A Daoist interpretation of perspective-taking (original) (raw)

(2010g) Respecting Different Ways of Life: A Daoist Ethics of Virtue in the Zhuangzi

As the ethics of virtue, with a focus on cultivating admirable traits of character instead of commanding adherence to rigid rules, becomes increasingly popular in contemporary moral discourses, scholars have tried to find evidence of virtue ethics in such ancient traditions as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. This article explores the possibility of a virtue ethics in a tradition that has been largely neglected, Chinese Daoism, by focusing on one of the most important classics in this tradition, the Zhuangzi. Contrary to a common misconception of the Zhuangzi as skeptical, relativistic, and therefore empty of any guide to moral life, it presents a solid normative ethics through various stories, and this normative ethics is a virtue ethics. The most important trait of character in this Daoist virtue ethics is respect for different ways of life—a virtue not discussed in any familiar versions of virtue ethics in the West and yet most valuable to contemporary life in a global and pluralistic society.

(2015a) A Respect for Differences The Daoist Virtue

The Routledge Companion to Virtue Ethics, 2015

There has been an impressive revival of virtue ethics in the West, as a challenge to ethics of duty and consequentialism that have been dominating modern dis- courses of ethics. Many attempts have thus been made to explore the potential of virtue ethics in Asian traditions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and, most prominently, Confucianism. However, little attention has been paid to the virtue ethics potential in Chinese Daoism. This chapter on Daoist virtue ethics thus cannot but be experimental. While the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi are the two greatest and yet quite different classics in philosophical Daoism, this chapter will draw on the latter only.

Towards a Daoist Ethic: a Laozi’an “Model of Modeling”

The Journal of East Asian Philosophy

This article suggests that the writings of the Huang Lao tradition embody an ethic in the sense of a guiding philosophy of life. This ethic is based on the Laozi-the initial text in the tradition that is textually presented in paradoxes. While the paradoxical expression could make readers forgo an ethic, we claim that it is the other way around. The paradoxes, as we explain in this article, are inherent to the tradition, and reflect a unique reasoning described here as riddles lived by or living riddles. We suggest that Laozi 1 suggests riddle reasoning that is based on an understanding Dao as at once kedao可道 ("can be daoed") and changdao常道 (constant Dao). While changdao is the ineffable unity, kedao is plurality, hence it may be expressed as familiar moral ways when alone. Only when unified with changdao, Dao opens a gate to the mysteries of life. The mystery suggested here is a "model of modeling" as suggested in Laozi 25 that represents the unified Dao riddle reasoning rather than dichotomizing (kedao) reasoning. According to the model we refer to, the Laozi'an De as self-so (ziran自然) that serves as foundation for an ethic that is not dichotomizing and has no dependence whatsoever on morality. We suggest that this ethic can serve as a basis for the analysis of the Huang Lao tradition as a whole.

Questioning Dao: Skepticism, Mysticism, and Ethics in the Zhuangzi

Few things seem less appropriate to the multiple transitional perspectives of the Zhuangzi than their reduction to one philosophical or religious standpoint. Nonetheless, two prevailing readings do this: One suspends the proto-Daoist religious context of the Zhuangzi and discovers a linguistically oriented skepticism; the other interprets the Zhuangzi’s critical strategies as a means subordinated to the ultimate soteriological purpose of becoming a Daoist sage through mystical union with an absolute called “the Dao.” Although both interpretations have plausibility, they are inadequate to the Zhuangzi’s ethical and existential character. Since this text cannot be appropriately interpreted according to any one discourse, including skepticism and mysticism, the Zhuangzi’s destructuring and poetic strategies are not simply techniques serving an ulterior philosophical or religious purpose. Oriented by the immanent cultivation of the self (zhenren), linguistic and biospiritual practices performatively enact a critical, fluid, and responsive comportment or disposition in relation to the myriad things.

Ziran and Wuwei in the Daodejing: An Ethical Assessment

Dao, 2007

In Daoist philosophy, the self is understood as an individual interdependent with others, and situated within a broader environment. Within this framework, the concept ziran is frequently understood in terms of naturalness or nature while wuwei is explained in terms of non-oppressive government. In many existing accounts, little is done to connect these two key Daoist concepts. Here, I suggest that wuwei and ziran are correlated, ethical, concepts. Together, they provide a unifying ethical framework for understanding the philosophy of the Daodejing. I explore the meaning of ziran as self-so-ness or, in human terms, as pertaining to an individual’s spontaneity. The appropriate response to the spontaneity of individuals is to avoid, insofar as possible, imposing or using restrictive norms and methods—i.e. wuwei. According to this view, ziran and wuwei offer an account of ethics that attends to core notions of interdependent selfhood, including mutuality, relationality, interdependence, symbiosis and responsiveness.

Conceptual Analyses of the Zhuangzi

Dao Companion to Daoist Philosophy, 2015

Philosophical interpretations of the Zhuangzi have focused on the abstract discussions in the second of the Inner Chapters, the Qi Wu Lun. Ever since Guo Xiang in the Jin dynasty, the text has been read as advocating linguistic, ethical, and epistemological relativism. Influential interpretations among Western scholars include the mystically oriented relativism of A. C. Graham and the skeptical relativism of Chad Hansen. More recently, Lisa Raphals and Paul Kjellberg have separately proposed that the text be interpreted as a therapeutic form of skepticism. In this chapter, I explain these views and provide critical analyses. I end with my own interpretation that avoids attributing to the Zhuangzi the intellectual weaknesses of either relativism or skepticism. I interpret the Zhuangzi as a philosophy of life that advocates an ontology of transformation in which successful human life requires acceptance of indeterminacy and an intuitive responsiveness to changing circumstances.