Buddhist Motivation to Support IHL, from Concern to Minimise Harms Inflicted by Military Action to Both Those Who Suffer Them and Those Who Inflict Them
Peter Harvey is Emeritus Professor of Buddhist studies at the University of Sunderland, UK. He co-founded, with Ian Harris, the UK Association for Buddhist Studies (1996). His books include The Selfless Mind: Personality, Consciousness and Nirvana in Early Buddhism (1995), An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices (1990, 2nd ed. 2013) and An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics: Foundations, Values and Issues (2000). The Thai Buddhist Trust gave him a Golden Buddha award (2003). Mahachulalongkorn-rajavidyalaya University granted him an honorary doctorate in Buddhist studies (2018).
關鍵詞
animals and humans; compassion; killing; karmic results; intention; motive; Mahāvamsa; Vinaya; Yodhājīva Sutta; international humanitarian law
摘要
This article focuses on how Buddhist ethics contains ideas and principles that would urge those in a combat situation to minimise the harm they do to others, within the requirements of their military goal. This international humanitarian law principle is in line with both compassion for others and a concern to limit the bad karmic results to the combatant of their intentional killing and maiming. The motive for an act of killing can worsen or lessen its karmic results, and non-combat actions such as helping the wounded can generate good karmic results which can dilute, though not cancel, the bad karma of killing. Harm to both humans and non-humans is to be avoided wherever possible, but killing a human is worse than killing an animal. The Mahāvaṃsa passage on combatants killed by King Duṭṭhagāmaṇi’s army as mostly being less than human, such that killing them produced little or no bad karma, is a totally implausible statement to put in the mouths of monks whom the text says were Arahats, spiritually enlightened ones.
目次
Abstract 52 Buddhism and international humanitarian law (IHL) 52 Buddhism and killing 54 The value of human life, and the degree to which this is variable 56 Minimising harm to others and oneself in a combat situation 60 Minimising death and injury to the ‘enemy’ 62 Minimising karmic harm to combatants themselves 62 The interplay of intentions and motives 64 Conclusion 68 Notes 68 Abbreviations 70 References 71
