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A Buddhist Theory of KillingInterpreting the Precept: Evaluative Criteria in the Theravāda

A Buddhist Theory of Killing: Interpreting the Precept: Evaluative Criteria in the Theravāda [This chapter continues the discussion of Pali Buddhist grounds for the prohibition of killing, and its moral evaluation more generally, in a focus on the Theravādan commentarial statements of Buddhaghosa. This is preceded by a broader discussion of how the first precept is discursively framed in the early Buddhist canonical and social context, distinguishing between its senses as a marker for moral and legal transgression, and as a theoretical basis for ethical systematisation. These features are then contextualised with respect to the psychological theorisation of agency, as well as its moral epistemology. The precept prohibiting killing is understood to involve a moral-religious hermeneutics differing across personal and collective, social and soteriological registers, with respect to exemplary beings (such as arhats and ārya-beings), monastics, lay-people, and non-human animals. This hermeneutics is then seen to be encoded in the hierarchical levels of evaluation of killing made explicit in Buddhaghosa’s Theravāda theorisation of an ethics of killing, but otherwise largely unexplained in this and other sources (such as Vasubandhu’s contemporaneous reiteration of similar claims in the Sarvāstivāda context). The distinctions he draws between different criteria for evaluation are assessed, internal and external to the early Buddhist worldview they express more generally. These include values, centrally that of ‘quality’ (guṇa), attaching to and between human and non-human killing, and its differing human agents, expressing a third major heuristic (following those of dukkha and kamma) determining an early Buddhist ethics of killing.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Buddhist Theory of KillingInterpreting the Precept: Evaluative Criteria in the Theravāda

Kovan, Martin
Springer Journals — Jun 21, 2022
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22 pages

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Publisher
Springer Nature Singapore
Copyright
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022
ISBN
978-981-19-2440-8
Pages
45 –67
DOI
10.1007/978-981-19-2441-5_4
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[This chapter continues the discussion of Pali Buddhist grounds for the prohibition of killing, and its moral evaluation more generally, in a focus on the Theravādan commentarial statements of Buddhaghosa. This is preceded by a broader discussion of how the first precept is discursively framed in the early Buddhist canonical and social context, distinguishing between its senses as a marker for moral and legal transgression, and as a theoretical basis for ethical systematisation. These features are then contextualised with respect to the psychological theorisation of agency, as well as its moral epistemology. The precept prohibiting killing is understood to involve a moral-religious hermeneutics differing across personal and collective, social and soteriological registers, with respect to exemplary beings (such as arhats and ārya-beings), monastics, lay-people, and non-human animals. This hermeneutics is then seen to be encoded in the hierarchical levels of evaluation of killing made explicit in Buddhaghosa’s Theravāda theorisation of an ethics of killing, but otherwise largely unexplained in this and other sources (such as Vasubandhu’s contemporaneous reiteration of similar claims in the Sarvāstivāda context). The distinctions he draws between different criteria for evaluation are assessed, internal and external to the early Buddhist worldview they express more generally. These include values, centrally that of ‘quality’ (guṇa), attaching to and between human and non-human killing, and its differing human agents, expressing a third major heuristic (following those of dukkha and kamma) determining an early Buddhist ethics of killing.]

Published: Jun 21, 2022

Keywords: Buddhist hermeneutics; Buddhist first precept; Buddhaghosa and Theravāda ethics; Moral evaluation of persons; Moral virtue and axiology; Guṇa; Animal and intrahuman killing

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