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Home , Tao, Tao Te Ching, Wu wei, Ziran

DAOISM, HUMAN RIGHTS AND BIOETHICS

Roland Chia

INTRODUCTION

In his engaging paper entitled, ‘Daoism and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and Bioethics’, Bede Bidlack attempts to show that although ‘rights talk is not historically Daoist’, Daoist not only could contribute meaningfully to human rights discourse, but that it could also address certain deficiencies endemic in the Western account. For example, Bidlack suggests that ‘Daoism may provide resources that help draw together discussions of human rights that are divided on the issue of individual autonomy and the responsibilities of the individual to the community’ (p. 1). Daoism can also sharpen the focus on the importance of establishing a proper and balanced relationship between individual rights and duties (p. 2). Bidlack also emphasises the comprehensive vision of Daoism that checks the anthropocentric predilections of Western discourses on human rights. We are reminded that significant concepts that could be commandeered to shape a Daoist vision of human rights like apply to all of , and not just to humans and human sociality (p. 11). The holism of Daoism insists that reflections on human rights must never be bracketed away from legitimate and sometimes pressing concerns about the non-human animals and the natural environment. These are undoubtedly important issues and concerns for any public discourse on human rights, and they have profound ramifications to a plethora of bioethical questions and issues.

I do not pretend to be very well versed in Daoist philosophy, much less an expert. However, several questions came to mind as I studied Bidlack’s learned and nuanced essay. In raising these questions, I am aware that I may be unconsciously imposing an alien – i.e., broadly Christian theological and moral – framework on a philosophy that was inspired and shaped by very different metaphysical assumptions. I therefore try to remind myself of the caution that Bidlack issues when he says that although Daoists would agree to the concept of human rights, they do so for very different from their Western counterparts. I am appreciative of the pain that Bidlack takes to show the profound and perhaps insurmountable differences between the Judeo-Christian concept of and the Daoist conception of ultimate reality. Thus, the questions that I raise in this brief response have to do with what I perceive to be serious philosophical difficulties associated with the Daoist system that appear to obfuscate a coherent vision of human rights. These questions therefore articulate my own perplexities and uncertainties about whether the Daoist system could indeed support a robust account of human rights for bioethics.

DAO AND

I begin with Daoism’s most basic and fundamental concept, the Dao, and examine its relation to morality or . This line of enquiry is established on the view that before human rights could be said to belong to the domains of political and legal

1 theories, it is fundamentally and irreducibly an issue of morality. In addition, the moral vision within which human rights discourse must be located is beholden to a particular ontology, or more precisely, a specific anthropology. Put differently, human rights are determined by a line of moral reasoning that is grounded on a certain understanding of the inviolable dignity of the human being. As Thomas Nagel explains: ‘The existence of moral rights does not depend on their political recognition or enforcement but rather on the moral question whether there is a decisive justification for including these forms of inviolability in the status of every member of the moral community’.1 Thus, if Daoist anthropology is inextricably bound to the Dao – as it invariably must be – the first and perhaps most basic question is whether this concept of ultimate reality could provide the requisite moral compass to think substantially about human rights.

To probe this question, we must have a clear grasp of this important metaphysical concept. Roger Ames has provided a comprehensive description of the Dao, which bears quoting in full:

The constant dao is the Daoist epithet for the sum total of reality. It can be described as the ultimate metaphysical reality, the , the unconditioned, the undifferentiated and holistic, the uncreated, the all- pervading, the ineffable. It is the process of becoming. It is the ‘source’ of the phenomenal world in an immanent rather than transcendent sense and in an ontological rather than chronological sense. The dao is transcendent in that it ‘goes beyond’ any particular; yet it is not transcendent in that it is not a separate reality. It is changing in that it is the locus of all phenomenal change; yet it is unchanging in the sense that it neither suffers increase nor diminution.2

To this definition of the Dao, already riddled with perplexing paradoxes, Bidlack adds that although the Daoist account of reality may be properly described as panentheistic, panhenic and somatic, it is fundamentally a monistic one. This means that the different descriptions and permutations of or reality are simply ‘perspectival’ in that they are dependent on one’s angle of vision and point of departure. In the same way, the animistic and even polytheistic character of certain versions of Daoism does not contradict its basic monism because ghosts and , as I understand it, are simply different epiphanies of the Dao.

More crucially – and here we come to the crux of the matter – the Dao as ultimate reality is an amorphous and amoral force. As Liu Xiaogan very helpfully points out, although in some ways the Dao may be said to be similar to God, the significant difference is that it ‘has nothing to do with will, feelings, and purpose’.3 As another author succinctly puts it, the Dao simply ‘abides in all things’.4 Consequently, Daoism postulates no intelligent design, no purpose, and no teleological goal. The

1 Thomas Nagel, ‘Personal Rights and the Public Square’, Concealment and Exposure and Other Essays (Oxford: , 2002), 33. 2 Roger T. Ames, The Art of Rulership: A Study of Ancient Chinese Political Thought (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 34. 3 Liu Xiaogan, ‘Non-Action and the Environment Today: A Conceptual and Applied Study of ’s Philosophy’, Daoism and Ecology: Ways Within a Cosmic Landscape, edited by N.J. Girardot etc al., (Cambridge: Harvard, 2001), 23. 4 C. Jochim, Chinese Religions (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1986), 8.

2 Dao is to human beings what the law of gravity is to physical objects. And despite the many personifications of the Dao in the celebrated te Ching, the fact remains that the Dao is an impersonal and cold force. To be sure, Daoism has a profound sense that ‘everything has its proper place in the Dao’, as Bidlack points out. But can the Daoist idea of nature and its conceptual like ‘naturalness’ and ‘spontaneity’ be interpreted in moral terms or even provide the conceptual tools for constructing a moral framework? The Daoist understanding of nature, when viewed within its strictly monistic , is unable to provide the resources for discerning any intrinsic moral principle. Strictly speaking, such a metaphysic would make the idea of morality or moral order quite impossible.

For since the monist vision of Daoism encompasses every aspect of reality, the many and sometimes cataclysmic changes in nature, as well as the magnificent and mysterious inter-play of polar opposites (including moral opposites) are in fact ultimately synthesised (or, to use a different metaphor, symphonised) in the Dao. Thus, the many examples of opposites in the – hard / soft, being / non- being, ying / yang, love / hate, / vice, good / bad, beautiful / ugly are all part of ultimate reality, their apparent antithesis cancelled out and dissolved in the ultimate indivisibility and simplicity of the Dao. In the final analysis, they are not really opposites, contradictions and paradoxes. They only appear to be the case because of our epistemic inadequacies. But if our understanding of nature is incomplete, perspectival and even skewed, as the Daoist sages constantly remind us, which aspects of nature should we adopt after which to model our lives and our society?

According to Liu, in speaking about human relationships ‘what Laozi seeks is a situation where interpersonal relationships are marked by unadorned simplicity, naturalness and peacefulness’.5 Again, on the basis of Daoist monism, why these qualities are preferred over others is far from obvious. Put more sharply, why should these qualities be privileged when nature includes opposite like complexity and conflict? The evolution of Daoist ethics shows that the shape that it eventually took is in part influenced by other traditions, especially the Buddhist. The early Celestial Priests gleaned from the Tao te Ching a set of moral precepts that would later be given normative status. In the 4th century, a text attributed to the defied Laozi contains 180 precepts that included prohibitions against theft, adultery, killing and intoxication. Scholars believe that these precepts were in part inspired by the rules of the Buddhist community.6 For example, Livia Kohn concurs with Benjamin Penny that ‘the appearance in China of Buddhist precepts inspired Daoists to write precepts of their own’.7 The Great Precepts of Self-Observation, dated at the sixth century and based on revelations granted by the medium Yang Xi in the 360s, contains 300 precepts. Perhaps the gradual shaping of an ethical framework (the emergence of norms and conventions?) by borrowing eclectically from other religious and moral traditions may be said to be necessary recourse because the concept of the Dao itself offers very little clear possibilities for ethics.

5 Liu, ‘Non-Action’, 229. 6 See Benjamin Penny, ‘ and in The 180 Precepts Spoken by Lord Lao’, Taoist Resources 6.2: 1-16. 7 Livia Kohn, Cosmos and Community: The Ethical Dimension of Daoism (Cambridge: Three Pines Press, 2004), 137.

3 ZIRAN AND WU-WEI

In his paper, Bidlack maintains that in Daoist thought ziran – interpreted as ‘naturalness’ or ‘spontaneity’ – is crucial to understanding ‘the idea that everything has a place in the Dao’. Bidlack argues that ziran can be understood as freedom, although he is careful to add that it is ‘qualified freedom’ because it is a freedom that must conform to or be in harmony with the flow of the Dao. In Daoism, Bidlack asserts, ‘ziran is the basis for any discussion of human rights’ (p. 5). The interpretation of ziran as ‘naturalness’ is well supported by scholars of Daoism and . Here, ziran is understood as primordial and pristine natural ‘reality’. In his commentary on the Tao te Ching 25, proposes this naturalistic understanding of ziran:

Tao [dao] does not oppose Tzu-jan [ziran] and therefore attains its nature. To follow Nature as its standard is to model after the square while within the square and the circle while within the circle, and not to oppose Nature in any way. By Nature is meant something that cannot be labelled and something ultimate.8

According to this interpretation, since the Dao holds together the natural and human worlds, there is ‘continuity between Heaven and humanity’. Through the use of suggestive figurative language such as ‘uncarved wood’, ‘still ’ and ‘mirror’ early Daoists hope to show that human beings realise the good by imitating or reflecting the patterns and processes of nature.9 Thus, in Daoist philosophy, the (shengren) and persons of authenticity () are models of the productive harmony (he) inherent in nature because they practice ziran. A related account sees ziran as ‘unconditioned spontaneity’ or as ‘what-is-so-of-itself’.10 But, as Bidlack has pointed out, ‘unconditioned spontaneity’ does not suggest absolute freedom from all encumbrances. However, it does refer to freedom from conventions. As Cheng explains, ‘One important aspect of tzu-jan [ziran] is that the movement of things must come from the internal life of things and never results from engineering or conditioning by external power’.11

This brings us to the related concept wu-wei, which Bidlack does not discuss in his paper. Like ziran, the Daoist concept of wu-wei is integral to the Daoist notion of harmony. According to R. Kirkland, wei refers to ‘human action intending to achieve results’, especially those thought to be ‘superior to what would result if nature were simply allowed to take its own course’.12 Since wu negates this, wu-wei, according to Xiaogan, means ‘not to engage in human action intending to achieve results superior

8 Arianc Rump (trans.) Commentary on the Lao Tzu by Wang Pi. In collaboration with Wing-tsit Chan. Monograph 6 of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1979), 78. 9 Jung H. Lee, ‘Finely Aware and Richly Responsible: The Daoist Imperative’, Journal of American Academy of Religion, September 2000, 68 (3), 528. 10 This understanding is derived from the literal combination of zi, which refers to ‘self’ and ran which means ‘so’. Ziran is therefore ‘self-as-it-is-so’. 11 Cheng Chung-ying, ‘On Environmental Ethics of the Tao and the Ch’i’, Environmental Ethics 8, 356. 12 R. Kirkland, ‘“Responsible Non-Action” in a Natural World: Perspectives from the , and Daode ’, Daoism and Ecology: Ways Within a Cosmic Landscape, ed. N.J. Girardot et al. (Cambridge: Harvard, 2001), 295.

4 to those that would naturally occur’.13 In his book, A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought Chad Hansen presents a slightly different perspective that helps to enlarge our understanding of wu-wei. According to him, there are two meanings of wei. The first meaning of wei is to ‘act’, that is, to bring about certain socially specific goals. The second and more profound meaning of the is to ‘deem’, to judge and to evaluate. According to Hansen, Daoism rejects all forms of ‘deeming’ or judging that are governed by certain conventions and norms. Thus, according to this interpretation, wu-wei (passivity) should not be contrasted with you-wei (activity). Rather wu-wei is to act without being in any way restricted or conditioned by convention, that is, by received norms and values.14 Daoist scholars are careful to stress that the ziran-wuwei ethic does not totally eliminate the need for norms and principles. According to these scholars, what the Tao Ching urges is that spontaneity must be given paramount importance. Norms and principles, where they apply to any situation, must always play a secondary role.15

Much more can be said about these two cardinal concepts of Daoism. But due to space constrains I bring this section to a close by raising some questions and concerns. The first question is whether ziran can serve as a sufficiently robust moral principle for human relationality. The naturalistic interpretation of ziran advocates an almost unreflective surrender to the Dao, which can be variously interpreted as ultimate reality or nature. But ironically, this in an important sense introduces a most rigorous form of normativity! Nature or the Dao is the way that individuals and human society must follow if they are to achieve harmony. We get a sense of this in Wang Bi’s account: ‘Nature as standard is to model after the square while within the square … and not to oppose Nature in anyway’. If this is in fact what ziran means, can we still speak of spontaneity in a meaningful way? And even if we allow for this idea, how much spontaneity should be encouraged? What happens when there is a conflict? Should there not be norms and conventions to guide human behaviour and social intercourse by restricting certain spontaneous actions, especially those with negative repercussions and consequences? But when these are introduced and implemented, do they not go against the grain of the ziran-wuwei ethic? (I will take up the question of norms and rules in the next section). The second issue with the ziran-wuwei ethic recalls the question that I raised above concerning the nature of nature. Put differently, how should nature be interpreted? How should nature be characterised? If nature, as we saw above, is a kind of symphony of apparent contradictions and paradoxes that is beyond our grasp, how can we even speak meaningfully of it, not to mention model our lives after it? What aspects of life are ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’? Needless to say, in bioethics these are important and pressing issues.

HUMAN RIGHTS AND BIOETHICS

In this final section, I take up two important topics that have both direct and indirect bearing on human rights and bioethics. The first is Daoist anthropology, specifically the question concerning how human beings are related to one another and to the cosmos. There is much in the Daoist vision that postulates the individual as part of

13 Xiaogan, ‘Non-Action’, 316. 14 Chad Hansen, A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 212. 15 Karyn Lai, ‘Ziran and Wuwei in the Daodejing: An Ethical Assessment’, Dao (2007), 6: 336.

5 the complex network of other human individuals, the non-human animals and the environment that should be commended. Ziran, as Bidlack puts it, refers to – among other things – a person’s inviolable place in the Dao, which in turn encompasses everything. Bidlack ably shows how the concept of the Daoist body brings out this profound relationship between the individual, the community and the cosmos. Not only does this perspective check the stark individualism that very often undergirds modern discourse on human rights, it also urges us to rethink important ‘dogmas’ of modern bioethics such as autonomy. It encourages an approach to human rights discourse that situates the individual in society, and it fosters a communitarian vision of bioethics that emphasises the common good as the ideal. More significantly, the Daoist perspective questions the anthropocentric character of modern bioethics by placing human beings in a larger ‘cosmic’ scheme of things. It encourages human beings to think responsibly about the non-human animals and the natural environment.16

However, the non-dualism of the Daoist perspective raises a number of important issues for modern bioethics. Bidlack alludes to one such issue when he discusses the ‘rights’ of non-human animals and the natural world, quoting Thomas Berry (p. 11). Bidlack is right to say that this concern for other creatures and the environment is in concert with Article 2 of the Declaration of Human Rights and Bioethics. But as he perceptively saw, this very emphasis will raise some thorny issues in bioethics especially ‘when the good of the human appears to conflict with the good of the non- human realm’ (p. 11). This is an important issue not just in relation to biomedical waste, but also in relation to the use of animals for experiments that could translate into therapeutic applications that would save many human lives. Again, this is essentially a problem associated with Daoist metaphysics, which, strictly speaking makes no allowance for any kind of hierarchy in the natural order.

In the Christian tradition, human beings are seen as bearers of God’s image and likeness. Thus, although they are part of the created order alongside the non-human animals, they are in some sense distinguished from them. Created in the image of God, human beings enjoy a certain dignity that distinguishes them from the non- human animals. And human dignity is a concept that is not only central to rights discourse, but also to bioethics. In addition, human beings are instructed to exercise dominion over the creation. This does not mean that humans have the license to exploit nature, for to exercise dominion is to exercise responsible stewardship. But it does mean that humans are allowed, within reasonable limits, to make use of nature for their own flourishing. The concept of ziran when applied consistently to the natural order would indeed result in the notion that trees, insects, rivers and mountains have rights. But if the rights of nature are to be strictly respected, it follows that its destruction by humans in any way – whether it has to do with the clearing of the forest to make way for a Daoist temple or the use and destruction of mice in a laboratory – cannot be countenanced.

We turn, albeit very briefly, to the second issue: the role of rules and conventions. As we have already seen above, the Daoist approach has an aversion to rules and conventions. This is brought out historically by early Daoism’s critique of and , especially for developing their moral on the basis of rules and rites (). Regarding such approaches as crude, Daoism purports to offer a

16 Karyn L. Lai, ‘Conceptual Foundations for Environmental Ethics: A Daoist Perspective’, Environmental Ethics, Volume 25, Fall, 2003, 247-266.

6 more refined and sophisticated understanding of morality by directing one’s response to the particular and the concrete, and to a sense of responsibility established on one’s rootedness to the natural patterns of the cosmos. This does not mean that Daoist ethics can be regarded as a version of ‘natural law ethics’, since its view of nature and its dynamics are very different from the Judeo-Christian account, which is essentially theistic. Neither can it be simply classified as a version of virtue ethics. Lee summarises the Daoist approach thus:

Through the education of one’s spontaneous energies and the harmonisation of one’s dispositions, most often cultivated in inner cultivation exercises (nei xiu), one becomes a person on whom nothing is lost, someone who can ‘look at and know [jian ] all under Heaven and not be deluded’, someone who, to borrow a phrase from Henry James, is ‘finely aware and richly responsible’.17

Thus, for the early Daoists, moral excellence is developed by the cultivation of the of awareness (ming) and responsiveness (ying), and not by the slavish commitment to principles and rules. In this way, Daoist moral theory serves as a critique to much of Western moral philosophy since the Enlightenment inspired by Immanuel Kant, with its focus on principles, rules and laws. In addition, Daoist moral theory appears to advocate an ‘other-centred’ rather than a ‘self-centred’ approach. This is seen particularly in the way in which some Daoists have even eschewed the famous , namely, ‘Do unto others what you would have them to do unto you’. They prefer what Yong Huang has called the Copper Rule, which states: ‘Do unto others what they would have us do unto them’.18 The Copper Rule is allegedly established on the notion of ziran.

However, this approach which places spontaneity above principles and rules poses a problem for modern human rights practice as well as for modern bioethics, both of which must inevitably be governed by principles, protocols and the rule of law. While Daoist ethics does not say that rules and principles lack value, its emphasis on spontaneity and its ‘situational’ approach to moral judgement and conduct seem to give them a secondary status. In any evaluation of human rights practices or bioethics, however, principles and rules cannot be simply dismissed as being of secondary importance. In any ethical society, rules provide the basis for the evaluation not only of the conduct of individuals but also the practises, procedures and policies of complex institutions. In bioethics, they provide the basis for evaluating the practises and conduct of physicians as well as institutions like hospitals and governmental research outfits.

In many ways, principles and rules provide the clearest articulation of normativity in both religious and philosophical ethics. Rules do this insofar as they prescribe, permit and prohibit conduct. In addition, because of the ‘timeless’ character of rules, they are able to provide stability, consistency and continuity in social practice. As Richard Miller has pointed out, rules serve as a prospective, contemporaneous and retrospective guide.19 They provide guidance to direct future and current behaviour,

17 Lee, ‘Finely Aware, Richly Responsible’, 512. 18 Yong Huang, ‘A Copper Rule Versus the Golden Rule: A Daoist-Confucian Proposal for Global Ethics’, Philosophy East & West, Volume 55(3), July 2005, 394-425. 19 Richard Miller, ‘Rules’, in The Oxford Handbook of Theological Ethics, Edited by Gilbert Meilaender and William Werprehowski (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 221.

7 even as they serve as the basis for the assessment and evaluation of past conduct. The Daoist doctrine that moral agents should be allowed to respond spontaneously to the particularities and exigencies of any given situation and therefore should not be slavishly reliant on rules is surely a valid consideration in any discussion of moral philosophy. However, it must be pointed out that a rule-based ethics also allows for adaptive responses to particular situations. A sophisticated conception of rules would emphasise that rules are linked to and therefore receive their rationale and form from higher-order principles. As such, as Miller again helpfully clarifies, ‘Rules state what a person or group should, should not, or may do. Although they regulate behaviour, they do not establish that one should, should not, or may not do something’.20 Put differently, while rules guide human behaviour the latter is established on more fundamental principles like justice, equality, and dignity. That is why rules themselves must be justified through moral reasoning based on these principles. In addition, because rules are directive and prescriptive of actions, they can be revised when the situation changes so long as these revisions are consistent with the general principles that give them substance and shape.

In making a strong case for the role of rules in human rights practices and in bioethics, I am not suggesting that moral reasoning or conduct should be confined only to rules. I am merely raising the question whether the Daoist emphasis on spontaneity is sufficient to guide our response to complex issues related to human rights and bioethics, which involves individuals, institutions and even the state. And I am asking if the Daoist aversion to rules and conventions (as embodied historically in Confucianism, Mohism and Legalism) is based on a rather extreme and narrow view that fails to take into account the nuanced qualifications and flexibility inherent in the best and most sophisticated traditions of rule-based ethics. The fact remains that many activities such as just war are rule-governed in that they must adhere to established ground rules and rules of assessment. These activities must be conducted in keeping with the regulations that are put in place (often by international bodies) to justify certain actions as well as to constrain others in order to prevent these activities from degenerating into amorality or immorality. Insofar as human rights practices and bioethics may be generally categorised in this way, rules and the principles and values that inspire them must continue to play a significant role.

20 Miller, ‘Rules’, 226.

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