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

[Steven Rhodes]

Dear Robert,

Please send me a pdf version of your book for sampling purposes.  I'm 
curious as to which publishers formally rejected your book (as opposed 
to simply not replying to your submission) (?).

Best wishes,

Steven Rhodes


Upeksacitta at aol.com wrote:

> "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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>
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