Evidence · Case 14 · Buddhism
The grounding question in ethics
One exhibit from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
The challenge is a standard one in the philosophy of morality: on a purely impersonal and impermanent picture of reality, it is genuinely disputed what makes a moral duty binding and objective rather than a useful habit or preference. This is a real argument, and also a contested one, so it should be raised as an honest question, not a knockout.
Sources
Objections & responses
- Buddhism doesn’t hold that reality is fully impermanent. Nirvana is the unconditioned, and Mahayana traditions speak of Buddha-nature as ultimate reality. If the premise is wrong, doesn’t the question misfire?
The premise does need correcting, in line with the earlier point about conditioned things. The question can be reframed to survive: does the unconditioned, as Buddhism describes it, have the character (personal, good, purposive) that could ground objective moral obligation, or is it beyond such categories? Many Buddhists would say the latter, at which point the grounding question is fair again. It should be asked about the actual Buddhist view of ultimate reality, not about a caricature of total flux, and it is the same question the Atheism and Relativism cases put to naturalism.