Volume 8, Issue 4, Winter 1986
Asian Traditions as a Conceptual Resource for Environmental Ethics
Chung-ying Cheng
Pages 351-370
On the Environmental Ethics of the Tao and the Ch’i
How the Tao applies to the ecological understanding of the human environment for the purpose of human well-being as well as for the hannony of nature is an interesting and crucial issue for both environmentalists and philosophers of the Tao. I formulate five basic axioms for an environmental ethic of the Tao: (1) the axiom of total interpenetration; (2) the axiom of self-transformation; (3) the axiom of creative spontaneity; (4) the axiom of a will not to will; and (5) the axiom of non-attaching attachment. I show that each axiom generates important consequences for environmental ethics and that together they provide a necessary foundation for environmental ethics.