Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of plates
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- A note on language and pronunciation
- Introduction
- 11 THE SHARED FOUNDATIONS OF BUDDHIST ETHICS
- 12 KEY BUDDHIST VALUES
- 13 MAHĀYĀNA EMPHASES AND ADAPTATIONS
- 14 ATTITUDE TO AND TREATMENT OF THE NATURAL WORLD
- 15 ECONOMIC ETHICS
- 16 WAR AND PEACE
- 17 SUICIDE AND EUTHANASIA
- 18 ABORTION AND CONTRACEPTION
- 19 SEXUAL EQUALITY
- 10 HOMOSEXUALITY AND OTHER FORMS OF ‘QUEERNESS’
- Glossary and details of historical figures and texts
- List of references
- Useful addresses
- Index of Buddhist texts, schools cultural areas, movements and organizations
- Index of concepts
- Index of names
15 - ECONOMIC ETHICS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of plates
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- A note on language and pronunciation
- Introduction
- 11 THE SHARED FOUNDATIONS OF BUDDHIST ETHICS
- 12 KEY BUDDHIST VALUES
- 13 MAHĀYĀNA EMPHASES AND ADAPTATIONS
- 14 ATTITUDE TO AND TREATMENT OF THE NATURAL WORLD
- 15 ECONOMIC ETHICS
- 16 WAR AND PEACE
- 17 SUICIDE AND EUTHANASIA
- 18 ABORTION AND CONTRACEPTION
- 19 SEXUAL EQUALITY
- 10 HOMOSEXUALITY AND OTHER FORMS OF ‘QUEERNESS’
- Glossary and details of historical figures and texts
- List of references
- Useful addresses
- Index of Buddhist texts, schools cultural areas, movements and organizations
- Index of concepts
- Index of names
Summary
Hunger is the greatest illness … Contentment is the greatest wealth.
Dhammapada 203–4Economic ethics covers a wide range of issues: types of work or business practices, the approach to work in general and entrepreneurship in particular, the use to which income is put, attitudes to wealth, the distribution of wealth, critiques of politico-economic systems such as capitalism and Communism, and the offering of alternatives to these in both theory and practice. In a Buddhist context, it also entails a consideration of such issues in relation to lay citizens, governments, and the Saṅha.
LAY ECONOMIC ETHICS
In his teachings, the Buddha included advice to the laity on how best to generate and use their income, the various aspects of which are well encapsulated at S. IV.331–7 (and A. V.176–82):
1 As to how wealth is made, it is praiseworthy to do so in a moral way (in accordance with Dhamma), without violence, and blameworthy to do the opposite.
2 As to using the product of one's work, it is praiseworthy to use it:
(a) to give ease and pleasure to oneself;
(b) to share it with others, and to use it for generous, karmically fruitful action.
Correspondingly, it is blameworthy to be miserly with oneself or mean with others.
3. Even if wealth is made in a moral way, and used to benefit oneself and others, one is still blameworthy if one's attitude to one's wealth is greed and longing, with no contentment or heed for spiritual development.
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- Information
- An Introduction to Buddhist EthicsFoundations, Values and Issues, pp. 187 - 238Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000
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