Research interests in Buddhist and contemporary Western metaphysics, philosophy of mind and consciousness, phenomenology, and personal identity, especially in relation to philosophical ethics as well as forms of transcendental identity and discourse. Published work has focused on Buddhist ethics, philosophy, and religion, and their relations with some dimensions of modern European philosophy, particularly around aspects of intentional lethality, including capital punishment, religious or sacrificial suicide, and politically-inspired self-immolation. Ethical and political themes in contemporary Tibetan and Burmese Buddhism have also featured, including published literary criticism related to these. A monograph "A Buddhist Theory of Killing: a philosophical exposition" (expanded and revised version of doctoral thesis) was published by Springer in June 2022. Supervisors: DPhil. (Philosophy) - Jay L. Garfield and MPhil. (Philosophy) - Marguerite La Caze
This book provides a philosophical account of the normative status of killing in Buddhism. Its ar... more This book provides a philosophical account of the normative status of killing in Buddhism. Its argument theorises on relevant Buddhist philosophical grounds the metaphysical, phenomenological and ethical dimensions of the distinct intentional classes of killing, in dialogue with some elements of Western philosophical thought. In doing so, it aims to provide a descriptive account of the causal bases of intentional killing, a global justification and elucidation of Buddhist norms regarding killing, and an intellectual response to and critique of alternative conceptions of such norms presented in recent Buddhist Studies scholarship. It examines early and classical Buddhist accounts of the evaluation of killing, systematising and rationally assessing these claims on both Buddhist and contemporary Western philosophical grounds. The book provides the conceptual foundation for the discussion, engaging original reconstructive philosophical analyses to both bolster and critique classical Indian Buddhist positions on killing and its evaluation, as well as contemporary Buddhist Studies scholarship concerning these positions. In doing so, it provides a systematic and critical account of the subject hitherto absent in the field. Engaging Buddhist philosophy from scholastic dogmatics to epistemology and metaphysics, this book is relevant to advanced students and scholars in philosophy and religious studies.
Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Ethics (eds. Shields & Cozort), 2018
As in many other religious and ethical traditions, the status of suicide in Buddhism is contested... more As in many other religious and ethical traditions, the status of suicide in Buddhism is contested, ambiguous, and in a sense particular to Buddhist thought, paradoxical. This chapter will focus on three main areas: (1) the canonical accounts of suicide in the Śrāva-kayāna and Mahāyāna traditions; (2) their theorization in a Buddhist psychological and phenomenological understanding of suicide; and (3) the ramifications of that understanding for contemporary social and medical practice, namely in assisted suicide and autothanasia, and for recent Buddhist history, above all for evaluating the Tibetan Buddhist self-immolations evident since 2009.
Resistant Hybridities: New Narratives of Exile Tibet (ed. S. Bhoil, Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing), 2020
A review essay on Tibetan memoirist Tsering Wangmo Dhompa's "Coming Home to Tibet: a Memoir of Lo... more A review essay on Tibetan memoirist Tsering Wangmo Dhompa's "Coming Home to Tibet: a Memoir of Love, Loss, and Belonging". (An expanded re-working of an earlier book review first published in 2018 by Mascara Literary Review.)
The first Buddhist precept prohibits the intentional, even sanctioned, taking of life. However, c... more The first Buddhist precept prohibits the intentional, even sanctioned, taking of life. However, capital punishment remains legal, and even increasingly applied, in some culturally Buddhist polities and beyond them. The classical Buddhist norm of unconditional compassion as a counterforce to such punishment thus appears insufficient to oppose it. This paper engages classical Buddhist and Western argument for and against capital punishment, locating a Buddhist refutation of deterrent and Kantian retributivist grounds for it not only in Nāgārjunian appeals to compassion, but also the metaphysical and moral constitution of the agent of lethal crime, and thereby the object of its moral consequences. (N.B. A revised version of this paper comprises Chapter 10 of the book "A Buddhist Theory of Killing: a philosophical exposition", available at: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-19-2441-5_10)
Capital punishment is practiced in many nation-states, secular
and religious alike. It is also hi... more Capital punishment is practiced in many nation-states, secular and religious alike. It is also historically a feature of some Buddhist polities, even though it defies the first Buddhist precept (pāṇatipātā) prohibiting lethal harm. This essay considers a neo-Kantian theorization of capital punishment (Sorell) and examines the reasons underwriting its claims (with their roots in Bentham and Mill) with respect to the prevention of and retribution for crime. The contextualization of this argument with Buddhist-metaphysical and epistemological concerns around the normativization of value, demonstrates that such a retributivist conception of capital punishment constitutively undermines its own rational and normative discourse. With this conclusion, the paper upholds and justifies the first Buddhist precept prohibiting lethal action in the case of capital punishment.
Copyright Notice: Digital copies of this work may be made and distributed provided no change is made and no alteration is made to the content. Reproduction in any other format, with the exception of a single copy for private study, requires the written permission of the author. All enquiries to: cozort@dickinson.edu.
This essay considers some meta-ethical questions that emerge from a consideration of the phenomen... more This essay considers some meta-ethical questions that emerge from a consideration of the phenomena of terrorism in the context of Buddhist metaphysics: what, in the Buddhist view, ultimately causes terrorism (and its subsidiary effects)? What resources do the Buddhist metaphysical claims of no-self, karma, emptiness and related concepts bring to a meta-ethical understanding of terrorism and its effects?
This essay presents a general and critical historical survey of the Burmese Buddhist alms-boycott... more This essay presents a general and critical historical survey of the Burmese Buddhist alms-boycott (pattanikujjana) between 1990 and 2007. It details the Pāli textual and ethical constitution of the boycott and its instantiation in modern Burmese history, particularly the Saffron Revolution of 2007. It also suggests a metaethical reading that considers Buddhist metaphysics as constitutive of that conflict. Non-violent resistance is contextualized as a soteriologically transcendent (“nibbanic”) project in the common life of believing Buddhists—even those who, military regime and martyred monastics alike, defend a fidelity to Theravāda Buddhism from dual divides of a political and humanistic fence.
This essay considers a paradigmatic example in Buddhist ethics of the injunction (in the five pre... more This essay considers a paradigmatic example in Buddhist ethics of the injunction (in the five precepts and five heinous crimes) against killing. It also considers Western ethical concerns in the post-phenomenological thinking of Derrida and Levinas, particularly the latter’s “ethics of responsibility.” It goes on to analyze in-depth an episode drawn from Alan Clements’s experience in 1990 as a Buddhist non-violent, non-combatant in war-torn Burma. It explores Clements’s ethical predicament as he faced an imminent need to act, perhaps even kill and thereby repudiate his Buddhist inculcation. It finds a wealth of common (yet divergent) ground in Levinasian and Mahāyāna ethics, a site pregnant for Buddhist ethical self-interrogation.
What does Buddhism really think about killing? A response to a recent trend, in Buddhist social p... more What does Buddhism really think about killing? A response to a recent trend, in Buddhist social politics, and Buddhist Studies scholarship which researches the history and anthropology of lethality in Buddhist cultures. This short article engages a summary philosophical critique of the apparent misrepresentation of a would-be Buddhist normative 'ethics of killing'.
Heideggerian and post-Heideggerian concerns around the ontology of technology in its relations wi... more Heideggerian and post-Heideggerian concerns around the ontology of technology in its relations with human being, the capitalist subject, and political autonomy have long been a feature of recent continental thought. This brief take on the 'post-human' development of technobiological symbiosis between Dasein (or the humanly possible), the techno-capitalist state, and recent moves in the technologisation of state medical and security interventions, considers how the current state of play might be broadly construed in and as an ever-shifting ontology of 'biotechnological prosthesis'.
Terrence Malick's recent film A Hidden Life depicts the life of the Austrian World War II conscie... more Terrence Malick's recent film A Hidden Life depicts the life of the Austrian World War II conscientious objector and Catholic martyr Franz Jägerstätter, executed by the Nazis for his refusal to serve the cause of the Reich and swear allegiance to the Führer. Is Jägerstätter's sacrifice best understood in religious terms, or can it be conceived within a secular moral framework? In the latter case, might it be understood as giving credence to a moral realism in which moral truth-claims are undergirded by metaphysical facts, or rather as divested of any transcendental sanction? In this article I argue for the latter interpretation, and describe how Jägerstätter's act demonstrates the highest moral purpose in an existential-humanist sense.
This book provides a philosophical account of the normative status of killing in Buddhism. Its ar... more This book provides a philosophical account of the normative status of killing in Buddhism. Its argument theorises on relevant Buddhist philosophical grounds the metaphysical, phenomenological and ethical dimensions of the distinct intentional classes of killing, in dialogue with some elements of Western philosophical thought. In doing so, it aims to provide a descriptive account of the causal bases of intentional killing, a global justification and elucidation of Buddhist norms regarding killing, and an intellectual response to and critique of alternative conceptions of such norms presented in recent Buddhist Studies scholarship. It examines early and classical Buddhist accounts of the evaluation of killing, systematising and rationally assessing these claims on both Buddhist and contemporary Western philosophical grounds. The book provides the conceptual foundation for the discussion, engaging original reconstructive philosophical analyses to both bolster and critique classical Indian Buddhist positions on killing and its evaluation, as well as contemporary Buddhist Studies scholarship concerning these positions. In doing so, it provides a systematic and critical account of the subject hitherto absent in the field. Engaging Buddhist philosophy from scholastic dogmatics to epistemology and metaphysics, this book is relevant to advanced students and scholars in philosophy and religious studies.
Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Ethics (eds. Shields & Cozort), 2018
As in many other religious and ethical traditions, the status of suicide in Buddhism is contested... more As in many other religious and ethical traditions, the status of suicide in Buddhism is contested, ambiguous, and in a sense particular to Buddhist thought, paradoxical. This chapter will focus on three main areas: (1) the canonical accounts of suicide in the Śrāva-kayāna and Mahāyāna traditions; (2) their theorization in a Buddhist psychological and phenomenological understanding of suicide; and (3) the ramifications of that understanding for contemporary social and medical practice, namely in assisted suicide and autothanasia, and for recent Buddhist history, above all for evaluating the Tibetan Buddhist self-immolations evident since 2009.
Resistant Hybridities: New Narratives of Exile Tibet (ed. S. Bhoil, Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing), 2020
A review essay on Tibetan memoirist Tsering Wangmo Dhompa's "Coming Home to Tibet: a Memoir of Lo... more A review essay on Tibetan memoirist Tsering Wangmo Dhompa's "Coming Home to Tibet: a Memoir of Love, Loss, and Belonging". (An expanded re-working of an earlier book review first published in 2018 by Mascara Literary Review.)
The first Buddhist precept prohibits the intentional, even sanctioned, taking of life. However, c... more The first Buddhist precept prohibits the intentional, even sanctioned, taking of life. However, capital punishment remains legal, and even increasingly applied, in some culturally Buddhist polities and beyond them. The classical Buddhist norm of unconditional compassion as a counterforce to such punishment thus appears insufficient to oppose it. This paper engages classical Buddhist and Western argument for and against capital punishment, locating a Buddhist refutation of deterrent and Kantian retributivist grounds for it not only in Nāgārjunian appeals to compassion, but also the metaphysical and moral constitution of the agent of lethal crime, and thereby the object of its moral consequences. (N.B. A revised version of this paper comprises Chapter 10 of the book "A Buddhist Theory of Killing: a philosophical exposition", available at: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-19-2441-5_10)
Capital punishment is practiced in many nation-states, secular
and religious alike. It is also hi... more Capital punishment is practiced in many nation-states, secular and religious alike. It is also historically a feature of some Buddhist polities, even though it defies the first Buddhist precept (pāṇatipātā) prohibiting lethal harm. This essay considers a neo-Kantian theorization of capital punishment (Sorell) and examines the reasons underwriting its claims (with their roots in Bentham and Mill) with respect to the prevention of and retribution for crime. The contextualization of this argument with Buddhist-metaphysical and epistemological concerns around the normativization of value, demonstrates that such a retributivist conception of capital punishment constitutively undermines its own rational and normative discourse. With this conclusion, the paper upholds and justifies the first Buddhist precept prohibiting lethal action in the case of capital punishment.
Copyright Notice: Digital copies of this work may be made and distributed provided no change is made and no alteration is made to the content. Reproduction in any other format, with the exception of a single copy for private study, requires the written permission of the author. All enquiries to: cozort@dickinson.edu.
This essay considers some meta-ethical questions that emerge from a consideration of the phenomen... more This essay considers some meta-ethical questions that emerge from a consideration of the phenomena of terrorism in the context of Buddhist metaphysics: what, in the Buddhist view, ultimately causes terrorism (and its subsidiary effects)? What resources do the Buddhist metaphysical claims of no-self, karma, emptiness and related concepts bring to a meta-ethical understanding of terrorism and its effects?
This essay presents a general and critical historical survey of the Burmese Buddhist alms-boycott... more This essay presents a general and critical historical survey of the Burmese Buddhist alms-boycott (pattanikujjana) between 1990 and 2007. It details the Pāli textual and ethical constitution of the boycott and its instantiation in modern Burmese history, particularly the Saffron Revolution of 2007. It also suggests a metaethical reading that considers Buddhist metaphysics as constitutive of that conflict. Non-violent resistance is contextualized as a soteriologically transcendent (“nibbanic”) project in the common life of believing Buddhists—even those who, military regime and martyred monastics alike, defend a fidelity to Theravāda Buddhism from dual divides of a political and humanistic fence.
This essay considers a paradigmatic example in Buddhist ethics of the injunction (in the five pre... more This essay considers a paradigmatic example in Buddhist ethics of the injunction (in the five precepts and five heinous crimes) against killing. It also considers Western ethical concerns in the post-phenomenological thinking of Derrida and Levinas, particularly the latter’s “ethics of responsibility.” It goes on to analyze in-depth an episode drawn from Alan Clements’s experience in 1990 as a Buddhist non-violent, non-combatant in war-torn Burma. It explores Clements’s ethical predicament as he faced an imminent need to act, perhaps even kill and thereby repudiate his Buddhist inculcation. It finds a wealth of common (yet divergent) ground in Levinasian and Mahāyāna ethics, a site pregnant for Buddhist ethical self-interrogation.
What does Buddhism really think about killing? A response to a recent trend, in Buddhist social p... more What does Buddhism really think about killing? A response to a recent trend, in Buddhist social politics, and Buddhist Studies scholarship which researches the history and anthropology of lethality in Buddhist cultures. This short article engages a summary philosophical critique of the apparent misrepresentation of a would-be Buddhist normative 'ethics of killing'.
Heideggerian and post-Heideggerian concerns around the ontology of technology in its relations wi... more Heideggerian and post-Heideggerian concerns around the ontology of technology in its relations with human being, the capitalist subject, and political autonomy have long been a feature of recent continental thought. This brief take on the 'post-human' development of technobiological symbiosis between Dasein (or the humanly possible), the techno-capitalist state, and recent moves in the technologisation of state medical and security interventions, considers how the current state of play might be broadly construed in and as an ever-shifting ontology of 'biotechnological prosthesis'.
Terrence Malick's recent film A Hidden Life depicts the life of the Austrian World War II conscie... more Terrence Malick's recent film A Hidden Life depicts the life of the Austrian World War II conscientious objector and Catholic martyr Franz Jägerstätter, executed by the Nazis for his refusal to serve the cause of the Reich and swear allegiance to the Führer. Is Jägerstätter's sacrifice best understood in religious terms, or can it be conceived within a secular moral framework? In the latter case, might it be understood as giving credence to a moral realism in which moral truth-claims are undergirded by metaphysical facts, or rather as divested of any transcendental sanction? In this article I argue for the latter interpretation, and describe how Jägerstätter's act demonstrates the highest moral purpose in an existential-humanist sense.
A discussion with American poet Ravi Shankar on his memoir "Correctional" (University of Wisconsi... more A discussion with American poet Ravi Shankar on his memoir "Correctional" (University of Wisconsin Press, 2022): race, politics, carcerality, poetics, truth, justice.
A literary review of the memoir of Tibetan-U.S. poet Tsering Wangmo Dhompa: "Coming Home to Tibet... more A literary review of the memoir of Tibetan-U.S. poet Tsering Wangmo Dhompa: "Coming Home to Tibet: a Memoir of Love, Loss, and Belonging" (Shambhala Boulder, 2016). An expanded version of this review was commissioned and published as a book chapter in 2020, see: https://www.academia.edu/88609804/Kovan_Dhompa_chapter_12_Resistant_Hybridities_ed_S_Bhoil_2020_
Review of a 2017 British Council-sponsored anthology of contemporary fiction from Myanmar, in eig... more Review of a 2017 British Council-sponsored anthology of contemporary fiction from Myanmar, in eight national languages, translated into English.
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and religious alike. It is also historically a feature of some
Buddhist polities, even though it defies the first Buddhist
precept (pāṇatipātā) prohibiting lethal harm. This essay considers
a neo-Kantian theorization of capital punishment (Sorell)
and examines the reasons underwriting its claims (with
their roots in Bentham and Mill) with respect to the prevention
of and retribution for crime. The contextualization of
this argument with Buddhist-metaphysical and epistemological
concerns around the normativization of value, demonstrates
that such a retributivist conception of capital punishment
constitutively undermines its own rational and
normative discourse. With this conclusion, the paper upholds
and justifies the first Buddhist precept prohibiting lethal
action in the case of capital punishment.
Copyright Notice: Digital copies of this work may be made and distributed provided no change is made and no alteration is made to the content. Reproduction in any other format, with the exception of a single copy for private study, requires the written permission of the author. All enquiries to: cozort@dickinson.edu.
Media by Martin Kovan
Articles by Martin Kovan
and religious alike. It is also historically a feature of some
Buddhist polities, even though it defies the first Buddhist
precept (pāṇatipātā) prohibiting lethal harm. This essay considers
a neo-Kantian theorization of capital punishment (Sorell)
and examines the reasons underwriting its claims (with
their roots in Bentham and Mill) with respect to the prevention
of and retribution for crime. The contextualization of
this argument with Buddhist-metaphysical and epistemological
concerns around the normativization of value, demonstrates
that such a retributivist conception of capital punishment
constitutively undermines its own rational and
normative discourse. With this conclusion, the paper upholds
and justifies the first Buddhist precept prohibiting lethal
action in the case of capital punishment.
Copyright Notice: Digital copies of this work may be made and distributed provided no change is made and no alteration is made to the content. Reproduction in any other format, with the exception of a single copy for private study, requires the written permission of the author. All enquiries to: cozort@dickinson.edu.