Moonpaths : ethics and emptiness / The Cowherds.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cowherds (Authors), author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Buddhist ethics.

Sunyata.

Physical Description:

xi, 274 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2016]

Summary:

The Mahayana Tradition in Buddhist Philosophy is defined by its ethical orientation-the adoption of bodhicitta, the aspiration to attain awakening for the benefit of all sentient beings. And indeed, this tradition is known for its literature on ethics, which reflects the Madhyamaka tradition of philosophy, and emphasizes both the imperative to cultivate an attitude of universal care (karuna) grounded in the realization of emptiness, impermanence, independence, and the absence of any self in persons or other phenomena. This position is morally very attractive, but raises an important problem: if all phenomena, including persons and actions, are only conventionally real, can moral injunctions or principles be binding, or does the conventional status of the reality we inhabit condemn us to an ethical relativism or nihilism? In Moonpaihs, the Cowherds address an analogous problem in the domain of epistemology and argue that the Madhyamaka tradition has the resources to develop a robust account of truth and knowledge within the context of conventional reality. The essays explore a variety of ways in which to understand important Buddhist texts on ethics and Mahayana moral theory so as to make sense of the genuine force of morality. The Cowherds are an international collective of scholars in Buddhist Studies. They worked together first on Moonshadows: Conventional Truth in Buddhist Philosophy, an investigation in Madhyamaka epistemology. They are united by a commitment to rigorous philosophical analysis as an approach to understanding Buddhist metaphysics and epistemology, and to the union of philology and philosophy in the service of greater understanding of the Buddhist tradition and its insights. They are: Amber Carpenter, Jay L. Garfield, Charles Goodman, Stephen Jenkins, Guy Newland, Graham Priest, Mark Siderits, Koji Tanaka, Sonam Thackchöe, and Jan Westerhoff. Book jacket.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780190260507

0190260505

9780190260514

0190260513

OCLC:

907652379