Daoist reflection on the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and Bioethics

What is it about?

Daoism does not find anything objectionable in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Bioethics, but the rationale for the rights are quite different with the result that some of the articles will need elaboration. This argument attempts to demonstrate two conclusions: 1) All people are manifestations of the Dao and therefore have rights. Ziran, a person’s inviolable place in the Dao, is the basis for a Daoist discussion of human rights. 2) The Daoist body, as a cosmic body, brings together the rights of the individual with the well-being of the community and cosmos. For this reason, individual rights must be understood as being conjoined with individual duties, especially in the realm of health and medicine.

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Why is it important?

This demonstrates that Daoism has important contributions to make to contemporary problems, such as bioethics, even if the categories are framed very differently than they would be had they been constructed by someone from China.

Perspectives