Ethics in Gotama’s teachings is one of several techniques used to eliminate dukkha. There are no absolutes or ideals, as in most traditional religions, only ever-deepening understanding of the nature of experience. Evolution uses emotion to steer behaviors that increase the survival of others who carry some of an individual’s genes1. It does this by causing us to feel unpleasant feelings when we do certain actions (killing, lying, stealing, e.g.); these actions create stress & suffering. Ethics provides training rules, behaviors that teach by creating an undistracted feeling-experience2, creating the felt sense of an experience without the dukkha we create when we act against our moral instincts. This idea is captured in the phrase, “Do the right thing.” We know instinctively what this means. Acting ethically can be self-reinforcing, creating wholesome habits, thus having a positive effect on kamma: Ethical behavior creates conditions, through our influences on others, that last through time, as tendencies or habits. This affects particular “selves” in the future.
dependent arising • dukkha • kamma • nibbāna • practice • sīla • terror management
- Not all behaviors, of course, are unselfish; quite the contrary. Nevertheless, what ethical instincts we do have arose through encouraging unselfish behavior toward others, originally in kin groups, that is, those who share some of our DNA. Ethics in cultures & religions emerged from this. See Robert Wright, The Moral Animal. ↩
- Guideline for ethical behavior in Gotama’s teachings are largely contained in the ennobling eightfold path. See also the topic “practice.” ↩