Buddhism
As a religion of about six hundred million followers, the ethics of Buddhism surely needs to be analyzed. Like most Eastern religions, Buddhism’s focus is on building a specific character, not on duties or consequences. As such, Buddhism falls into a virtue based framework, and the specific virtues it identifies are those espoused by Siddhartha Gautama, who is now known as the Buddha (Buddha simply means ‘Enlightened One;’ Gautama was his birth name, and he was born in 563 b.c.e in the area known today as Nepal).
The Eightfold Path
The virtues of the Buddha are the character traits necessary to live The Middle Way. The Middle Way is a life that falls somewhere between the life of excess and desire and the life of self-mortification and denial (for a similar idea, see Aristotle’s Golden Mean in the Ancient Greek virtue perspective). More specifically, the Buddha identified eight central virtues: “It is the noble Eightfold Path, namely, right views, right intentions, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, [and] right concentration. This, Oh monks, is the Middle Way” (Buddha 237-238).
Having right views means understanding the Four Noble Truths, which will be discussed below. Right intentions entail renouncing all of our sensual pleasures and not having malicious thoughts about others. Right speech not only means always speaking the truth, but also only speaking when it is necessary. Doing right actions means not murdering, stealing, lying, or committing any other obviously immoral actions such as harming living beings deliberately or engaging in delinquency and sexual misconduct. These are actions that are always immoral, (i.e. they are always against virtue) as other actions can be judged immoral or moral depending on if these action cultivates virtue or not.
Having right livelihood means only working in a noble profession. Immoral professions include any professions that were obtained with violent or illegal means, any profession that deals with weapon, any profession dealing with living beings (slavery, farming for slaughter, and prostitution), any profession dealing with meat production or slaughter, and any profession dealing with the selling of alcohol or drugs. Right effort means doing any work required to live the Middle Way. Having right mindfulness means ridding the mind of lust, grief, and desire. Finally, right concentration is being indifferent to pleasure and pain. In Buddhism, when one follows the Eightfold Path one achieves enlightenment.
Four Noble Truths
The Buddha justifies these virtues through the Four Noble Truths of existence (Buddha 238). The first Noble Truth is that life is suffering: we all live our lives wishing and striving for things that we do not, and often cannot, have. The second Noble Truth is that the cause for suffering is desire, and the third Noble Truth is that one can end suffering through non-attachment. The final Noble Truth is that nonattachment comes from following the Middle Way.
For the Buddha, life is suffering, which has its cause in the desire of things we cannot satiate. Hence, only by getting rid of desire can we end our suffering. Ridding our self of desire comes through following the Middle Way.
The main reason the Buddha says we ought to develop these virtues is because they are the only way we can end our suffering. “Birth is Suffering; decay is Suffering; death is Suffering; grief and lamentation, pain, misery, and tribulation are Sufferings; it is Suffering not to get what is desired” (Buddha 238), and the only way we can stop this process is to end our desire for things of excess.
Achieving Nirvana by Living the Middle Way
Buddha does not suggest that we must renounce all things, but to walk the Middle Way between excess and mortification. Since desire is the source of all of our pain and suffering, we must renounce desire to end our suffering. When we renounce our desire, we attain “enlightenment” (the wisdom of and adherence to the Eightfold Path) and “nirvana” (the end of the cycle of suffering caused by desire).
Nirvana has two interpretations in Buddhism. The first says that once we reach “nirvana,” we stop the endless reincarnation of our soul on earth. Since life is suffering, as long as we have not achieved nirvana, we will be reincarnated to experience this suffering. The second interpretation is less metaphysical, and says that once we reach nirvana, we simply end our personal cycle of suffering. Regardless, of which interpretation one prefers, the driving force behind this perspective is that the only way to end the cycle of suffering is through the virtues of Buddhism.
Buddha. “The Buddha’s First Sermon.” Introduction to Gautama the Buddha. Trans. Sanderson Beck. 1996. 21 August 2005 < http://www.san.beck.org/Buddha.html>