Buddhist Ethics: A Very Short Introduction

With over 520 million followers, Buddhism is now the world's fourth largest religion. Over the last seventy years or so there has been a growing interest in Buddhism, and it continues to capture the imagination of many in the West, who see it as either an alternative or a supplement to their own religious beliefs.

For complex cultural and historical reasons, ethics has not received as much attention in traditional Buddhist thought as it has in the West. In this Very Short Introduction, Damien Keown explores how Buddhism approaches a range of moral issues of our age, including our relationship with our environment, our treatment of animals, and our stance on abortion, on sexuality and gender, on violence and war. This new edition also includes a discussion of the ethical challenges posed by cutting-edge developments in science and biomedical technologies, including neuroscience, artificial intelligence, transhumanism, and gene editing.

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About the Author
Damien Keown studied religion at Lancaster University before completing a doctorate in Buddhist ethics at the University of Oxford. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Buddhist Ethics at Goldsmiths, University of London. His main research interests are theoretical and applied aspects of Buddhist ethics, with particular reference to contemporary issues. He is the author of many books and articles including The Nature of Buddhist Ethics (Palgrave, 2001), Buddhism and Bioethics (Palgrave 2001), Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction (OUP 2013, 2000), Buddhist Ethics: A Very Short Introduction (OUP 2006), and the Dictionary of Buddhism (OUP, 2003). He is also a contributor to Oxford Bibliographies. In 1994 he founded The Journal of Buddhist Ethics with Charles S. Prebish, with whom he also co-founded the Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism Series.