No matter how sincerely or intensely we polish bronze, we will never get gold. We have to know the original nature we are working with if we are to have success in our choices and rejections.
Yang Chu refers to his selfish ethics as "wei wo" (acting for oneself). The bottom line in my meleta on this is: "If the voluptuary wants pleasure for others too, then he is moral, even if he is not a moralist".
Very interesting. I was not previously aware of Yang Chu, but from your essays, his hostile reception by non-egoist philosophers seems strikingly similar to the case of Epicurus.
I have been drawn before to the Chinese hermit tradition in its more poetic forms and generally find they offer a similar corrective to the typical misconstruals of egoism. Obviously, living in a mountain cave seems to prioritize one's personal concerns over those of society at large. But such a life is far from the kind of greedy selfishness that most people imagine when they hear of egoist philosophies.
For instance, I have a print of this ink rubbing depicting the famous hermit poet Hanshan, featuring an inscription which reads "To feel oppressed on behalf of others in the end is of no help: The great Dao can still emerge in the midst of happiness... Ha! Ha! Ha!" (https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/art/collections/objects/57604). Epicurus is similarly on the side of laughter.
No matter how sincerely or intensely we polish bronze, we will never get gold. We have to know the original nature we are working with if we are to have success in our choices and rejections.
You may enjoy my essays on Taoist sage Yang Chu (https://hiramcrespo.substack.com/p/book-review-of-the-many-lives-of), especially the one against non-violence where I evaluate the relationship of our ultimate ontology ("we are bodies") with the practice of non-violence. This is a good case study for how apparently egoistic ethics produce virtuous action: https://hiramcrespo.substack.com/p/yang-chu-on-non-violence-we-are-bodies
Yang Chu refers to his selfish ethics as "wei wo" (acting for oneself). The bottom line in my meleta on this is: "If the voluptuary wants pleasure for others too, then he is moral, even if he is not a moralist".
Very interesting. I was not previously aware of Yang Chu, but from your essays, his hostile reception by non-egoist philosophers seems strikingly similar to the case of Epicurus.
I have been drawn before to the Chinese hermit tradition in its more poetic forms and generally find they offer a similar corrective to the typical misconstruals of egoism. Obviously, living in a mountain cave seems to prioritize one's personal concerns over those of society at large. But such a life is far from the kind of greedy selfishness that most people imagine when they hear of egoist philosophies.
For instance, I have a print of this ink rubbing depicting the famous hermit poet Hanshan, featuring an inscription which reads "To feel oppressed on behalf of others in the end is of no help: The great Dao can still emerge in the midst of happiness... Ha! Ha! Ha!" (https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/art/collections/objects/57604). Epicurus is similarly on the side of laughter.