ABSTRACT
Having now described in detail Fantideva’s ethics using the structure and terminology of the Fiksasamuccaya (Chapter 3), and analyzed the central concepts of fila, kufala, and pujya (Chapter 4), I will now consider the question of how best to characterize Fantideva’s moral thought. In the first section of this chapter (“Fantideva’s morality”), I offer an overview of Fantideva’s moral theory, summarizing his view of the bodhisattva’s development, and comparing this with other characterizations of Theravada and Mahayana ethics. Here I highlight the various ways that Fantideva’s morality may be seen as a kind of virtue ethic. In the section “Just one moral theory?”, I look at difficulties with this characterization. This is couched in terms of a response to current scholarly assessments of Buddhist ethics, but in particular I critically reflect on the proposition by Damien Keown that Buddhist ethics can be considered analagous to Aristotelian morality. I look at evidence for other types of moral theory present in Fantideva’s works, and attempt to answer the question, can Buddhist morality be subsumed under one comprehensive moral theory? The conclusions of this analysis are presented in Chapter 6.
