Moral Ignorance in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy

FAIN: HB-288403-23

Emily Webb McRae
University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, NM 87106-3837)

Research and writing leading to a book about the obstacles to moral knowledge according to Indo-Tibetan Buddhism philosophy.

Why do we ignore things that matter morally? This question is surprisingly difficult to answer, especially when we consider the apparent accessibility of moral knowledge. It would be hard to find an adult who didn’t know that cheating is wrong, and yet it is easy to find someone ignoring that moral fact. In my book I offer a theory of moral ignorance that explains what it is, how it is formed and maintained (often tenaciously), and how to address it. With the help of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist philosophical interlocutors, I argue that moral ignorance is the cognitive-emotional-somatic activity of obstructing moral knowledge through the mechanisms of denial and projection and can be remediated by interventions in that activity. With support from a 12-month NEH award, I propose to complete the remaining three chapters of this book, one of which I hope to publish as a stand-alone article.