Taoism and ethics

1. Taoism and ethics • Wu Wei (actionless action) • Virtue (te) in Taoist perspective • Intellectual humility as an ethical virtue

2. 1. Wu Wei: Actionless Action • “The Way of heaven helps and does not harm. The Way for humans is to act without contention.”—TTC, 81 • “Tao invariably takes no action, and yet there is nothing left undone.” "The tao of heaven does not strive, and yet it overcomes. It does not speak, and yet it is answered....The world is ruled by non-action, not by action.“—TTC, 37

3. “The sage never strives for the great, and thereby the great is achieved.”---TTC, 34 • “Do non-doing, strive for non-striving, savor the flavorless, regard the small as important, make much of little, repay enmity with virtue.”—TTC, 63

4. The holistic thinking the Taoist promotes can be seen to support proper respect for other living things; it promotes seeing the natural world as a holistic ‘system’ so that what affects one thing affects all. Balance and things like the scenario of weather in the movie The Day After Tomorrow • Taoists believe that "people are compassionate by nature...left to their own devices [they] will show this compassion without expecting a reward."

5. On third quote, from Zhuangzi, relate 1) effortless b/c habitual (and so automatic or natural to act so), • 2) uncontrived rather than forced or deliberative); responding to every interest. James on satisfying every relevant interest (what ‘fills him’—his moral perception he relies on; something like wu wei may be necessary for that Jamesian ideal to occur.

6. READ FROM ZHUNAGZI: “Emptiness and stillness, calm and indifference, quiescence, Doing Nothing, are the even level of heaven and earth, the utmost reach of the Way and the Power; therefore…the sage finds rest in them. At rest he empties, emptying he is filled, and what fills him sorts itself out. Emptying he is still, in stillness he is moved, and when he moves he succeeds.”—The Zhuangzi

7. So emptying the mind isn’t just ignore principles and ‘to do whatever comes handy’; it means increaing one’s moral sensitivity: Diminish the role of knowledge and precedent, of deliberation and custom, of thinking and planning, and the mind of the virtuous person will better reflect the morally relevant aspects of the situation and the interests that need to be responded-to. A CARE ETHIC?