| The environmental crisis is nowadays a worldwide issue of the utmost concern. Mankind has already adopted such means as political, economic, legal, technical to solve this problem. The environmental ethics is a response to the environmental crisis from another angle of view .It tries to find out the cultural roots and the psychological roots of the environmental crisis, reveal underlying causes of the environmental crisis, decompose them and establish a new ethical and value paradigm. The environmental ethics argues that the current extremely serious environmental crisis faced with by human beings stem from the main axiology which developed with the appearing of modern industry and has already been widespread. Therefore, only by reflecting on and changing this main axiology ,can human beings extricate themselves from present difficult position. Environmental ethics tries to extend the horizon of ethics, grant moral standing to nature, and adjust the relationship between human beings and nature. It resorts to people's inner moral consciousness, offers immanent motivation and ethical foundation, enables environmental protection to become a self-conscious act and moral pursuit of people.Environmental ethics is a new subject which only began to flourish in the Western since 1970s, and it is far from a integrated theoretical system. There are two main schools in environmental ethics: one is enlightened anthropocentric ethics, the other is nonanthropocentric ethics. The main difference between the two school lies in that the former does not admit the instrinsic value of natural objects other than human beings, however, the latter admits it.In spite of the divergence between them, the two schools achieve convergence in such aspects as criticizing narrow anthropocentric ethics, admitting man's moral responsibilities the natural world, contending fairness between regions and generations and claiming abstinence in material desire.In the progress of its development, environmental ethics has assimilated lots of spiritual resources from Taoism, and there are many of correspondences between them. The primary object of this essay is to probe into the comparability between the two philosophies, at the same time, point out the main differences, and try to combine them. Thus, Taoism can not only provide environmental ethics with immaterial support, but also exert influence in environmental movements.Taoism is a philosophy founded on the "Tao" theoretically. There are many meanings of "Tao" in Taoism. "Tao" is noumenon of universe, the motivation of creating everything, the sources of all values, the law of movement of things and the highest ideal of life. The Taoist world outlook based on "Tao" is holism where there is no separation and opposition between human beings or Dame Nature, and man and nature form an entirety. "Tao" creates everything, however, the identity of it is "following nature but not interfering in anything" which means letting everything develop freely and do not intervene it. As the headspring of all things, "Tao" is equally shared by them, therefore, judging from "Tao", all things do not differ in value and are equal in rank. "Taoism" contends axiology of everything being equal. As the law of the world movement, "Tao" is "Chang", people must follow the objective law of the world, which is called "Zhi Chang". "Taoism" regards experiencing "Tao" or integrating man into "Tao" as its highest life ideal and spiritual pursuit. Experiencing "Tao" requirespeople "Zhi Xu Shou Jing ", which means rejecting all selfish ideas and personal considerations and keeping soul clear and bright, consequently, people can directly reach the realm of integrating themselves into "Tao". Therefore, Taoism opposes excessive material enjoyment and demands that people should restrain their desire for fame and wealth and keep a mental state of being content with their lot. In this way, people can keep heart peaceful and calm. Taoism values and cherishes lives, and is against injuring them because of careerism.Moder...
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