ABSTRACT

Tradition treats as Daoists those thinkers who addressed what we might call themetaphysics of dao. I endorse that tradition with some qualifications about the appropriate implications to draw from it. My argument will support the orthodox view that Daoists are appropriately distinguished from earlier moral philosophers (Confucius and Mo Zi) by their more metaphysical uses o f the term dao. However, this traditional way of fixing the reference of philosophical Daoism need not entail that there be a separate Daoist meaning for the word dao. Daoists could be said to address the metaphysics of dao — but the same dao that is in dispute in moral philosophy. It needn’t have separate metaphys­ ical and moral meanings. Indeed, a careful account of the metaphysics of dao removes the motivation to postulate a separate, Daoist meaning. Precisely because their concept o f dao is the same, these reflections will be relevant to how Daoist metaethics informs their criticism of the Confucian-Mohist moral debate. We can explain the fu ll range of Daoist usage, including its metaphysical use, without postulating a separate meaning.