ABSTRACT

This chapter explores that how is one to attain the promised benefits of the Reductionist insight that we are empty persons without allowing the terms of attainment to poison the insight? Adherents of the branch of Buddhist practice claim that theirs differs from the first through its positions on two key points. The first is, its anti-essentialism, according to which not only persons but all existents are empty or devoid of intrinsic nature. The second is, its view that the ideal life is that of the bodhisattva, a fully enlightened being who desists from entering into final nirvana in order to help others overcome suffering. Buddhist antirealism can answer the question of moral motivation given its rejection of Buddhist Reductionism. The chapter argues that the Buddhist antirealist can use the argument to answer the question of moral motivation, and explains why the bodhisattva acts to prevent suffering in all sentient beings.