01 Introduction atala prism.pdf

Atala PRISM
FOUNDATIONS
OF DECENTRALIZED IDENTITY

Thank you for your interest in Atala and our Foundations Pioneer
Course. Self-Sovereign Identity is a fascinating topic that we believe
has the power to offer long-term positive social impact globally.
SSI today is used to improve supply chain management by making
data flow more reliable and transparent, leading to more efficiency.
Implementations that follow the privacy by design principles of SSI
return agency and ownership of digital identities back to individuals.
In this reader, you will find an introduction to the fundamental
concepts necessary to build your own decentralized ecosystems;
issuers, holders, verifiers, trust frameworks, governance frameworks,
trust registries, etc. These concepts and tools bring the human
element into Web3 applications, which allows us to convey who
we are into the layer-1 blockchain contexts we know and love–
with their permissionless, censorship-resistant, and innovative
consensus algorithms, whether on Cardano, Ethereum, or any other
cryptocurrency blockchain. A few examples of SSI’s new possibilities
are next-generation governance protocols for DAOs, alternative
education and career pathways, emergent reputation systems for
diaspora populations, and loyalty programs.
We are opinionated about doing our best to improve how we do
our work every day–this is why you will also find we weave into
our foundations a lightweight treatment of ethics. We have been
inspired by the book ‘Technology and the Virtues’ as a tool for
helping us think through how we build systems that have a better
chance of creating long-term positive social impact.
We believe that building systems for positive outcomes do not
happen by accident. Having the intent and practice of self-
improvement for ourselves and the people we work with gives us
better odds of building systems that will improve people’s lives.
We also introduce foundational concepts from ‘Patterns of
Commoning’ that show us that people have always found novel
ways to work together to achieve common goals–and there is no
single way to cooperate and collaborate. Our Pioneer community is
a commons with a shared goal to build incredible SSI applications.
As you get deeper into your understanding of creating decentralized
ecosystems, these patterns will become more powerful when
applied to incentive structures by leveraging the power of smart
contracts and native crypto assets. What we cover here just briefly
introduces the topic.
We hope you enjoy our treatment of the foundations for building
ecosystems that unlock mobility for people worldwide. This is just
the first step in a long and productive journey into the world of
possibilities Web3 offers for you.
Atala Foundations Foreword
Tony Rose
Head of Product, Atala
IOG

Introduction
ATALA PRISM - Foundations of Decentralized Identity
Introduction
Fire and frost – ignorance of science, neglect of our physical
environment, and failure to cultivate human potential
– we can’t afford them anymore: there is too much at stake.
Welcome to Atala PRISM: Foundations. We are excited to have you join us on this journey
as we explore identity, as it is today, and what it can be in the future. With the following
material, our goal is to explore the complexities of identity in the digital world and outline
how we can improve upon the systems we use today.
Who we are is personal and intimate, and even though it is becoming more entwined with
businesses and services online we are finding ways to protect what makes us individuals.
In many cases, we give up control of who we are for access and convenience. Today we
find ourselves at a crossroads–do we continue down the path of allowing multi-million
and billion-dollar companies to control our identity and data? Or do we retake control
of our identities and data?
4
Patterns of Commoning, 2015, p. 118

Over the past 15 years, emerging technology has kicked open the doors to allow users to
manage their identities. Blockchain technology has been a revolutionary development.
Cryptocurrencies are what most people think of when blockchain comes up in
conversation, they are essential, but there is more that blockchain offers in utility.
Bitcoin was a spark at the right time. In 2009, in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial
crisis, its creation enabled financial independence and created portability, access,
and an alternative to the traditional banking system. In the early days, many detractors
were saying Bitcoin would never be achievable or valuable. Today, many people,
businesses, and even countries use and accept it as legal tender.
The Bitcoin story is helpful while discussing utility. There was a tool, blockchain, that Satoshi
Nakamoto conceptualized, this tool was essential in building a new financial system,
and there was a need, the financial crisis. Pairing the blockchain with a new finance
protocol was the first in a long line of innovations in blockchain technology.
5 Introduction
Blockchain

What is blockchain? It is called the ‘ledger in the sky.’ Think of it as
a distributed server–meaning no one individual controls or has
the info. It gets spread across hundreds or thousands of nodes. A
node is a single copy of all the data, bolstering the integrity and
distribution of the information. These nodes work together to form a
network that supports the blockchain. They also help validate blocks
as they get created, this ensures that what gets written to the chain
is accurate. If one part of the chain goes down, as long as more
nodes are in the network, it will remain active and running.
Each block on the blockchain acts as a container that holds
transactions. Each transaction in a block can represent a variety
of things. The one most people will be familiar with is a monetary
transaction. If I purchase ADA, that transaction gets written to
the Cardano blockchain, along with dozens of other transactions
containing purchases/sales. These form a block that is validated
by the nodes. Validation is critical because it proves the data is
authentic as it gets distributed across the network (all the nodes).
This discussion may seem out of place in a discussion about
identity–it is not. We are laying the foundation of concepts that
will get introduced later. One of the naturally occurring thoughts
associated with Bitcoin and blockchain is that the users trust and
believe it is secure, censorship resistant, and portable. For some, it
has permitted access to a financial system for the first time in their
lives. These points should not get discarded as marketing or talking
points. As we explore concepts further, we will discuss why they are
essential to self-sovereign identity and how it is possible.
Without this modest degree of
foresight, ethical norms would
seem to have little if any power
to guide our actions. For even a
timeless and universally binding
ethical principle presupposes that
we can imagine how adopting
that principle today is likely to
sustain or enrich the quality of
our lives tomorrow.
Technology and the Virtues, 2016, p. 6

What is identity?
Identity is the essence of who we are.
It comprises our immutable characteristics
like race, sex, ethnicity, date of birth, and
our mutable personas like online accounts,
where we bank, our cell phone provider,
etc. As we navigate daily life, everyone and
everything we interact with converges with
portions of our identity.
In our exchanges with strangers, family,
friends, or businesses we leave traces of
ourselves behind. The information that we
share with individuals can be stored within
human memory, likewise, the information
that we share with businesses is stored
within a data storage medium–to be
recalled at a later time/date by both parties.
Because this level of data storage occurs,
when we communicate with people, we
carefully control the information that we
share in an attempt to mitigate our risks.
Digital interactions are more complex
because we do not control the data flow.
There are pieces of information that we are
required to provide.
A quick aside, an entity is defined as a thing
with a distinct and independent existence.
When we refer to identity, we speak to any
person, organization, corporation, business,
physical or digital thing. We will use the
term entity throughout this text with this
denotation.
Every individual has varying levels of trust
that take time to develop. It is a personal
decision ingrained in our life experiences.
Nobody should be coerced into sharing
information if they are uncomfortable
with it. This idea is not an earth-shattering
revelation, but it is essential to remember
that the decision should be ours.
We should be able to distinguish between
who we are and the information about us
that gets authenticated. If I said my favorite
color is blue, it might be accurate, but there
is no way to prove that. If I were required
to prove my age, that is something I can
authenticate with a government ID or
a birth certificate.
Let’s say I bank with Acme Bank. They know
about me and how much money I have
because I have an account with them. If I
walked into Mega Bank and asked for my
funds, they would have no record of me or
my funds and would probably assume that I
was attempting to rob the bank.
It sounds ludicrous because it is. We do
not go to a different bank for access to our
account–we go to our bank, where we are
known. These documents are not us.
They represent something about us. It is
critical to distinguish between who we are
and authenticating information about us.
“Identity is this incredible invisible
force that controls your whole life.
It’s invisible like gravity is invisible,
but it controls your whole life.”
Tony Robbins
7 Introduction

8
Using identity
Across the globe, people use their identities in different ways. Someone in the
United States is more likely to use a driver’s license daily than someone in Japan,
where public transportation is more widely accessible.
Every time we use a cell phone, social media, email, text, access a
bank account, or turn the lights on, we engage our identity. We have
a relationship with these entities through accounts or credentials
required to interact with them. If we had no credentials, how would
the cell phone provider or electric company know how much of the
utility we used and where to send the bill?
It is no different from interacting with a utility or a service,
like an email account. We have personas that we acquire
via a username and password, which grants us access to
our inbox, contacts, calendar, etc. We do not store that
data. It is accessible via permission–our credential.
Introduction

9 Introduction
We make these connections everywhere throughout our day. We may stand in line at our
local coffee shop and engage with a stranger. Our favorite barista may have children we
inquire about, which is a deeper relationship. The business itself would be more formal,
where we provide our name and payment information.
While we wait for our coffee, we may be texting friends, browsing social media, or talking
to someone on the phone. These interactions bring in the cell phone company and the
individuals we communicate with. We would easily add dozens of interactions during the
few minutes we are waiting. Conservatively, we can estimate 15 connections during our 15
minutes at the coffee shop.
If we begin adding these up throughout the day, that is 60 connections an hour and closing
in on 1,000 per 16 hours of being awake. Remember, this estimate is on the low side of the
scale–in many cases, this number will be much higher.
Hopefully, this has helped express how integral our identity is in our daily lives. Often, we
do not think about these associations or even consider engaging with them and sharing
information–but we constantly have these interactions throughout our day.
“The value of identity of course is so often
with it comes purpose.”
Richard Grant

Identity management
There are a lot of dystopian ideas about digital identities.
Many of these ideas come from the book 1984. Citizens are
constantly under surveillance for their actions and the information
they share. The notion of big brother is a genuine concern,
but as we walk through how it works, we hope to dispel these
apprehensions. The uneasiness about fiction becoming a reality
is understandable.
One of the best ways of countering these narratives is transparency.
In part, that is what we are doing here. There are several identity
models in use today. Looking at each and how they work will
illuminate the problems and benefits.
The average person has approximately 100 online accounts today.
Because of the growing number of personas, many have turned to
password or account management tools. These tools help organize
our personas–but most require another account and password to
access or unlock the management tool itself.
A widely used protocol to manage our personas is a process
called single-sign-on (SSO). This protocol allows us to sign in to
another service through an existing relationship. An example of this
is Google. If you have an account with Google, you can use that
credential to access hundreds, if not thousands, of other services.
These services that offer SSO are called IDPs (identity providers).
They offer conveniences but have many drawbacks that we will
explore later.
10 Introduction

Physical documents are another problem entirely. Today, many of our documents
are issued by a single office and usually printed on special paper with seals and/or
other security measures. If we lose a document or it is stolen, getting a replacement is
complicated. Typically, we must prove who we are in several forms to get a duplicate.
The process is extremely tedious, challenging, and time-consuming.
The last issue to discuss is identity theft. Having so much of our identity in the hands
of others opens us up to this growing problem. Our digital accounts can become
compromised, exposing any connected data, like bank accounts, credit cards, etc.
Theft occurs in physical documents, but digital identity is more prevalent
because of the flaws in the existing systems.
11 Introduction

The moral ideal is that of having ‘nothing to hide,’ and thus nothing
to lose from a transparent society. As Google CEO and Chairman
Eric Schmidt famously said in a candid news interview, “If you have
something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t
be doing it in the first place.” Aside from its outrageous conflation of
discretion and vice, this philosophy overlooks the fact that information
about me is also usually information about the others with whom
I share my life, and thus to focus only on the question of whether I
have something to hide is a profoundly solipsistic attitude to privacy
concerns, one incompatible with the virtue of moral perspective.
Technology and the Virtues, 2016, p. 191

Ethics
No matter what kind of product we are working on, we need to
reflect on our actions. Whether that be an algorithm, user interface,
experience, or hardware stack, all of our decisions impact the users
of our products. Are we creating something fair and responsible for
individuals and humanity? Who defines these ethical principles?
These are big questions. Answering the question is dependent on
what philosophical theory we follow. Do we draw upon our ancients,
such as Aristotle, Confucius, and Buddha–or modern philosophers,
maybe a combination of them all? Deciding on which ethical
framework to follow is not the focus here; the important part is
applying some of these considerations to what we build.
We will not explore too deeply into the philosophical ideas and
debates regarding ethics. There are dozens of books written by
people who have studied these for decades. For continued
reading about these ethical frameworks, refer to the Ethics section
in the Appendix.
A question that we must ask ourselves in order to create more
user-friendly technology for the future, without diving too deeply
into ethics is: What is the good life? Each of these philosophies
defines it differently based on their ideas. As people in the emerging
technology space, we should have some idea of what the good life
is for the users of our systems so that we can create technology
that works for the people. What that is should be carefully thought
out, planned, and researched before sending something into the
world.
There are many ethical considerations for a product that deals
with identity, but several are crucial: accessibility, security, privacy,
agency, and censorship-resistance. We must understand the
challenges outside of our geographic spaces to build a viable
product for all.
An example of this is a conversation I had with a gentleman
from Zambia, Africa. He explained that government IDs and birth
certificates do not get issued. In Zambia, the most common
document used for proving who you are is a certificate of baptism.
In most Western countries, this idea seems unbelievable because it
is a keepsake document. This example is the kind of consideration
and understanding we should have when creating any product.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
13 Introduction

For one thing, we would be foolish to neglect the rich resources for
our task already available to us within the classical virtue traditions
of Aristotelian, Confucian, and Buddhist ethics. These resources are of
more than historical interest, as the shared conceptual pillars of these
systems will turn out to be critical to the successful management of our
own present condition.
We should also recognize that every human understanding of moral
excellence bears the traces of one or more past traditions, and humans
have always sought insight from the moral sages of history, who
likewise sought to lift themselves and their own communities out of
shortsighted, base, ignorant, and destructive patterns of activity.
Technology and the Virtues, 2016, p. 61-62

69
Appendix
Ethics
2.1 Classical Virtus Traditions: Aristotelian, Confucian, and Buddhist Ethics
2.1.1 Aristotelian Ethics
The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BCE) greatly extended and
modified the ethical teachings of his Athenian predecessors Socrates and Plato
in a definitive series of lectures on the good life, the notes of which were collected
in a volume titled Nicomachean Ethics. With the notable exception of its enduring
influence upon the Catholic moral tradition (largely owed to the writings of St.
Thomas Aquinas), Aristotelian ethics largely fell out of favor in the modern West
until the mid-20th century, when it was returned to contemporary relevance by
a growing community of neo-Aristotelian virtue ethicists. As noted in Chapter
1, its current revival is generating new scholarly interest in the applicability of
Aristotelian ethics to contemporary moral problems.
Many key features of Aristotle’s ethics were sketched in Chapter 1. However, it
will help to summarize the core commitments of his approach. Aristotle claimed
that the highest good of a human life, that for the sake of which all voluntary
human action occurs, is eudaimonia (variously translated as ‘happiness’ or
‘human flourishing’). He claimed that eudaimonia is constituted by a complete
life of virtuous activity, defined as excellence in the active fulfillment of our unique
function (ergon) as human beings. Believing this function to be the exercise of our
capacity to reason, Aristotle argued that its fulfillment in a life of happiness with
others presupposes the self-cultivation of various moral excellences of ‘virtues’
(arêtes) of character, such as courage (andreia), honesty (aletheia), patience
(praotes), friendliness (philia), justice (dikaiosynē), and moderation (sōphrosúnē),
along with the unifying intellectual virtue of practical wisdom (phrónēsis).
A virtuous person who successfully cultivates these excellences is able to
perceive the right end or goal to seek in a wide range of practical situations. To
be right, the end must actually be achievable by the person in that situation,
and likely to promote the ultimate aim of all human action: human flourishing or
living well (which for social animals like us, always means living well with others).
A virtuous person reliably discerns and employs effective practical means to
achieve these ends, as appropriate to the specific circumstances in which he
finds himself. So, for example, we can imagine that in one situation a virtuous
person may best promote the moral end of fiercely protecting an important
secret; yet in a different time and place, the same person might rightly judge that
promoting the moral end requires him to expose that secret.
In Aristotle’s view, this discerning skill in living rightly is cultivated through a
process of habituation and gradual refinement of one’s character, in which one’s
repeated practice of moral actions is guided and encouraged by a combination
of proper laws, moral education, and the presence of noble human models
(called phronimoi: ‘practically wise persons’) who exemplify and inspire virtuous
living. In a fully cultivated or virtuous person (a phronimos), one’s habits, thoughts,
and emotions have been refined and harmonized to such a degree that virtuous
actions are consistent, produced with spontaneity and pleasurable ease, infused
with appropriate moral feeling and belief, and above all, intelligently guided by
practical wisdom or phrónēsis. While Aristotle reserves the very highest and rarest
form of eudaimonia for those suited to a life of theoretical reason–that is, a life
spent contemplating eternal and divine realities–he claims that any human being
equipped with practical reason and a basic level of material security can achieve
a flourishing and happy life through political activity and civic friendship (philia
politikē). This counts as eudaimonia because, like philosophical contemplation,
living well in community with others also requires the constant exercise of our
distinctive capacity for higher reasoning. For Aristotle, expressing this function
(ergon) of our particular animal kind is what makes our lives humanly good.
Appendix

70
2.1.2 Confucian Ethics
Kongzi (551-479 BCE) or ‘Master Kong’ (Latinized as ‘Confucius’) was a teacher
and local government minister in the Chinese state of Lu. His moral and political
philosophy is collected in a handful of classic works, the best known of which
today is the posthumously assembled Analects. Confucian moral philosophy,
also known as ‘Ruism,’ was greatly extended and enriched by disciples and later
followers of Kongzi, among the best known of whom are Mengzi (also known as
mencius) and Xunzi. From the time of the Han Dynasty (206 BCE-220 AD) to the
present day, Confucian thought has exerted a powerful influence on Chinese
culture and the ideology of the Chinese state, though its classical form has
been repeatedly altered over the centuries by interactions with other moral and
political schools of thought, most notably Chinese Legalism, Buddhism, Daoism,
and Communism.
As with all rich moral traditions, Confucianism is marked by doctrinal disputes
over the ‘correct’ version of the original account. Among the best known of
these is the dispute between Menzi and Xunzi over whether human nature is
fundamentally good or evil. Yet classical Confucian thought maintains a stable
core, centered on the need for persons to cultivate in themselves the kind of moral
virtues that enable the flourishing of relationships within the family–virtues that
are then gradually extended outward to other relationships to promote broader
political flourishing. The Confucian self is not an isolated, autonomous individual
but a being defined by relationships and reciprocal obligations to others. A life
that enables familial and political flourishing is understood by Confucians as
a life in harmony with the Way (Dao), which is seen as a timeless ideal for the
functioning of human societies.
To become the sort of person whose life engages this ideal pattern, one must
allow one’s character to be shaped by a lifelong study of moral tradition and the
practice of accepted moral rituals or ‘rites’ (li). These rituals express and foster
attitudes of moral respect and deference in everything from the treatment of
one’s family members, to the conduct of public ceremonies, to one’s personal
dress and bodily gestures. Yet as we will see, ritual practice must never be allowed
to become rote, mechanical, or rigid; it must embody a deep cognitive and
emotional sensitivity to the particular roles, circumstances, and human needs
that determine the proper form of ritual expression called for in each situation. The
practice of moral self-cultivation aims to gradually refine this intelligent sensitivity.
As with Aristotelian virtue ethics, Confucianism is shaped by a philosophical
belief that the ultimate goal of a human life (here, a life lived in accordance with
the Way/Dao) is timeless and fixed by nature, transcending cultures and history. As
did Aristotle, Confucians also rely heavily on the use of human models to illustrate
and inspire virtuous living; while ‘adherence to the Way’ is the final standard of a
good life, individuals draw from observation or historical accounts of the behavior
of particular ‘exemplary persons’ (junzi) to learn what adherence as a form of
habituated practical wisdom or “intelligent awareness” that harmonizes cognitive,
perceptual, and affective motivations and guides their unified and appropriate
expression in particular moral contexts. The cultivated person reliably discerns
the ‘middle way’–the ‘mean state’ or “due measure and degree” of response
called for by a given moral situation–and enacts that response with spontaneous
ease and an elegant, authentic style. Thus in both traditions, the rigid following of
established moral rules and the maximizing of moral utility and subservient and
conditional aspects of virtuous living at best, and mere ‘semblances’ of virtue at
worst. This stands in stark contrast to modern deontological or consequentialist
moral theories that regard virtue as defined by strict adherence to such principles.
Yet we must not elide important differences between Confucian and Aristotelian
conceptions of the good life. For one thing, Confucians stress the logical and
natural priority of family virtue, while Aristotle privileges the flourishing of the
political state or polis and sees family virtue as guided by and ultimately in service
to the state. Nor do individual Confucian virtues map neatly onto Aristotelian
ones. Though significant resonances and overlaps can be discerned, for example
between zhi (wisdom or intelligent awareness) and Aristotelian phrónēsis
(practical wisdom), even virtues with nominal counterparts in Aristotle, such as
courage (yong), are framed very differently by Confucians. Among the Confucian
virtues having no direct counterpart in Aristotle are benevolence or humanity
(ren), ritual proprietary (li), appropriateness (yi), and empathic reciprocity (shu).
Finally, nothing in Confucian thought replicates the tension found in Aristotle (and
in Buddhism) between active political flourishing and a life of contemplative and
philosophical well-being; for Confucians, all human flourishing is embodied in
family and political life.
Appendix

71
2.1.3 Buddhist Ethics
The religious and philosophical practice of Buddhism dates back to its origins on
the Indian subcontinent in the 5th or perhaps 6th century BCE. Buddhism grew
out of a wider social phenomenon of spiritual wanderers devoted to challenging
the orthodox beliefs and practices of the Vedic tradition upon which modern
Hinduism is founded. The historical individual credited with Buddhism’s founding is
Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit; in Pāli script: Siddhattha Gotama), more commonly
known as the Buddha (or the ‘awakened one’). Born to a royal family in what is now
Nepal, as a young man Gautama renounced conventional social and religious life
and took up a personal quest for new spiritual and moral wisdom. As traditional
accounts have it, he spent six years on his quest before becoming enlightened or
‘awakened’ at the age of thirty-five, after which he spent the remainder of his life
spreading his religious and ethical teachings throughout northeastern India.
Following his passing at the reported age of eighty, Buddhist teachings and
practices expanded, splintered, and were widely disseminated throughout
Southeast and East Asia. While the highest concentrations of Buddhist
practitioners remain on the Asian continent, 20th century Buddhism is a global
phenomenon with adherents numbering in the hundreds of millions–over a billion
on some accounts. Two major traditions of Buddhist thought are distinguished
today, embodying significant divergences among their accepted teachings
and practices while retaining a common core of basic concepts and values.
The oldest Theravada Buddhism, remains dominant in Southeast Asia, while
Mahāyāna Buddhism is prevalent in East Asia where it takes a variety of cultural
forms (including Pure Land Zen, Tibetan, and other schools of Mahāyāna practice).
The core teachings of Buddhism are heavily rooted in traditional Vedic
metaphysics, incorporating its central concepts of karma (spiritually significant
action), samsāra (cycle of rebirths), Dharma (sacred duty or doctrine), and yoga
(spiritual discipline). However, classical Buddhism departs from Vedic philosophy
and Hinduism by denying the substantive reality of a self (ātman), a doctrine
known as anātman (no-self). On this view, the worldly self that appears stable,
unified, and enduring is really no more than a collection of transient mental
and physical phenomena of various types (the skandhas or ‘aggregates’);
nor is there any ‘deeper’ unified self beneath the worldly one. Another key
metaphysical principle is that of pratītya-samutpāda, or ‘dependent co-arising’.
Many of Buddhism’s ethical norms follow from this view of all beings as casually
interconnected, in a manner that surpasses local spatiotemporal boundaries.
Buddhism also posits that suffering (duhkha), which it holds as fundamentally
characterizing worldly existence within the cycle of rebirths, can be radically
transcended by reaching a state of enlightened liberation (nirvāna). Such as state,
in which one achieves the same ‘awakened’ condition as did the original Buddha,
is in principle attainable within the lifetime of any individual by following the Noble
Eightfold Path, a developmental practice which jointly cultivates various practical
forms of spiritual knowledge (prajña), ethical conduct (sīla), and concentrated
awareness (samādhi).
While the moral teachings of Buddhism are sometimes described narrowly
in terms of sīla–that is, adherence to the various ‘precepts’ or rules of ethical
conduct–a fuller understanding of Buddhist ethics conceives of sīla as one aspect
of complete virtue, which must be integrated with other virtuous dimensions
of the Eightfold Path. That is, just as Confucian ritual action (li) and Aristotelian
moral habit (hexis) lead to genuine virtue only when integrated with appropriate
thought, perception, and feeling, Buddhist self-cultivation requires that fully
ethical conduct inform, and be informed by, right belief, right intention, and mental
and emotional discipline. Such enrichment enables the enlightened person to
modulate his or her expression of the conventional moral precepts, or even in rare
cases adopt ‘skillful means’ (upāya kauśalya) to suspend them, as called for by the
morally relevant features of the particular situation. In this way, as with other virtue
traditions, Buddhist ethics takes a holistic, flexible, and contextual approach to
moral action that is fundamentally distinct from either rule-based (deontological)
or consequentialist models of ethical life.
Buddhism’s resonances with other classical virtue traditions do not end here. As
with the central role granted by Confucian and Aristotelian ethics to ‘exemplary
persons’ (the junzi and phronimoi respectively), bodhisattvas (persons actively
seeking enlightenment) generally receive direction to or assistance on the path
of self-cultivation from the community of exemplary persons to which they
have access. In Buddhism this is the monastic community and lay members of
the Sangha, those spiritual and moral direction to others. Indeed, the virtuous
community of the Sanha represents one of the ‘Three Jewels’ of Buddhist teaching,
the other two being the sacred teachings of Dharma and the perfected being
Appendix

72
of the Buddha nature itself.
As with Confucian and Aristotelian ethics, the moral vision of Buddhism is
motivated by a teleology that regards a certain sort of life or nature (here, the
Buddha-nature) as a timeless and nonnegotiable ideal for human beings.
As do the other virtue traditions, classical Buddhism also stresses the role of
habituation in moral self-cultivation; enlightenment is typically sought through
devotional practices (yoga) that function to gradually shape one’s mental/
emotional dispositions into a highly refined and disciplined form. Thus at its core,
Buddhist ethics, as with all virtue ethics, is about gradually transforming oneself
into a certain sort of person–one who can live in a way that is worthy of human
aspirations. Right rules or precepts of action are only guideposts on the path to
that destination, not the destination itself, nor even the entire path.
Still, there are deep disagreements between Buddhism and other virtue
traditions, and among various Buddhist schools, about the good life and the path
leading to it. First and foremost, while individual points of contact can be found
between the expansive catalog of Buddhist virtues and the far more limited
Aristotelian and Confucian ones, the overall character profiles of the exemplary
person appear quite different among all three. In particular, the Buddhist virtues of
humility, detached equanimity, and expansive compassion find no clear parallels,
and even direct opposition, in the Aristotelian model which encourages great men
to cultivate a character marked by warranted pride, appropriate ambition, and
righteous indignation.
Comparing the profiles of the Buddhist and Confucian virtues may at first seem
to reveal closer affinities; but even here, virtues that seem nominally similar turn
out to have very different meanings in their full moral contexts. For example,
one might try to pair the virtue of Buddhist generosity (dāna) with Confucian
benevolence (ren), or Buddhist compassion (karunā) with Confucian empathy
(shu). Yet such an impulse obscures the fact that while Buddhist regard traditional
kinship loyalties as resulting from deluded ignorance of our common nature
and our moral obligation to reduce suffering for all creatures, the Confucian
worldview emphasizes graded love and compassion, with those to whom we are
related and to whom we have incurred reciprocal social obligations having a far
stronger claim to our generosity and concern than do strangers. Faced with a
dilemma pitting important interests of one’s father or ruler against the interests
of a suffering multitude from a neighboring kingdom, a virtuous Buddhist and a
virtuous Confucian might make very different choices.
Additionally, devout Buddhists’ relative disregard for material goods and political
status would be incomprehensible to Aristotle and Kongzi, who each regarded
poverty and political disenfranchisement as significant if not insuperable
obstacles to human flourishing. Finally, the state of human flourishing at which
Buddhists aim, namely nirvāna, implies a transcendence of local and worldly
striving that is wholly incompatible with Confucian ethics or with Aristotle’s life of
political happiness, and distinct even from Aristotle’s highest ideal, a life of rational
philosophical activity.
Appendix
Technology and the Virtues, 2016, p. 36-44

97
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