Indian Ethics ─ Classical Traditions and Contemporary Challenges

Indian ethics is one of the great traditions of moral thought in world philosophy whose insights have influenced thinkers in early Greece, Europe, Asia, and the New World. This is the first such systematic study of the spectrum of moral reflections from India, engaging a critical cross-cultural perspective and attending to modern secular sensibilities. The volume explores the scope and limits of Indian ethical thinking, reflecting on the interpretation and application of its teachings and practices in the comparative and contemporary contexts. The chapters chart orthodox and heterodox debates, from early classical Hindu texts to Buddhist, Jaina, Yoga, and Gandhian ethics. The range of issues includes: life-values and virtues, karma and dharma, evil and suffering, renunciation and enlightenment; and extends to questions of human rights and justice, ecology and animal ethics, nonviolence and democracy. Ramifications for rethinking ethics in a postmodern and global era are also explored. Indian Ethics offers an invaluable resource for students of philosophy, religion, human sciences and cultural studies, and to those interested in South Asian responses to moral dilemmas in the ostcolonial era.

Purushottama Bilimoria is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Studies at Deakin University, Visiting Professor SUNY, Stony Brook, and Columbia University New York, an Editor-in-Chief of Sophia, and Senior Fellow at University of Melbourne, Australia.

Joseph Prabhu is Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Los Angeles, USA, and current President-Elect of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy.

Renuka Sharma is formerly of the University of Melbourne, Australia and was a medical and psychoanalytic practitioner, feminist philosopher, and social activist in Australia and India.