Andrew Fildes wrote:
> But Kant is one of the first to dispose of the need for a god in morality
> (even Aristotle didn't dare)
As long as you stick to Western philosophy and religion, anyway.
Both the Buddha and Lao Tzu managed to do without god(s) and have quite
powerful systems of what Westerners would call morality.
Although the roots of the idea go back much further, I think of Master
Do-gen's formulation as about as pure and succinct as is possible. "What
you do to others, you do to yourself." It seems to me more spiritually
and psychologically pure and direct than the more common, Western
formulations.
Master Do-gen was a 13th. century (again, by Western reckoning) Zen
monk, who also practiced under Chán masters in China before founding his
own monastery in Japan. As I consider Zen to be the closest contemporary
descendant of early Taoism, he is a nice meeting point.
Moose
==============================================
List usage info: http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies: olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================
|