[Buddha-l] New publication: A Buddhist Theory of Moral Objectivity

[Upeksacitta at aol.com]

"A Buddhist Theory of Moral Objectivity" by Upeksacitta (Robert Ellis) is  
now available.
 
After five years of trying to get established publishers to publish this  
book, I have decided to go ahead with a small-scale private printing and sell it  
myself on a dana basis. Although most people who have read it have praised 
the  content of the book, I have been unable to achieve conventional publication 
 primarily because of its length (296,000 words) and because, whilst  
academic, it does not fit easily into established categories of academic  discourse. 
It is neither analytic nor continental philosophy but questions the  
assumptions of both, and it is not Buddhist Studies because it is not a  scholarly 
examination of the Buddhist tradition: rather it is philosophy done  in a Buddhist 
way, starting with some core principles (non-dualism and the  Middle Way) and 
drawing out their implications, without any appeal to the  authority of the 
Buddhist tradition.
 
The book was originally my Ph.D. thesis, written at Lancaster University  
1997-2001, though it has much wider scope than most Ph.D. theses, is far longer,  
and from the beginning was directed at a wider audience. Although primarily  
focussed on ethics, in order to fundamentally re-assess Western attitudes to  
ethics from a Middle Way perspective I have found it necessary to examine many 
 other related issues (especially of epistemology, critical metaphysics and  
psychology) on which approaches to ethics and its objectivity depend. Hence 
the  length and depth of the book. My central claim is that the Middle Way is 
the key  to an entirely new understanding of objectivity which has not been 
recognised in  the West (and not always in the Buddhist tradition, either).
 
The book consists of two parts, the first being a critique of all the main  
Western approaches to ethics from a Buddhist perspective, and the second being 
a  more positive account of how non-dualism and the Middle Way can provide the 
key  to moral objectivity. Most of the book is primarily directed at a 
generally  philosophical academic audience, but with philosophically-minded 
Buddhists also  in mind. An appendix offers clarification of the relationship of the 
argument to  the Buddhist tradition.
 
You can obtain the book from me for £20 (UK) or equivalent in other  
currencies, plus postage and packing. I am also offering the book on a dana  basis to 
anyone who genuinely wants to read it but cannot afford this. If you  are 
interested, please e-mail me on _upeksacitta at aol.com_ (mailto:upeksacitta at aol.com) 
 .If you feel you  want to sample the book more before buying it, I am also 
happy to send you a pdf  (Adobe Acrobat) version of the text by email (I am 
expecting this to  increase rather than decrease my sales, as most people won't 
want to read it all  on screen!).
 
Upeksacitta (Robert Ellis)
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