A Mirror Is for Reflection Understanding Buddhist Ethics

This volume offers a rich and accessible introduction to contemporary research on Buddhist ethical thought for interested students and scholars, yet also offers chapters taking up more technical philosophical and textual topics. A Mirror is For Reflection offers a snapshot of the present state of academic investigation into the nature of Buddhist Ethics, including contributions from many of the leading figures in the academic study of Buddhist philosophy. Over the past decade many scholars have come to think that the project of fitting Buddhist ethical thought into Western philosophical categories may be of limited utility, and the focus of investigation has shifted in a number of new directions. This volume includes contemporary perspectives on topics including the nature of Buddhist ethics as a whole, karma and rebirth, mindfulness, narrative, intention, free will, politics, anger, and equanimity.

Jake H. Davis is a Postdoctoral Associate at New York University with the Virtues of Attention project. He has taught at Brown University and at the City of College of New York. He has authored and co-authored articles at the intersection of Buddhist philosophy, moral philosophy, and cognitive science, drawing on his textual, meditative, and monastic training in the Theravada Buddhist tradition of Burma (Myanmar).

Foreword
Owen Flanagan

Introduction
Jake H. Davis

Buddhist Ethics and Western Categories
1. 'It's ethics Jim EL but not as we know it': Reflections on the absence of ethics in Buddhism
Damien Keown

2. The Nature of a Buddhist Path: Is there a single approach to Buddhist ethical theory?
Bronwyn Finnigan

3. Buddhist Moral Thought and Western Moral Philosophy
Christopher W. Gowans
Constructing Buddhist Ethics
4. Zen Buddhism and the Space of Ethics
Jin Y. Park

5. Buddhist Ethics: a Perspective
Graham Priest

6. Consequentialism, Compassion, and Buddhist Neuroethics
Christian Coseru
Karma and Rebirth
7. Modern and Traditional Understandings of Karma
Charles Goodman

8. Buddhism without reincarnation? Examining the prospects of a "naturalized" Buddhism
Jan Westerhoff

9. The Problems and Promise of Karma from an Engaged Buddhist Perspective
Sallie B. King

Mindfulness, Memory, and Virtue
10. Ethical Reading and the Ethics of Forgetting and Remembering
Sara McClintock

11. Mindfulness and Ethics: Attention, Virtue and Perfection
Jay L. Garfield

12. 'When You Know for Yourselves': Grounding Ethics in the Qualities of Heart
Jake H. Davis
Intention and Action
13. The Dynamics of Intention, Freedom and Habituation According to Vasubandhu's Abhidharmako?abh??ya
Karin Meyers

14. What Do Buddhists Think about Free Will?
Riccardo Repetti

15. Buddhist Reductionist Action Theory
Mark Siderits
Politics, Anger, and Equanimity
16. The Inherent Dignity of Empty Persons
Christopher Kelley

17. Ethics Without Justice: Eliminating The Roots Of Resentment
Amber Carpenter

18. Equanimity in Relationship: Responding to Moral Ugliness
Emily McRae