The Reflections of Universal Ethical Rules in East Asian Thought*

Year 2015, Volume: 2 Issue: 2, 319 - 326, 30.06.2015

Ahmet Erhan Şekerci

Abstract

In this paper, I will survey the ethical rules in Abrahamic religions and their
re ections on the East Asian thought. Afterwards a discussion of their significance in
the contemporary thought will be held. Ten commandments are the first ourishing of
ethical rules in the Abrahamic religions. This set of rules kept progressing into a whole
system of ethics first in Christianity and then in Islam. Our first observation will be that a
major part of the ethical rules in Abrahamic faiths are continuous with those of the East
Asian thought. For instance, ethical rules that one can derive from the four noble truths
and the noble eightfold path in Buddhism are mostly compatible with the basic universal
ethical rules in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It is thus the aim of our paper to shed
some light on the interaction and similarity of ethical rules the in Abrahamic religions
and the major religious and philosophical movements in the East Asia. 

Keywords

Ethics, Religion, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism

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