The Criteria of Goodness in the Pāli Nikāyas and the Nature of Buddhist Ethics

The article begins by presenting Keown’s Buddhist virtue ethics, especially his claim that Buddhist morality is grounded in nirvāṇa as the highest good and in the cultivation of wholesome mental states. It then identifies problems in this approach, particularly the marginalization of proximate ethical goals such as merit, good rebirth, prosperity, reputation, and happiness, all of which play an important role in Buddhist texts and lived Buddhist practice. The main sections develop an expanded interpretation of Buddhist ethics by introducing the distinction between instrumental and teleological goods, then analyzing key Pāli Nikāya sources such as the Ambalaṭṭhikārāhulovāda Sutta, Kālāma Sutta, and Bāhitika Sutta. The article concludes that early Buddhist ethics integrates virtue ethics, concern for consequences, and the intrinsic moral character of certain actions, making it a complex and sui generis ethical framework rather than a simple equivalent of any single Western ethical theory.