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On the Classification of Śāntideva’s Ethics in the Bodhicaryāvatāra
- Philosophy East and West
- University of Hawai'i Press
- Volume 65, Number 1, January 2015
- pp. 249-275
- 10.1353/pew.2015.0008
- Article
- Additional Information
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In this essay several challenges are raised to the project of classifying Śāntideva’s ethical reasoning given in his Bodhicaryāvatāra, or Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva, as a species of ethical theory such as consequentialism or virtue ethics. One set of difficulties highlighted here arises because Śāntideva wrote this text to act as a manual of psychological transformation, and it is therefore often difficult to determine when his statements indicate his own ethical views. Further, even assuming we can identify a set of statements that accurately portray the moral position of Śāntideva, it is argued that these statements underdetermine which foundational normative theory should be ascribed to him.