REVIEW: Buddhism and Political Theory

Matthew J. Moore : Buddhism and Political Theory . (New York : Oxford University Press , 2016. Pp. 198.) This book presents a Buddhist theory of politics and develops this theory in cross-cultural comparison with Western theories of government. Moore also discusses the Buddhist modernist transition to republican forms of government (and rejections of the traditional justification of monarchy), and Buddhist metaethics and its significance for political agency and obligation. We need more dialogue between Buddhism and Western philosophy, and a book-length treatment of Buddhist political theory is thus a welcome addition to Buddhist scholarship.