Universal assumption for good and bad: Buddhist perspective

Abstract

History of religion and philosophy is full of attempts to answer the questions what is good and what is bad and it continuously runs until today. This research paper, consolidate on early Buddhist discourses, will strive to identify common characteristics on the matter of good and bad. Since this investigation is most prominent in ethics the attention should be also paid on Buddhist viewpoint and its universal applicability. There are four prominent attempts in the field of ethics can be observed to answer this question. They are; 1) There is no morally right or wrong viewpoint and it can be identified as nihilism, skepticism or subjectivism, 2) There is no universal moral truth and it is known as ethical relativism, 3) Since people are biologically same there are biologically same ethics and it is named soft universalism, 4) There is one universal moral code and it is be called hard universalism or absolutism. Focalization on early Buddhism there are basically three ways; result evaluation, psychological investigation, and law in the society to make a decision whether it is good or bad. While the East Asians utilize chopsticks for food South Asians, particularly Sri Lankans, utilize their hands. There are no any arguments regarding those because of minor matter that are not harmful to the society because they depend on environment and culture but major ethics are beyond those. However killing living beings is major ethics which cannot be understood as cultural diversities because it is harmful to doers, others and both. Psychologically, action rooted with wholesome thoughts is good and action rooted with unwholesome thoughts is bad. Buddhism refuses ten ways of mere acceptance which come by reports, legends, traditions, scripture, logical conjecture, inference, analogies etc. Action is unskillful, blameworthy, criticized by the wise and leads to harm and to suffering person should abandon them. Since ethical values of our deeds associate on the Buddhist concept on merit and demerit, wholesome and unwholesome research will pay attention on those concepts as well. Keywords: Buddhist ethics, good and bad, decision making, moral, wholesome, unwholesome.