Experience and Morality

The Buddhist canon contains a substantial amount of material that treats the subject
matter of ethics. Topics addressed in these texts include how we should live our lives, how we
should treat others, classifications of right and wrong actions, and the articulation of virtues to be
cultivated and vices to be avoided. The abundance of Buddhist material treating ethical issues
even led O.H. de A. Wijesekera (1971) to make the grandiose claim, "It is universally recognized
that 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-violence
and compassion as one of most appealing parts of the teachings of Buddhism. He writes, "Many
people have drawn inspiration from Buddhism's emphasis on compassion, non-violence, and
tolerance, its concern for animals, and its models of virtue and self-cultivation" (p. 1). Damien
Keown (1992) even argues that Buddhism itself is foremost an ethical project: "Buddhism is a
response to what is fundamentally an ethical problem-the perennial problem of the best kind of
life for a man (sic) to lead"