Good and Well: The Case for Secular Buddhist Ethics

This paper examines the viability, in principle, of a secular Buddhist ethics, aimed at Buddhists, in the absence of the traditional, non-secular motivators of the laws of karma and the doctrine of rebirth. I argue that Buddhist ethics can be construed either as a consequentialist or virtue ethics, with anatta or sunnata as grounding metaphysical ideas, neither of which presupposes a belief in either the cosmic-retribution idea of karma or any multiple-life (or in fact any afterlife) view of human existence. Additionally, consequentialism is primarily concerned with compassion, which is very much a within-world action tendency, and virtue ethics can be construed such that both the end goal (enlightened, compassionate, mindful flourishing) as well as the relevant virtues (the sila part of the Eightfold Path and the brahmaviharas) are perfectly circumscribed within a single lifetime.