Buddhism and animal ethics

Finnigan, Bronwyn

doi:10.1111/phc3.12424

Cited by 17 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…The Buddhist picture of the world is plastic and diverse [13]. "Buddhism has a reputation for being a peaceful religion that emphasizes kindness to animals and vegetarianism" [15].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tibetan Buddhism and the formation of ecological consciousness: a view from Buryatia

et al. 2018

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Technicization of human and society, active development of technogenic civilization leads to gradual separation from moral values and principles. These values include ideas of unity and harmony of human with nature, with the surrounding environment, and reasonable, moderate attitude towards natural resources. We believe that humanity should move from the industrial to ecological civilization. The foundations of a new ecophilosophy should become holistic principles, representations of philosophy in general and Buddhism in particular. We outlined basic principles and methods for improving personality of altruistic ethics of Mahayana Buddhism that contribute to human understanding of inseparability, interconnection with the world. We focus on the central Buddhist concept – the absence of an individual ‘I’ that is understood as necessity of recognizing oneself as a separate empirical individual. That is confirmed by a translation of the text PrajnaParamitaHridaya Sutra from Tibetan language. The paper analyzes three types of spiritual personality that correspond to three stages of the Path to awakening. Each stage is a step towards the formation of subjectless consciousness, that is, awareness of universal dependence and responsibility for their actions. The paper argues that for ecological consciousness it is important to form an understanding that the main reason for human existence in not the technosphere, not the economy, but the living nature.

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“…The Buddhist picture of the world is plastic and diverse [13]. "Buddhism has a reputation for being a peaceful religion that emphasizes kindness to animals and vegetarianism" [15].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tibetan Buddhism and the formation of ecological consciousness: a view from Buryatia

et al. 2018

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“…Philosophical and theological writings have long debated which beings deserve moral consideration, and to what extent. Many of these accounts see moral status, or the degree to which an entity deserves moral consideration, as dependent on certain mental capacities, and specifically on consciousness, broadly defined here as perceptual, cognitive, and emotional states that are experienced in a particular way by a subject 1 . In ancient traditions, moral obligations towards non-human animals often rested on conscious aspects of experience, such as the capacity to suffer.…”

Section: Moral Status and Consciousness Are Coupledmentioning

confidence: 99%

The scientific study of consciousness cannot, and should not, be morally neutral

Mazor¹,

Brown²,

Ciaunica³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Normative decisions about moral status are strongly coupled with beliefs and assumptions about consciousness. Whether an individual is able to experience their environment, feel pain and pleasure or reflect on their own experiences, have all been judged at some point as relevant to the moral question of whether they should be protected by law. The scientific study of consciousness has advanced our understanding of some of these empirical questions by revealing the capacities and limits of these dimensions of consciousness in different states and animal species. In light of the tight link with moral status, scientific discoveries in this field have direct implications on law and ethics. Furthermore, this link with ethics may place implicit pressure on the scientific community studying consciousness to justify current societal norms, rather than challenge them. Finally, given the important role of consciousness in determining moral standing, the use of non-human animals in the scientific study of consciousness introduces a direct conflict between scientific relevance and ethics – the more scientifically valuable an animal model is for studying consciousness, the more difficult it becomes to ethically justify compromises to its well-being for consciousness research. Here we call for a discussion of the immediate ethical corollaries of the body of knowledge that has been accumulated, and for a more explicit consideration of the role of ideology and ethics in the scientific study of consciousness, including the question of animal models of consciousness.

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“…På pali paṭiccasamuppāda, bedre kendt med sanskrittermen pratītyasamutpāda, begge traditionelt oversat til dansk med 'betinget samopståen'.8Om buddhisme og dyreetik, seFinnigan 2017. …”

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Har en hund Buddha-natur?

Borup¹

2021

RvT

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ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Ecologization of Buddhism makes sense in both a mod-ern and posthuman perspective. Initiatives and institutions based on socially engaged Buddhism with sustainability, biodiversity and ecology as ideals have spread in recent decades in both East and West. There are arguments from both classical Pali Buddhist literature and East Asian Mahayana philosophy to justify Buddhist nature symbiosis from both ontological, ethical, and soteriological perspectives. Critical analysis can easily deconstruct such ideals as anachronistically constructed, primarily based on modern naturalism, reform Buddhism and con-temporary philosophy of nature. Such an ‘invented Buddhism’ is, however, genuinely authentic, and it is argued that an ecological perspective on both historical and contemporary Buddhism can legitimize other possibilities of interpretation, including the view of an ontological continuum with room for also animistic and posthuman 'nature religion', in which a dog on several levels can be said to possess Buddha nature. DANSK RESUMÉ: Økologisering af buddhismen giver mening i både et moderne og posthumant perspektiv. Initiativer og institutioner baseret på socialt engageret buddhisme med bæredygtighed, biodiversitet og økologi som idealer har de sidste årtier bredt sig i både Øst og Vest. Der er argumenter fra både klassisk pali-buddhistisk litteratur og østasiatisk mahayana-filosofi til at godtgøre buddhistisk natur-symbiose ud fra både ontologisk, etisk og soteriologisk perspektiv. Kritisk analyse kan sagtens dekonstruere sådanne som anakronistisk konstruerede idealer, primært med afsæt i moderne naturalisme, reformbuddhisme og nutidig naturfilosofi. En sådan ’opfundet buddhisme’ er dog helt autentisk, og der argumenteres for, at netop et økologisk perspektiv på både historisk og nutidig buddhisme kan legitimere andre fortolkningsmuligheder, herunder anskuelsen af et ontologisk kontinuum med plads til også animistisk og posthuman ‘natur-religion’, i hvilken en hund på flere planer kan siges at besidde buddha-natur.

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Buddhism and animal ethics

Cited by 17 publications

References 38 publications

Tibetan Buddhism and the formation of ecological consciousness: a view from Buryatia

Tibetan Buddhism and the formation of ecological consciousness: a view from Buryatia

The scientific study of consciousness cannot, and should not, be morally neutral

Har en hund Buddha-natur?

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