Today I’m challenging myself to tackle a topic I’ve found difficult to articulate for years. I’m going to dive into examining morality from the standpoint of philosophical Taoism, particularly the concepts of good and evil. Taoism suggests a wholly contextual moral evaluation unlike most moral frameworks. I remember reading about Taoism as a teenager and immediately finding this the hardest element of the philosophy to get a grip on. I have a much more nuanced understanding of this now and it will be little surprise that appearances aside, the concepts of good and evil in Taoism are anything but black and white.
Western morality fundamentally asks “How should I act, and why?” Further, are some acts reprehensible? In the West this can be simplified to “how can I be good and not be evil”. However, is evil even an important concept in Taoism? In contrast I would argue that Taoism seeks to answer two alternative questions. “How do we know how to act, and how do we find significance in our experience?” Taoism didn’t develop in a vacuum. The ideas of the Confucians and Moists and later Buddhists were attempting to answer these and other moral questions, especially the first, in very set, prescriptive ways. In some ways Taoism only articulates its answer to these questions as a response to and argument against formalised and prescriptive ways of answering. Taoism does not have any rules, but it has many principles. It also has some values. All of these are intended to be taken in the context of the web of relations and events present in the moment they are being evaluated. This separates it from any other tradition of morality I’m aware of. Taoism places all the responsibility on the person making an action, both for the consequences of the action but also for the decision of whether that action was right to take in the first place.
In Chapter 2 of the Tao Te Jing, the character 'Shan' (善) is commonly translated as 'good,' and 'bu shan' as 'evil,' though these translations oversimplify their meaning. Interestingly the character more normally means to be good (at something) rather than good in some moral sense. Not good at something, bu shan, is more an interpretation from a limited perspective than a truth about the thing being perceived. So in Taoism this good and evil are in the eyes of the perceiver. In the Zhuangzi, the author considers our goal to be being able to see the good(at something) in all things. This capacity to find the good, to perceive value and potential in everything, is the closest thing offered to a moral good. Being unable to see the good in something means you are likely to misuse, abuse, or squander it and thus be wasting it’s potential to contribute to the whole (the Tao) and this is the closest we get to evil. The same can be said if one fails to see one’s own potential. Taoists intentionally avoid labeling actions as morally good or evil because doing so would imply actions have intrinsic, context-free value. A key take away is that nothing can be judged outside of its context and nothing has any intrinsic meaning outside of its complex web of relationships.
The opposite of 'Shan,' often translated as 'evil,' more accurately signifies something lacking skill or appropriateness rather than moral evil. To imply something is good (at something) implies something else is not good (at something) This seems to be a weak case for evil in the western sense. Zhuangzi, especially would consider this not good (at something) a challenge for us to see what the not good is actually good for. A virtuous person is one who sees the virtue in all things and people, neglecting none.
The character pair ren仁/ bu ren不仁, sometimes translated as good/evil, seems to be specifically referring to institutional morality, as opposed to the capacity to have innate moral feeling. According to the Tao Te Jing, ‘Heaven and Earth’ do not engage with this sort of good/evil, thus the Tao does not engage with it. In contrast, all things are described as ‘straw dogs’ in the eyes of the Tao, referring to an object that is sacred for a time and then discarded when its time is past. The Tao will care for all things, but sometimes that care can be the transformation that appears like destruction.
We might have to ask what care means if some things are cared for by destroying them. I think the best example might be the workings of a living body. Every cell has goals it’s attempting to achieve in the body, and one of those goals is not becoming a cancerous cell. The body as a system helps the cell achieve that final goal by either communicating that it should auto-destruct or by destroying the cell itself. In this way, care could be defined as helping something achieve its innate goals, even if those goals involve its own destruction. There is conflict when the cell changes its goals to no longer be in line with the system, and seeks to continue as a cancer cell, selfishly. Within the system of the body, this selfishness would be ‘against the Tao’. If we zoomed out, the propensity of cells to become cancerous may be an important function necessary to maintain balance and life and so is ‘with the Tao’. In this way good and evil are defined by their context and unable to be broken down into simple rules or maxims. Institutional morality cannot possibly be flexible enough to handle all the contexts we find ourselves in and is much too restrictive and inflexible for the purposes of the Tao.
In the world view of the Taoist, everything is always in transformation. Good cannot remain permanently good, evil cannot remain forever evil. Any distinction we use to characterise anything is only contextual and temporary. Things are not ‘good’ in any meaningful way at all times and for all things, they have their time and place and never cease to change and respond.
Tao creates good and evil. No one and nothing is beyond redemption as all things are transforming. Taoism asks the Taoist to examine context and change and find a way to see the usefulness and virtue of all things. Additionally, Taoism invites us to actively participate in transforming what is 'not good' into something beneficial or harmonious.
In Chapter 60 of the Tao Te Jing it's stated that the Tao can make harmless what we perceive as evil. Ecological examples can clarify this point. Take the example of ecosystems where there is an invasive species. At first, out of balance with the environment the species will overtake its surroundings and overwhelm other species with nothing keeping it in check. The Tao is always at work though, transforming the other species in the environment and even the invasive species itself to try to find a new balance where it is no longer a danger to the whole. To us this may be a slow process, but the process of bringing things into the Tao of their surroundings is constant. Taoism asks for us to take active roles in supporting that ‘bringing into the Tao’. A concrete example in Chinese folk belief is the belief that ghosts are ancestors we have not properly honored and brought into meaningful relationship with the living. Through cultivating relationships with the deceased we gain the support of protective ancestors rather than the danger of unfulfilled ghosts. The same is true of the living. Bad people are so defined by their capacity to become good people, good people are defined by their ability to help that transformation.
Rather than good or bad being opposite points, there is an endless continuum of more right or more wrong. The Zhuangzi says this explicitly, again attacking our notion of their being a singular right action. Instead we can look to cultivate greater awareness and relationship with our contextual environment and take more right action as a result. Further the Zhuangzi makes the more radical claim that all parts of the whole are necessary, regardless where they fall on the continuum. Perhaps more meaningful practically rather than metaphysically, we can assume there is a way for all things to help the whole and so we are asked not to give up on anything, or anyone, on moral grounds. Which is not to say at all that we should not encourage its transformation, which may entail its destruction.
Largely religious moral codes have existed to manage social relations and cohesion with the assumption that normal people cannot be trusted to act properly in a way that isn’t dangerous to the social fabric and general welfare. We are told we need rules and we come to believe we will be lost without them. Taoists challenge this, arguing that we are atrophing our capacity to be in tune with our situation and our nature and in leaning on prescribed rules we lose our ability to cultivate our own internal compass. Whether we agree and are willing to risk being afloat in moral uncertainty in order to develop this internal compass is a choice we are left with.
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