This book provides a broad overview of Buddhist approaches to moral philosophy, engaging with both virtue ethics and consequentialism while arguing that Buddhist ethics is unique and best understood as a form of moral phenomenology. It explores the connections between Buddhist ethics and recent work in moral particularism, as well as the British and Scottish sentimentalist tradition. Garfield also discusses the naturalistic framework of Buddhist ethics and its implications for agency and moral responsibility.
Engaging Buddhism: Why It Matters to Philosophy explores the intersections between Buddhist and Western philosophical traditions, covering topics such as metaphysics, philosophy of mind, phenomenology, epistemology, philosophy of language, and ethics. The book argues for the importance of Buddhist philosophy in contemporary Western debates, highlighting its unique contributions and insights. It is designed for scholars of both Western and Buddhist philosophy, aiming to facilitate a deeper understanding and dialogue between these traditions.
In 'Losing Ourselves,' Jay L. Garfield presents a radical argument against the Western notion of selfhood, drawing on Indian and East Asian Buddhism, Daoism, Western philosophy, and cognitive neuroscience. He contends that believing in a self leads to moral egoism and undermines ethics, while understanding ourselves as selfless persons can facilitate more ethical and moral lives. The book emphasizes the practical benefits of the Buddhist idea of no-self, including abandoning egoism, acting more morally and ethically, and navigating life more skillfully. Garfield argues that our sense of self is an illusion and that recognizing ourselves as interdependent persons can lead to greater contentment and compassion for others.
A prick of the skin; the sorrow of grief; the inevitability of change; our dependence on the whim of the cosmos. Suffering bleeds into every aspect of our existence and, according to Siddhārtha Gautama (the Buddha), the anguish of our misfortune stems from our ignorance and confusion. If we were to see the world for how it really is – a place of impermanence, interdependence, and emptiness – then, according to Buddhism, we might free ourselves from illusion and discover the path to liberation and enlightenment. Today, this insight is shared by over half a billion people. Yet, most philosophy departments in Europe and America offer no courses in Buddhist philosophy and (within the leading journals) academic papers focusing on the central tenets of Buddhist philosophy of religion are vastly outweighed by their Abrahamic (and predominantly Christian) counterparts.
Professor Jay Garfield, our guest for this episode, is the exception to this rule. Championing the globalisation of philosophy and reshaping perceptions of Buddhist scholarship, Professor Garfield is Chair of Philosophy at Smith College in Massachusetts, Visiting Professor at Harvard Divinity School, Professor at Melbourne University, and adjunct Professor at the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies. Named amongst the 50 most influential philosophers of the past decade – with over 30 books and over 200 publications – it is safe to say that Professor Garfield is one of the leading exponents of Buddhist philosophy in contemporary academia.
For Garfield, if philosophy won’t diversify, then let’s call it out for what it is: a colonial discipline that ignores the rich and relevant insights of non-Western thought. As philosophers, we cannot afford to ignore the metaphysical, ethical, epistemological, and existential insights of Buddhist scholarship. It’s time to engage with Buddhism, and rid ourselves of our prejudices, ignorance, and confusion. Buddhism is a philosophy of the present, not a philosophy of the past, and it’s time we treated it that way.
This episode is produced in partnership with The Global Philosophy of Religion Project at University of Birmingham, led by Yujin Nagasawa and funded by the John Templeton Foundation.
Contents
Part I. The Nature of Reality
Part II. Further Analysis and Discussion
Links
Jay Garfield, Personal Website. (Website)
Jay Garfield, Engaging Buddhism. (Book)
Jay Garfield, Practicing without a License. (Essay)
Books by Jay Garfield. (Website)
The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast 
