Taoism Vs Deep Ecology

“Deep ecology is a ecological philosophies that concerns itself with the current destruction of the Earth’s biosphere and the possibilities for the restoration of the planet’s life system” (Hathaway & Boff, 2009c, p.63). By contrast, Taoism, a ethical theory invented by Laozi in China tries to explore a ideal worldview in which everything is equally existed on the planet. Obviously, the debates on similarities and difference of basic worldview in Taoism and deep ecology have been continuing few decades ago. Many scholars think that the main ideas in deep ecology can not either contrast to those in Taoism or combine to those in Taoism while others still think that they have lots of ideas in worldviews regarding ecology in common. In fact, there are two main similarities in regard to the worldviews in
Firstly, in terms of view of nature, deep ecology and Taoism both have the same worldview that the interplay between human, other living creatures and even the planet should be seen as being in a whole system. In the other words, human and other living creatures depend on the earth, which in turn also depends on human and other living creatures. As the Hathaway and Boff (2009c, p.63) stated, “Humanity is seen as part of the natural world, a part of the greater “web of life””. Owing to this critical dependence existed in this relationship, by no means can human damage the nature and other creature livings because everything human used and consumed is coming from them. On the other side, seeing the whole world as a self-regulating system on the basis of holistic view is also included in theory of Taoism. Taoism uses “Yin