Tibetan and Himalayan Library - THL

Description: This chapter seeks to establish connections Western psychological and Indo-Tibetan Buddhist philosophy in the area of ethics and value. In the face of how values have varied widely and changed greatly throughout time and place, it can be a challenge to determine exactly how values might hold any claim of validity, especially in an culture where the discussion of values often is founded in a framework of absolutism versus relativism. Absolutism, the author suggests, "clings to validity, but at the price of rigid and rule bound exclusivity," while relativity eliminates exclusivity at the price of any claims to validity or universality. The author suggests that in looking at the psychology of values, there are other paradigms which live outside the narrow duality of absolutism and relativism, namely the traditions of Gestalt psychology and Mahāyāna Buddhism, and which allow for an approach to ethics and values which recognizes plurality and diversity. (Zach Rowinski 2005-01-09)