Ecological selfhood and moral freedom in the Zhuangzi

Rošker, Jana S. (author)

The article examines conceptions of ecological humanism that approach the world as an integrated whole, drawing on prevailing strands of Chinese intellectual traditions in which human life is understood as inseparable from the dynamic patterns of the natural world. The Zhuangzi offers valuable resources for contemporary efforts to develop a more relational and integrative ecological philosophy that also accommodates free subjectivity. These starting points illuminate how Zhuangzi’s philosophical thought is connected to a distinct form of Chinese humanism and to discourses that conceive the human—nature relationship as holistic, but not irreductively fused. The article points to the possibility of an alternative worldview that can help us, in our limited time and space, find the possibility of living some kind of sustainable yet here-and-now moment.

• Language: English
• Keywords: Eco-humanism, free subjectivity, environmental philosophy, Daoism, Zhuangzi
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 12.05.2026
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 1-16
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-182506
• UDC: 165.74(510)
• ISSN on article: 1469-2961
• DOI: 10.1080/09552367.2026.2666949
• COBISS.SI-ID: 278082563
• Publication date in RUL: 14.05.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Asian philosophy
• Shortened title: Asian philos.
• Publisher: Taylor & Frances
• ISSN: 1469-2961
• COBISS.SI-ID: 56177762

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: eko-humanizem, svobodna subjektnost, okoljska filozofija, daoizem, Zhuangzi

Projects

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: J6-50202-2023
• Name: Konfucijanski preporod in njegov vpliv na sodobne vzhodnoazijske družbe skozi prizmo odnosa med individuumom in družbo

• Funder: UL - Univerza v Ljubljani
• Funding programme: Zagonski program Ekologija in relacijska etika v vzhodnoazijski preteklosti in sedanjosti
• Project number: RSF_ARIS.ZRP.26-TS
• Name: Ekologija in relacijska etika v vzhodnoazijski preteklosti in sedanjosti