Experience and Morality

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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"