century. Contributions by twenty-nine international scholars provide balanced and critical review essays on particular aspects of Buddhist ethics related to their current research. This handbook will serve as a leading resource for current and future scholars in this burgeoning field of study but will also be of interest to anyone interested in multiple perspectives on ethical issues.
Ethics in Pure Land Schools
Authors: Conway Michael
Published: April 2018

The exclusivist strand of Pure Land Buddhism that developed in China and took strong root in Japan stresses the inability of human beings to bring about their own liberation from the effects of karma through their own ethical practice, and instead views reliance on the working of Amitābha as the only possible path to liberation. Because of its denial of the efficacy of ethical action as a cause of Buddhahood throughout its history, this tradition has addressed a variety of delicate problems dealing with the relationship between ethical action and Buddhist attainment. This chapter explores how that tension played out in various recensions of the central sutra of the tradition, and the thought of two representative thinkers: Shandao (613–681) and Shinran (1173–1262). These considerations show that the Pure Land tradition offers many insights that might help advance discussions in the discipline of Buddhist ethics in the future.
Buddhism, War, and Violence
Authors: Jerryson Michael
Published: April 2018

This chapter reviews Buddhist approaches to war and violence. Because ethics is the basis by which people make choices, the chapter’s focus is not purely on scriptures, but rather on the wider field of lived choices and the doctrine that relates to such choices. Buddhists have decided to go to war and have committed various acts of violence. The chapter begins with a brief chronological overview of Buddhist-inspired conflicts, wars, and the ethical debates and decisions surrounding these events. It then addresses the ambiguous subject matter of violence. Applying the Buddhist interdiction of ahimsa (non-harm/non-injury), it reviews doctrinal and historical cases in which Buddhist doctrine or Buddhists have justified harm/injury by means of murder, torture, capital punishment, and discrimination. The chapter ends with an examination of the ways in which Buddhists respond to war and violence.
Violence and International Political Theory
Authors: Lang Anthony F.
Published: April 2018

This chapter explores violence through the lens of International Political Theory (IPT). In so doing, it interprets three seemingly disparate forms of violence through a single lens that directs our attention to political concepts such as authority, rights, rules, and responsibilities. Moreover, this chapter will address the ways in which international and global practices of violence raise new questions because authority, rights, responsibilities, and rules are not so clearly fixed at levels beyond the nation-state. The argument of the chapter is, very broadly, that violence constrains and enables politics at the same time that politics constrains and enables violence. IPT can provide a critical and historical perspective on the intersection of violence and the political while also providig some normative valuation of this intersection.
The Ethics and “Realism” of Nonviolent Action
Authors: King Mary Elizabeth
Published: April 2018

Throughout human history, nonviolent social movements have pursued publicly claimed goals by exerting social, political, economic, psychological, and cultural forms of power against targeted groups or rulers. Voluntarily organizing campaigns that intentionally abstain from violence, or its threat, groups, and societies have pursued their aims through sustained collective action. Noncooperation—the withholding of obedience—is fundamental to such unarmed power, which seeks to obtain correctives when standard institutionalized political processes fail to redress grievances. Strategy and tactics are enacted through a large inventory of discrete nonviolent methods (such as boycotts, delegations, marches, vigils), sequentially applying pressure with ascending potency. Rather than favouring utopian thinking, theoreticians of civil resistance assume that political conflict cannot be eradicated. They also consider that the means determines the end—hence the importance of maintaining nonviolent discipline. During the past century, use of this technique of struggle has succeeded more often than violence.
International Political Theory and LGBTQ Rights
Authors: Langlois Anthony J.
Published: April 2018

The real-world politics of rights for lesbians, gays, bisexuals, trans, and queer people is deeply contested. While now recognized by the UN and leading democratic states (if still incompletely and often haphazardly), LGBTQ rights are denied in many other quarters. Empirical research demonstrates the value of human rights in securing protections for LGBTQ people while also highlighting the ambiguities of a rights-based politics. This chapter discusses discuss how the use of LGBTQ rights claims highlight the need for critical theoretical approaches to human rights. It considers the politicized and sometimes antithetical use to which the newly accepted discourses of LGBTQ rights are put in the foreign policies of states and the behaviour of other international actors. It examines how the practice of gay rights by states and other agents can be caught up in a politics which undermines their emancipatory impetus.
The Contested Ethics of Democracy Promotion
Authors: Kurki Milja
Published: April 2018

This chapter explores the ethical justifications actors in international politics may have to promote democracy in other countries. Although ethical debates surrounding the promotion of democracy often remain rather implicit, this chapter seeks to show that it is not irrelevant for our understanding of the practice, or for the practitioners themselves, to think through more carefully the ethical underpinnings that actually and potentially frame this policy agenda. Paying attention to the ethics of democracy promotion is significant not least because we observe that a variety of differing, and contested, ethical assumptions and frameworks can be used to frame the activity by different actors, organizations, and political groups.
International Migration and Human Rights
Authors: Ferracioli Luara
Published: April 2018

In this chapter, I bring non-ideal theory to bear on the ethics of immigration. In particular, I explore what the obligations of liberal states would be if they were to attempt to implement migration arrangements that conform to liberal-cosmopolitan principles. I argue that some of the obligations states have are feasibility-insensitive, while some are feasibility-sensitive. I show that such obligations can have as their content both the inclusion and exclusion of prospective immigrants, and that they can be grounded in the requirements of liberal justice, mere capacity to assist, as well as past or foreseeable contribution to harm. The chapter therefore explores the possibility of an international migration regime that takes human rights seriously whilst avoiding the twin pitfalls of strict immigration restrictions and the complete liberalization of immigration.
Emotions and International Political Theory
Authors: Jeffery Renée
Published: April 2018

This chapter examines the contribution made by the “emotional turn,” one of the most exciting and revolutionary developments in contemporary scholarship, to the key concerns of contemporary International Political Theory (IPT). It details the particularly close relationship that has been forged between empirical research on the emotions and IPT, and examines the role that discoveries in the neurosciences and psychology may play in substantiating existing emotional theories of international relations and shaping new developments in international political thought. The chapter also considers the broader implications of emotions research for IPT, focusing in particular on the impact that key findings about the nature of reason and its relationship to the emotions may have on the core assumptions that underpin many dominant theoretical accounts of international relations.
Realist Challenges
Authors: Bell Duncan
Published: April 2018

Realism casts a long shadow over International Political Theory. For many scholars, especially those working on global justice, it is a pernicious foe that needs vanquishing to secure political and theoretical progress. For its advocates, especially in International Relations, it serves as a blunt reminder of the limits of morality in international affairs. However, realism is a shape-shifting body of thought compatible with assorted ethical and political orientations. This chapter discusses some challenges that realism poses, but also challenges that realism itself faces. It opens with a discussion of how realists can contribute to debates over feasibility constraints, before challenging three common myths about realism—that it is amoral, state-centric, and conservative—and concludes with a discussion of liberal realism, understood as an international variant of the liberalism of fear.
Game Theory and the Future of International Security
Authors: Kydd Andrew H.
Published: April 2018

Game theory can help guide our thinking about the future of international relations in three ways. Static models can help us understand the effects of varying exogenous parameters, like the cost of war, the level of transparency, or the returns from trade. Dynamic models help us understand how fears or hopes for the future can affect present behavior, and how present behavior constrains or enables future options. Finally, evolutionary game theoretic models can represent processes that unfold over longer time horizons, helping us understand the rise of international cooperation and the decline of war. Given that we have no data on the future, formal theory is especially useful in guiding our speculation.
Leaders, Leadership, and International Security
Authors: Horowitz Michael
Published: April 2018

While international security research used to be too leader-centric, in the era of “great man history,” the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction over the last two generations as international security research increasingly removed leaders from having any agency in the decisions their countries make. This chapter will explore the potential importance of leaders across a variety of theories of international politics, in particular the interaction between leaders, domestic political institutions, and material power. It will then discuss how improving our understanding of leaders can improve our ability to understand both the key international security issues of the past and those that seem likely to be at the forefront of the next generation.
The Future of International Security Norms
Authors: Vinjamuri Leslie
Published: April 2018

Contemporary Western politics have led many to fear that the greatest threat to liberalism lies in a gradual weakening of norms integral to the liberal international order. In considering the future of international security norms, this chapter begins by examining the norms that have defined the post-Cold War era before turning to theoretical arguments about the sources of normative change and evolution. A key question for the future is whether the backlash against efforts to infuse security policies with human rights norms, the reluctance by states to enforce these norms, and the rise of new powers that do not embrace these norms will erode existing norms. This chapter will argue that the future depends upon the strategies deployed to unravel norms: the creation of new norms or adaption of existing norms in ways that create an alternative type of path dependence will be most consequential for existing norms.
The Changing Geography of Global Security
Authors: Adamson Fiona B.
Published: April 2018

This chapter surveys the changing geography of international security and examines its implications for the future. It discusses the role that territoriality has played in the conceptualization of security and how a “methodological nationalist” bias has shaped the field of security studies. The chapter examines a range of spaces beyond the state, including cities, cyberspace, refugee camps, and diasporas, and analyzes how broader structural changes in the international system lead to a blurring of zones of war and peace. It examines non-state changes in distributions of power that strengthen network configurations and global circuits of political violence, and suggests tools from geography, sociology, and anthropology that can be employed to understand and map the new landscape of global security.
The Great Debate
Authors: Deudney Daniel
Published: April 2018

In the wake of the development of nuclear weapons, the survival of civilization, and perhaps humanity, hinges on answering the “nuclear political question”: Which political arrangements are needed to provide security from large-scale nuclear violence? Over the course of the nuclear era, a great debate on this question has occurred in three quite different rounds. In the first round, “nuclear one world” ideas about the obsolescence of the state-system and necessity of a world state predominated, but reached both conceptual and practical impasses. In the second round, across much of the Cold War, a trinity of deterrence-centered approaches, simple deterrence, war strategism, and arms control, prevailed. In the currently unfolding third round, proliferation and leakage have weakened confidence in nuclear deterrence, while both war strategism and arms control have become more radical, offering opposite “bombs away” answers of coercive counter-proliferation and preventive war, and deep arms control and nuclear abolition.