others are suffering that they might be able to help. Accepting whatever happens and not acting when one could becomes a very daunting task because we as humans are born with the intelligence and reason to change things. What is the point of our intelligence and biological makeup if we are to simply act like a tree and do nothing but take what we need to survive and grow?A past philosopher that I believe would agree with the ideas of Taoism is Plato. His belief was that the soul and body were separate, a theory called platonic dualism. According to him the soul is hindered by the bodies needs and wants. Such needs and wants could include any action and therefore the same thing that the Taoists believe in. The Taoists are simply trying to achieve the afterlife that Plato speaks of before death because by not doing they are acting as, what Plato calls the soul. They are free from fulfilling the bodily desires that the soul in death does not have to worry about. Plato’s ideas mean that when you die the soul does not have to worry about helping others, duty or anything of the sort. In the afterlife one can use mental ability to the fullest because there are not mortal issues.Kants' ideas of duty and fulfilling good will all revolve around using instinct instead of reason to decided ones actions. The instinct, which he talks of, might be similar to what Hospers says about the human brain. According to him, we are controlled by our unconscious decisions. We always think that we are making the choice but in fact our conscious has no say in the matter. This might be similar to what Kant means by instinct, an underlying presence within us that tells us what to do if we listen. Hospers says, however, that our unconscious is determined for us by early childhood experience and perhaps, if this is true, Kants' idea of being able to use instinct is determined by man. Thus the good will and universal law that he speaks of are in ...
