Response to Focus Issue: Buddhist Moral Emotions

Abstract

ABSTRACTHeim responds to the five articles by anthropologists concerned with contemporary Buddhist practices and ideologies of emotions, arguing that a history of emotions approach that attends to the centrality of emotions and their evaluations can be important for ethics. She submits that while sometimes studies of moral psychology in Buddhist ethics have focused on individuals, these articles suggest how emotions can have a very public and collective impact on social, economic, and political life. She is also interested in how these anthropological studies of contemporary Buddhist communities trouble textual accounts of Buddhist ethics on central questions of giving, karma, merit, and compassion.