Moral Reasoning in a Karmic World

Abstract

Based on an analysis of Buddhist philosophy and supported by data from interviews with adolescent and young adult Tibetan Buddhist monks, the claim is made that Western moral reasoning theories are inadequate to account for moral reasoning in Buddhist cultures. At present, moral development research explores morality only at the empirical and normative levels, avoiding metaethical issues such as the nature of phenomenal existence. Any discussion of morality, it is argued, is dependent upon the world in which one is to be moral.