Trena Cleland, a member of a Buddhist group that provides meals to homeless shelters, states with uncommon straightforwardness a viewpoint that is common among western Buddhists: “One aspect of Buddhism that I find very challenging is the teaching that no point of view can be declared absolutely right or wrong, good or bad, true or false. The Dharma warns that attachment to what we ‘know’ leads to suffering, and encourages us to honor life’s gray areas rather than hold fast to judgments and opinions.”
As in the case of the argument from emptiness, this interpretation of Buddhism’s teaching on judgements and commits the category mistake of confusing the ultimate with the relative. The fact that “no point of view can be declared absolutely right or wrong” does not mean that points of view cannot be declared relatively right or wrong depending on how well they facilitate our practice of compassion and our approach to wisdom. As long as we live in the world of relative truth, we must act in the wor;d of relative truth, and the refusal to make relative judgements leads to a paralysis that can become complicit with evil.
The Dharma teaches us to regard all judgements and opinions as provisional, to hold fast to them as long as and to the extent that they help us proceed toward the development of the great compassion and the great wisdom, and then, when they have served their purpose, to transcend them . . .The Buddha did not hesitate to call certain actions “virtuous” and others “evil,” a point that is often lost on this modern-day followers . . .
Norm Phelps
from The Great Compassion; Buddhism and Animal Rights