SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture

A Daoist Account of Moral Attunement

Jacob Bender

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2024
• ISBN:
  9781438498591
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Eastern Philosophy

Drawing on both western and Chinese philosophy, Those Who Act Ruin It shows how Daoism presents a viable alternative to established moral theories. The Daoist, critical of the Confucian and Mohist discourses of their time, provides an account of morality that can best be understood as achieving an attunement to situations through the cultivation of habits. Furthermore, Daoism's meta-ethical insights outline how moral philosophy, when theorized in a way that ignores our fundamental interdependence, devolves into moralistic narcissism. Another way of putting this, as the Daodejing states perfectly, is that "those who act ruin it" (????). Sensitive to this problem, the Daoist account of moral attunement can ameliorate social woes and not "ruin things." In their moral attunement, Daoists can spontaneously respond to situations in ways that are sensitive to the underlying interdependence of all things.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction Lao-Zhuang Daoism
• Chapter One An Embodied Account of Experience and Meaning in Daoist Philosophy
• Chapter Two “Without Action”
• Chapter Three On Being “Without Desire” in Lao-Zhuang Daoism
• Chapter Four The “Nonnaturalistic Fallacy” in Lao-Zhuang Daoism
• Chapter Five Alienation and Attunement in the Zhuangzi
• Chapter Six The Daoist Critique of Moral Bigotry
• Conclusion A Daoist Alternative to the “Sages”
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index
• Back Cover