Virtuous Vision: Navigating the Nexus of Virtue Reliabilism and Moral Phenomenology in The Treasury of Valid Knowledge and Reasoning

This paper aims to foster a conversation between Buddhist epistemology and its contemporary epistemological relevance, particularly in the debates surrounding Buddhist epistemology and reliabilist virtue epistemology, alongside another related theory known as Buddhist moral phenomenology.

The first section of the paper will explore the possibility of a conversation between Buddhist Epistemology and Reliabilist Virtue Epistemology. Tao Jiang, in Ernest Sosa Encountering Chinese Philosophy: A Cross-Cultural Approach to Virtue Epistemology, argues that a Chan or Zen Buddhist version of virtue epistemology highlights the key characteristic of “detachment,” which is a reliabilist “trait-virtue” that sheds light on the virtue reliabilists and responsibilists accounts.

According to Ernest Sosa’s response, whether “detachment” is a competence that exercises its constitutive knowledge is questionable. Also, Sosa emphasizes that reliabilists are concerned with traditional epistemic problems regarding knowledge and skepticism, whereas responsibilists invite moral concerns such as “intellectual courage” and “open-mindedness.”

I agree with Sosa that Buddhist “detachment” is not an epistemic competence that exercises its constitutive knowledge. However, I would emphasis that it is an important element in Buddhist moral phenomenology, which connects to Buddhist epistemology as an experience of cultivation and transformation.

I will argue that there are epistemic competencies that exercise constitutive knowledge in Buddhist philosophy, such as direct perception, that can bridge a more meaningful conversation with Sosa’s reliabilist account. Buddhist epistemology, at least in Indo-Tibetan iterations, lies upon the gnoseological competencies that direct to the reliable attainment of truth and, perhaps, in Sosa’s terms, aptness. The first part of this paper will engage this debate based on a discussion of “perception” in an important text on Buddhist epistemology, The Treasury of Valid Knowledge and Reasoning (tshad ma rigs gter) written by Sakya Paṇḍita (1182–1251).      

The second part of the paper will consider Buddhist epistemology in parallel with moral phenomenology. In Buddhist Ethics: A Philosophical Exploration, Garfield proposes a way to explain Buddhist ethics beyond the scope of normative frameworks such as deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics. He describes Buddhist ethics in terms of moral phenomenology, which refers to a pathway of self-cultivation that emphasizes how one experiences the world. That is, Buddhist ethics delineates one’s inner aspect and input of how one acts in a non-egocentric way. In this sense, Buddhist ethics is woven with Buddhist epistemology, metaphysical, and soteriology.

Garfield’s treatment of moral phenomenology is a useful model to consider in light of the compatibility or incompatibility of Buddhist epistemology and virtue reliabilism. While extracting similar points from traditional Buddhist accounts that aim for liberation alongside the contemporary epistemological accounts that strive to solve the issue of the justification of true belief, it is important to avoid colonizing Buddhist theory with Western normative frameworks or leaning too heavily upon distinctively Buddhist topics that do not concern the contemporary discussion. In light of Garfield’s treatment of moral phenomenology, I will discuss the potential relation between Buddhist epistemology and virtue reliabilism based on key passages from The Treasury of Valid Knowledge and Reasoning.

This paper does not intend to assimilate Buddhist epistemology into reliabilist virtue epistemology, or reduce Buddhist epistemology to Buddhist moral phenomenology. Instead, it aims to push forward the dialogue between Buddhist epistemology and its contemporary epistemological relevance. It argues that Buddhist epistemology and cognitive theory are intertwined with ethical, metaphysical, and soteriological dimensions, upon how individuals perceive and engage with themselves, others, and the world devoid of a self.