Buddhism and Animal Ethics : For All Sentient Beings (The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series)

Simonds, Colin H.

Springer, Berlin; Palgrave Macmillan（2026/08発売）

• 製本 Hardcover:ハードカバー版
• 商品コード 9783032216458

Full Description

This book offers the first systematic philosophical account of animal ethics grounded in Buddhist thought. While Buddhist vegetarianism and compassion are often discussed in historical and popular contexts, no scholarly work has yet articulated a comprehensive Buddhist ethical theory that addresses contemporary questions about our treatment of nonhuman animals. Colin H. Simonds fills this critical gap, drawing on Tibetan Mahāyāna traditions to argue that the alleviation of duḥkha—suffering—logically extends to all sentient beings.

The book develops a robust Buddhist animal ethic by examining the tradition's epistemological foundation, ethical centring of the sentient being, concepts of compassion and human exceptionalism, and notions of rebirth, kinship, interdependence, and moral phenomenology. Simonds then applies this framework to urgent ethical issues including eating animals, industrial agriculture, animal testing, ritual animal release, and animal captivity. The result is a groundbreaking intervention that challenges human‑centred assumptions and reframes Buddhist ethics for a more‑than‑human world. Bridging Buddhist studies, philosophy, and animal ethics, this book will be essential reading for scholars, students, and practitioners engaged in Buddhist ethics, religion and animals, environmental humanities, and applied ethics.

Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction: How to Argue with an Enlightened Being.- Part I Theoretical Foundations of a Buddhist Animal Ethic.- Chapter 2 Buddhist Principles for an Animal Ethic.- Chapter 3 Compassion and Human Exceptionalism.- Chapter 4 Karmic Interspecies Empathy, or All Sentient Beings Have Been Your Mother.- Part II Applied Buddhist Animal Ethics.- Chapter 5 Duḥkha's Interspecies Dependent Arising, or Buddhist Total Liberation.- Chapter 6 Particularism and Practical Animal Ethics in Buddhism.- Chapter 7 Against Eating Animals, or The Imperative of Ethical Veganism in Buddhism.- Chapter 8 Eating Plants, and Other Challenges to a Buddhist Ethical Veganism.- Chapter 9 Vivisection, Animal Sacrifice, and Buddhist Ethics.- Chapter 10 The Ethics of Buddhist Animal Release.- Chapter 11 Care and Compromise at a Buddhist Animal Sanctury, or an Example of Applied Buddhist Animal Ethics.