{"id":4443,"date":"2018-05-05T11:10:20","date_gmt":"2018-05-05T15:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/?p=4443"},"modified":"2018-05-05T11:10:20","modified_gmt":"2018-05-05T15:10:20","slug":"the-atipada-problem-in-buddhist-meta-ethics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/2018\/05\/05\/the-atipada-problem-in-buddhist-meta-ethics\/","title":{"rendered":"The Atipada Problem  in Buddhist Meta-Ethics"},"content":{"rendered":"<h6>ISSN 1076-9005<br \/>\nVolume 25, 2018<\/h6>\n<h3>The <em>Atipada<\/em> Problem in Buddhist Meta-Ethics<br \/>\n<\/h3>\n<p>Gordon F. Davis<br \/>\nCarleton University<\/p>\n<p>We can express a wide range of objections to philosophical views by saying a view \u201cgoes too far\u201d; but there is a more specific pitfall, which opens up when a philosopher seeks to generalize some form of anti-realism in such a way that it must itself be pronounced groundless or incoherent by its own standards. In cases where this self-stultification looks impossible to overcome without revising the view in question, it can be called the <em>atipada<\/em> problem. Signifying a risk of \u201coverstepping,\u201d this Sanskrit label reflects a particular relevance to Mah\u0101y\u0101na ethicists who seek to enlarge the scope of compassion by enlarging the meaning of emptiness (<em>\u015b\u016bnyat\u0101<\/em>) to the point where all truths and ideals are pronounced ultimately empty, and likewise, at least ipso facto, the ideal of compassion itself. This incarnation of the problem is left unresolved by several recent defenders of Madhyamaka ethics, as well as by one recent interpreter of Vasubandhu; meanwhile, some Buddhist ethicists who try to avoid theorizing at this \u201cultimate\u201d level run into the same general problem nonetheless. More than a specialized meta-ethical puzzle, this problem threatens to undermine central Buddhist ideals in precisely those contexts where philosophical ethics is invoked to vindicate them; however, rather than disposing us to foreswear meta-ethics in an attempt to avoid the problematic views in question, the problem should lead us to expand the scope of Buddhist meta-ethics.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/files\/2018\/05\/Davis-Atipada-Problem-2-final.pdf\">Read article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ISSN 1076-9005 Volume 25, 2018 The Atipada Problem in Buddhist Meta-Ethics Gordon F. Davis Carleton University We can express a wide range of objections to philosophical views by saying a view \u201cgoes too far\u201d; but there is a more specific pitfall, which opens up when a philosopher seeks to generalize some form of anti-realism in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/2018\/05\/05\/the-atipada-problem-in-buddhist-meta-ethics\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Atipada Problem  in Buddhist Meta-Ethics<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[125215],"tags":[125230,125232,2731,1317,48787,125231],"class_list":["post-4443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-volume-25-2018","tag-anti-realism","tag-cowherds","tag-emptiness","tag-philosophy","tag-realism","tag-vasubandhu"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5X8HA-19F","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4443\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}