Experience and Morality

The Buddhist canon contains a substantial amount of material that treats the subjectmatter of ethics. Topics addressed in these texts include how we should live our lives, how weshould treat others, classifications of right and wrong actions, and the articulation of virtues to becultivated and vices to be avoided. The abundance of Buddhist material treating ethical issueseven led O.H. de A. Wijesekera (1971) to make the grandiose claim, "It is universally recognizedthat Buddhism can claim to be the most ethical of all religio-philosophical systems of the world"(p. 49). Charles Goodman (2009) describes Buddhist ethics with its emphasis on non-violenceand compassion as one of most appealing parts of the teachings of Buddhism. He writes, "Manypeople have drawn inspiration from Buddhism's emphasis on compassion, non-violence, andtolerance, its concern for animals, and its models of virtue and self-cultivation" (p. 1). DamienKeown (1992) even argues that Buddhism itself is foremost an ethical project: "Buddhism is aresponse to what is fundamentally an ethical problem-the perennial problem of the best kind oflife for a man (sic) to lead"