Transcript 4-Taoism and Ethics-Actionless Action

Taoism and ethics
1. Wu Wei (actionless action)
2. Virtue (te) in Taoist perspective
3. Intellectual humility as an
ethical virtue
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 nonaction, not by action.“—TTC, 37
• “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
• 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."
• 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.
• 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
• 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?