Buddhist Environmental Ethics: A Contemplative Approach

Brings Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, contemplative practice, and contemporary environmental ethics together to present a novel way of approaching the pressing issues facing our more-than-human world.

In Buddhist Environmental Ethics, Colin H. Simonds presents a compelling case for using a contemplative register to approach some of our most pressing issues surrounding climate change, ecological collapse, and the exploitation of nonhuman animals. Simonds develops an emerging theory of Buddhist ethics-moral phenomenology-by engaging it with the Tibetan framework of view, meditation, action and providing a practical means by which individuals can ethically develop through contemplative practice. He then applies this theory and practical framework to the ethical and material problems facing the more-than-human world to show how a Tibetan Buddhist response to these issues offers a cogent, adaptable way to address environmental problems. In doing so, Buddhist Environmental Ethics forwards the first book-length constructive argument for an eco-Buddhist ethic in over a decade, articulates the first environmental ethic based on Tibetan Buddhist sources, and offers a timely framework for how we can experience the more-than-human world anew through contemplative practice.