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0 Daoism Human Rights and Bioethics 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 philosophy 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 ziran apply to all of reality, 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 reasons 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 God 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 MORALITY I begin with Daoism’s most basic and fundamental concept, the Dao, and examine its relation to morality or ethics. 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 absolute, 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 nature 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 gods, 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: Oxford University Press, 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 Laozi’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 Tao 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 cognates 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 metaphysics, 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 Tao te Ching – hard / soft, being / non- being, ying / yang, love / hate, virtue / 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 realities 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, ‘Buddhism and Taoism in The 180 Precepts Spoken by Lord Lao’, Taoist Resources 6.2: 1-16.
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