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Buddhist Ethics: A Very Short Introduction
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Buddha Michael Carrithers EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
BUDDHISM Damien Keown BRITAIN Paul Langford
BUDDHIST ETHICS Damien Keown THE ELEMENTS Philip Ball
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FASCISM Kevin Passmore MODERN IRELAND Senia Pasˇeta
FOUCAULT Gary Gutting MOLECULES Philip Ball
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION MUSIC Nicholas Cook
William Doyle Myth Robert A. Segal
FREE WILL Thomas Pink NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner
Freud Anthony Storr NINETEENTH-CENTURY
Galileo Stillman Drake BRITAIN Christopher Harvie and
Gandhi Bhikhu Parekh H. C. G. Matthew
GLOBALIZATION Manfred Steger NORTHERN IRELAND
GLOBAL WARMING Mark Maslin Marc Mulholland
HABERMAS PARTICLE PHYSICS Frank Close
James Gordon Finlayson paul E. P. Sanders
HEGEL Peter Singer Philosophy Edward Craig
HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
HIEROGLYPHS Penelope Wilson Samir Okasha
HINDUISM Kim Knott PLATO Julia Annas
HISTORY John H. Arnold POLITICS Kenneth Minogue
HOBBES Richard Tuck POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
HUME A. J. Ayer David Miller
IDEOLOGY Michael Freeden POSTCOLONIALISM
Indian Philosophy Robert Young
Sue Hamilton POSTMODERNISM
Intelligence Ian J. Deary Christopher Butler
ISLAM Malise Ruthven POSTSTRUCTURALISM
JUDAISM Norman Solomon Catherine Belsey
Jung Anthony Stevens PREHISTORY Chris Gosden
KAFKA Ritchie Robertson PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY
KANT Roger Scruton Catherine Osborne
KIERKEGAARD Patrick Gardiner Psychology Gillian Butler and
THE KORAN Michael Cook Freda McManus
LINGUISTICS Peter Matthews QUANTUM THEORY
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Jonathan Culler RENAISSANCE ART
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LOGIC Graham Priest ROMAN BRITAIN Peter Salway
MACHIAVELLI Quentin Skinner ROUSSEAU Robert Wokler
MARX Peter Singer RUSSELL A. C. Grayling
MATHEMATICS Timothy Gowers RUSSIAN LITERATURE
MEDICAL ETHICS Tony Hope Catriona Kelly
THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
S. A. Smith Helen Graham
SCHIZOPHRENIA SPINOZA Roger Scruton
Chris Frith and Eve Johnstone STUART BRITAIN John Morrill
SCHOPENHAUER TERRORISM
Christopher Janaway Charles Townshend
SHAKESPEARE Germaine Greer THEOLOGY David F. Ford
SOCIAL AND CULTURAL THE TUDORS John Guy
ANTHROPOLOGY TWENTIETH-CENTURY
John Monaghan and Peter Just BRITAIN Kenneth O. Morgan
SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce Wittgenstein A. C. Grayling
Socrates C. C. W. Taylor WORLD MUSIC Philip Bohlman
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AFRICAN HISTORY INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
John Parker and Paul Wilkinson
Richard Rathbone JAZZ Brian Morton
THE BRAIN Michael O’Shea JOURNALISM Ian Hargreaves
CHAOS Leonard Smith MANDELA Tom Lodge
CITIZENSHIP Richard Bellamy THE MARQUIS DE SADE
CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE John Phillips
Robert Tavernor THE MIND Martin Davies
CONTEMPORARY ART NATIONALISM Steven Grosby
Julian Stallabrass PERCEPTION Richard Gregory
THE CRUSADES PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
Christopher Tyerman Jack Copeland and Diane Proudfoot
THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS PHOTOGRAPHY Steve Edwards
Timothy Lim RACISM Ali Rattansi
Derrida Simon Glendinning THE RAJ Denis Judd
ECONOMICS Partha Dasgupta THE RENAISSANCE Jerry Brotton
THE END OF THE WORLD ROMAN EMPIRE
Bill McGuire Christopher Kelly
ELEMENTS Philip Ball SARTRE Christina Howells
EXISTENTIALISM Thomas Flynn SIKHISM Eleanor Nesbitt
FEMINISM Margaret Walters SOCIALISM Michael Newman
THE FIRST WORLD WAR A HISTORY OF TIME
Michael Howard Leofranc Holford-Strevens
FOSSILS Keith Thomson TRAGEDY Adrian Poole
FUNDAMENTALISM THE VIKINGS Julian Richards
Malise Ruthven THE WORLD TRADE
HUMAN EVOLUTION ORGANIZATION
Bernard Wood Amrita Narlikar
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Damien Keown
Buddhist
Ethics
A Very Short Introduction
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp
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© Damien Keown 2005
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First published as a Very Short Introduction 2005
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
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ISBN 0–19–280457–X
13579108642
Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk
Printed in Great Britain by
TJ International Ltd., Padstow, Cornwall
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xiii
Note on citations and pronunciation xv
List of illustrations xvii
1
Buddhist morality 3
2
Ethics East and West 21
3
Animals and the environment 39
4
Sexuality 53
5
War and terrorism 69
6
Abortion 84
7
Suicide and euthanasia 100
8
Cloning 116
References 133
Further reading 136
Glossary 141
Index 143
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Preface
This book is written for a broad general readership. It is for Buddhists
interested in ethical questions, for ethicists interested in Buddhism,
for school or university students exploring the ethics of Buddhism –
perhaps in conjunction with other world religions – and for the general
reader who is simply curious about whether an Eastern tradition such as
Buddhism can shed any light on problems that the West has found
difficult and divisive.
The book offers an overview of how Buddhism might respond to the
ethical dilemmas confronting the modern world. It discusses six
contemporary issues: animals and the environment, sexuality, war
and terrorism, abortion, suicide and euthanasia, and cloning. As a
preliminary to addressing these topics, the first chapter explains the
basic moral teachings of Buddhism and the second considers theoretical
questions about the nature of these teachings in relation to Western
ethics. Since Buddhist ethics is an unfamiliar subject in the West,
a strategy adopted in some chapters is to take the more familiar
Christian perspective on the issues as a point of departure. This allows
comparisons and contrasts to be drawn with Buddhism, and hopefully
will accelerate the reader’s grasp of what is distinctive in the Buddhist
approach.
As its name implies, the discipline of Buddhist ethics emerges from the
interface between two complex and largely independent fields of
