ABSTRACT
The possibility that perfect mindfulness of the three characteristics is not humanly achievable is not the only problem with the Buddhist account of liberating knowledge. The present chapter will examine two further difficulties. First, Buddhism seems to assume that one can derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’, in other words, that moral knowledge is entailed by the understanding of an ontological state of affairs. Second, it might appear that the Buddhists make the problematic claim that when moral knowledge of what one should do is achieved, then one will automatically do it. My argument in this chapter will be that the first of these difficulties is a serious one and the Buddhists’ claim to objectivemoral knowledge that craving ought to be eliminated is questionable, given the challenge of moral relativism. The second problem, I will argue, can be resolved by viewing the Buddhist idea of liberating knowledge in the context of the Buddhist path as a whole, in which training in ethical conduct complements knowledge of ‘how things really are’.
Getting an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’
