Can the West Save the East? Intrinsic Value and the Foundation of Chinese Environmental Ethics

Intrinsic value in nature is a key concept in professional environmental ethics literature in the West. Western scholars such as Holmes Rolston III and Paul Taylor argue that the philosophical foundation of environmental ethics should be based on the concept of intrinsic value in nature. Influenced by this concept, some influential Chinese environmental ethics scholars such as Yu Mouchang and Lu Feng argue that the foundation of environmental ethics in China should be based on the concept of intrinsic value in nature. This paper holds that the metaphysical, epistemological and ethical meaning of intrinsic value in nature is the legacy of Western philosophical traditions, which is in conflict with the Chinese philosophical traditions. Meanwile, the paper argues that the Daoist conception of living in harmony with nature can become the foundation for Chinese environmental ethics. The Daoist conception of living in harmony with nature is based on aesthetic appreciation of nature and people’s participation in the beauty of nature.     

A kantian reading of aesthetic freedom and complete human nature nourished through art in a classical Chinese artistic context

In this paper, I will show that classical Chinese artists adopted either Daoist or Chan Buddhist meditation to cultivate their mind to be in accord with the Dao, and that their view of the detached mental state as an ideal mental state for art appears to fit in with Kant’s notion of aesthetic freedom. Even though it might be claimed that sensibilities are stressed over rationality in the classical Chinese artistic tradition, I suggest that the detached mental state cultivated through Daoist or Chan Buddhist meditation and experienced in artistic practice helps artists restore a balanced human nature. By projecting Schiller’s account of the play drive, and the account of aesthetic freedom he developed from Kant’s ideas, into the classical Chinese artistic context, I attempt to explain the balanced nature realised through artistic play by classical Chinese artists and point out the differences behind the parallels between these two approaches.     

中西早期的“适度”思想及适用范围的扩展——从人间伦理到生态伦理

此文从中西“中道”和“中庸”的翻译和理解入手,进而讨论和比较了中西“中道”和“适度”思想的一些相近内涵和意义层面,主张把主要是作为人间伦理的“适度”观念引用到生态伦理之中,以建立人与自然的和谐关系。     

Xujing (Emptiness and Stillness) in Daoism,Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature,and Environmental Ethics

In this article,I will examine the concept of xujing虛靜 (emptiness and stillness) in Daoism and its relationship with the aesthetic appreciation of nature and environmental ethics.Firstly,I will examine the Chinese philosophical understanding of nature through the concept of qi.I point out that qi is characterized by four interrelated features,which are emptiness,creativity,vitality,and stillness.Xujing are also aesthetically appreciated as the objective features of qi.Secondly,I will discuss why,as the objective features of qi,xujing are considered to be features that have aesthetic value.I argue that empathy is the reason why emptiness as the objective feature of qi is regarded as having aesthetic value.Thirdly,I will discuss how the aesthetic concept of emptiness helps contribute to the construction of place-based environmental ethics.     

A Dao of Technology?

Scholars have detected hostility to technology in Daoist thought. But is this a problem with any machine or only some applications of some machines by some people? I show that the problem is not with machines per se but with the people who introduce them, or more exactly with their knowledge. It is not knowledge as such that causes the disorder Laozi and Zhuangzi associate with machines; it is confused, disordered knowledge—superficial, inadequate, unsubtle, and artless. In other words the problem is not with machines but with the ethics of engineering and the government of technology. The Daoist argument does not devalue machines or knowledge of them; instead, it sets a new goal, defining an alternative ideal—alternative to techniques held hostage to despotic ideas about efficiency and profit.     

The Significance of Xuwu 虚无 (Nothingness) in Chinese Aesthetics

Just as nothingness is a fundamental concept in Daoist philosophy, it is also a fundamental concept in Chinese aesthetics, where it has multiple meanings: First, nothingness, as a reaction against unaesthetic psychical activity, is a primary precondition of aesthetic and artistic activity. Second, as the void or intangible “stuff” juxtaposed to “substance,” it is an indispensable compositional property of artworks as well as an essential condition for the manifestation of an artistic form. Finally, as a reaction against the unaesthetic world of daily life—the experiential world—nothingness is the fundamental basis and essential provision for establishing an artistic world.     

Theology After the Scientific Revolution: The Significance of Nancey Murphy’s Contribution to Philosophy of Religion

This paper evaluates Nancey Murphy’s contribution to philosophy of religion paying special attention to epistemology and ethics. I argue that Murphy’s intellectual moves are motivated by a reflective and constructive engagement—around particular loci such as human knowledge, divine action, and the moral nature of the universe—with reductive materialism as a rival tradition of inquiry. At paper’s end, I suggest an amendment in Murphy’s contribution to ethics.     

DESIGNING CONFUCIAN CONSCIENCE INTO SOCIAL NETWORKS

Several scholars have argued that Internet use might be fundamentally incompatible with Confucian ethics, because the values that are embedded in the Internet might be in conflict with Confucian values. In addition, the design of various social network services (SNS) considers very little of non‐Western values in its engineering. Against this background, this article explores the philosophical question of whether Internet use, particularly social network services, is compatible with the fundamental values and norms of Confucian ethics. In addition, the article discusses the Confucian notion of tian xia (under heaven), and argues that tian xia, as a basic structuring principle of Confucian philosophy, helps to innovate a different social media.     

The ethical implications of the Daoist world view

Daoist ethics are difficult to pinpoint in a Western ethical framework. At times classic Daoist texts advocate for certain ways of life over others, yet at other times they rebel against the notions of right and wrong. This attitude about right and wrong, leads some to believe that Daoists are moral relativists who believe that right and wrong are merely an arbitrary valuing within the mind and that there is no justification for external moral critique. Others believe that there is a Daoist ethic, but it advocates only not acting, in the literal sense, when we are faced with ethical choices. This paper attempts to show a coherent, universal ethic that can be inferred from a close reading of these texts.     

Das chinesische Selbst

The author has been teaching psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy in mainland China for 20 years. The paper focuses on the problem of transferring an individual-centered therapeutic theory and technique to a culture with a collectivistic and Confucian tradition. The different structures of the Western and Asian selves with their specific styles to communicate are described as well as the tendency of the Chinese to be more prone to shamefulness. Basic psychoanalytic concepts such as abstinence, therapeutic ego-splitting, the capacity for introspection and transference, as well as the traditional Confucian longing for harmony, can meet culturally immanent therapeutic problems. A specific defense constellation, the Ah-Q mentality as a result of Daoist thinking is presented. Finally, the question is raised whether technical modifications make sense in less individualized cultures.     

TRANSCENDING OUR BIOLOGY: A VIRTUE ETHICS INTERPRETATION OF THE APPEAL TO NATURE IN TECHNOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

“Arguments from nature” are used, and have historically been used, in popular responses to advances in technology and to environmental issues—there is a widely shared body of ethical intuitions that nature, or perhaps human nature, sets some limits on the kinds of ends that we should seek, the kinds of things that we should do, or the kinds of lives that we should lead. Virtue ethics can provide the context for a defensible form of the argument from nature, and one that makes proper sense of its enduring role in debates concerning our relationship to technology and the environment. However, the notion of an ethics founded upon an account of the essential features of human nature is controversial. On the one hand, contemporary biological science no longer defines species by their essential characteristics, so from a biological point of view there just are no essential characteristics of human beings. On the other hand, it might be argued that humans have, in some sense, “transcended our biology,” so an understanding of humans as a biological species is extraneous to ethical questions. In this article, I examine and defend the argument from nature, as a way to ground an ethic of virtue, from some of the more common criticisms that are made against it. I argue that, properly interpreted as an appeal to an evaluative account of human nature, the argument from nature is defensible with the context of virtue ethics and, in this light, I show how arguments from nature made in popular responses to technological and environmental issues are best understood.     

Principles,Virtues, or Detachment? Some Appreciative Reflections on Karen Stohr’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">On Manners</Emphasis>

Karen Stohr’s book On Manners argues persuasively that rules of etiquette, though conventional, play an essential moral role, because they “serve as vehicles through which we express important moral values like respect and consideration for the needs, ideas, and opinions of others” (Stohr 2012: 3–4). Stohr frequently invokes Kantian concepts and principles in order to make her point. In Part 2 of this essay, I shall argue that the significance of etiquette is better understood using a virtue ethics framework, like that of Confucianism, rather than the language of Kantianism. Within the Chinese tradition, Daoists have frequently been critics of Confucian ritualism. Consequently, in Part 3, I shall consider some possible Daoist critiques of Stohr’s work.     

There is no such thing as environmental ethics

Engineers and scientists, whose professional responsibilities often influence the natural environment, have sought to develop an environmental ethic that will be in tune with their attitudes toward the non-human environment, and that will assist them in decision making regarding questions of environmental quality. In this paper the classical traditions in normative ethics are explored in an attempt to formulate such an environmental ethic. I conclude, however, that because the discipline of ethics is directed at person-person interactions, ethics as a scholarly discipline does not help us understand how we ought to treat non-human nature. We therefore cannot look to ethics as a source for understanding our attitudes and for providing guidance to our actions with regard to the environment. To do so is to ask too much of ethics. If we are to find an acceptable environmental morality, it must come from a new paradigm. One approach might be to understand our attitudes on the basis of spirituality, modeled after animistic religions.     

The Value of Nonhuman Nature: A Constitutive View

A central question of environmental ethics remains one of how best to account for the intuitions generated by the Last Man scenarios; that is, it is a question of how to explain our experience of value in nature and, more importantly, whether that experience is justified. Seeking an alternative to extrinsic views, according to which nonhuman entities possess normative features that obligate us, I turn to constitutive views, which make value or whatever other limits nonhuman nature places on action dependent on features intrinsic to human beings and constitutive of them or their obligations. After examining two kinds of constitutive views—environmental virtue ethics and Korsgaard’s Kantianism—I suggest an alternative that takes up the strengths of both while avoiding their shortcomings. On this view, we have an indirect obligation to experience nature as obligating us, although we have direct obligations only to human beings.     

Karyn Lai, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Learning from Chinese Philosophies: Ethics of Independent and Contextualised Self</Emphasis>, Aldershot,UK: Ashgate, 2006, 218 pp., ISBN: 0754633829, hb

Learning from Chinese Philosophies explores early Confucianism and Daoism in order to engage today’s problems. By bringing into thoughtful play Confucian ideas of self and society and Daoist understanding of situated self, the author uses the debate between the two philosophies to argue for her understanding of Confucian moral thinking and Daoist metaethics. According to Lai, Daoist metaethics question dichotomous frameworks and discuss the unity of opposites enabling dynamic interplay of nonantagonistic polarities. Lai not only rejects comparisons of Confucianism to consequentialist and deontological moral theories, but also the view that Confucian ethics is a form of virtue ethics. Instead, she argues that the Analects is a manual for moral decision making that requires skills “to unravel and analyse the complex features of particular situations and to pick out those which are morally relevant.” Together, Confucianism and Daoism offer views of interdependent relationality that help to reconceptualize contemporary problems and criticize existing thinking and practices. Lai applies what she has learned from these two Chinese philosophies in a critique of feminist care ethics. Despite a few flaws, this is a clearly written work with stimulating interesting ideas and it lives up to the promise of demonstrating the continued relevance of Chinese philosophies.

Li (Ritual/Rite) and Tian (Heaven/Nature) in the Xunzi: Does Confucian li need metaphysics?

Ritual (li) is central to Confucian ethics and political philosophy. Robert Neville believes that Chinese Philosophy has an important role to play in our times by bringing ritual theory to the analysis of global moral and political issues. In a recent work, Neville maintains that ritual ??needs a contemporary metaphysical expression if its importance is to be seen.?? This paper examines Neville's claim through a detailed study of the ??ethics of ritual?? in one of the early Confucian texts, the Xunzi. This text has sometimes been read as offering a form of naturalism in its discussions of ??heaven (tian)?? as analogous to Western, even modern, concept of ??nature,?? while other interpreters insist that tian is a normative notion. Does this concept of tian offer a metaphysical ground for ethics of ritual advocated in the text? If so, what kind of metaphysics is it? Does Confucian ritual ethics need any metaphysical grounding? There is no specific metaphysical theory in the Xunzi and passages which could be referring to or implying metaphysical assumptions are open to hermeneutical debates. Even if metaphysical assumptions are necessary or beneficial to an ethics of ritual, the paper argues that the ??metaphysical flexibility?? of the text could work to its advantage in remaining relevant in contemporary context. The conclusion explores some possible directions for further exploring the metaphysics of ritual in a modern understanding of Xunzi.     

Nature, Interthing Intersubjectivity, and the Environment: A Comparative Analysis of Kant and Daoism

The Kantian philosophy, for many, largely represents the Modern West’s anthropocentric dominance of nature in its instrumental-rationalist orientation. Recently, some scholars have argued that Kant’s aesthetics offers significant resources for environmental ethics, while others believe that Kant’s flawed dualistic views in the second Critique severely undermine any environmental promise that aesthetic judgments may hold in Kant’s third Critique. This article first examines the meanings of nature in Kant’s three Critiques. It concludes that Kant’s aesthetic view toward sensible nature is indeed inconsistent. The article, however, also suggests that the “I” as “transcendental apperception” discussed in the paralogisms of the first Critique holds some promise of “interthing intersubjective” thinking. The second half of the article demonstrates that Daoism with a dialectic concern similar to Kant’s has something insightful to offer in its idea of interthingness based on a phenomenal account of nature. The article investigates important Daoist ideas of interthing analogical experience, qi, spiritual exercise, and wuwei in its dialect relation to zizan. By bringing Daoism and Kant into dialogue, the author hopes to bring forth a synthetic approach that is better suited to today’s environmental concerns.     

Architecture and Embodied Free Play

This article argues that architecture makes possible a unique form of aesthetic experience, one involving what I will call, departing from a Kantian perspective, embodied free play. I argue that architecture's purpose is to encourage, cultivate, and enable human activities while also becoming crystallizations of those very activities. I will show that the living system of such interaction is called “place,” as I explore the role of artifacts, movement, activities, and the environment in place creation. I show that when the embodied activities and design of a place harmonize, a fullness of free play is made possible and daily living can involve aesthetic experience.     

Education: Expectation and the Unexpected

This paper considers concepts of expectation and responsibility, and how these drive dialogic interactions between tutor and student in an age of marketised Higher Education. In thinking about such interactions in terms of different forms of exchange, the paper considers the philosophy of Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas on dialogic intersubjectivity, and an ethics of responsibility. This enables a richer understanding of the tutorial dialogue in particular, as both teaching and encounter. This has significant implications for education and for the idea of the tutorial as a space for encounter with the other through language. The paper argues that the university tutorial, rather than being considered a place only for the meeting of expectations, might be envisioned as a space for encounter with the unexpected. In considering the nature of the educational encounter in relation to an example from the film adaptation of Alan Bennett’s ‘The History Boys’, the paper concludes that the tutorial opens up the possibility for a mutual encounter with otherness. This positions the tutorial as a space of educational otherness—a Foucauldian heterotopia which rejects the expectation-bound economy of exchange, and which offers instead the possibility of an education marked by an economy of excess.     

Interpreting Ecofeminist Environmentalism in African Communitarian Philosophy and Ubuntu: An Alternative to Anthropocentrism

Abstract

The question of what an African ecofeminist environmental ethical view ought to look like remains unanswered in much of philosophical writing on African environmental ethics. I consider what an African ecofeminist environmental ethics ought to look like if values salient in African communitarian philosophy and ubuntu are seriously considered. After considering how African communitarian philosophy and ubuntu foster communitarian living, relational living, harmonious living, interrelatedness and interdependence between human beings and various aspects of nature, I reveal how African communitarian philosophy and ubuntu could be interpreted from an ecofeminist environmental perspective. I suggest that this underexplored ecofeminist environmental ethical view in African philosophical thinking might be reasonably taken as an alternative to anthropocentric environmentalism. I urge other ethical theorists on African environmentalism not to neglect this non-anthropocentric African environmentalism that is salient in African ecofeminist environmentalism.