Treating a Bird as a Bird: Animal Ethics and the Limits of Intervention in the Zhuangzi

Although nonhuman animals appear frequently in the premodern Chinese text Zhuangzi, they are often interpreted allegorically, leaving their ethical significance largely unexplored. This paper shifts from metaphorical readings to a literal engagement with Zhuangzi’s animal narratives to reconstruct a distinctive framework of animal ethics. I argue that Zhuangzi’s approach is grounded in epistemic humility and non-interference, emerging from a cosmocentric ontology and perspectival epistemology. Unlike contemporary anthropocentric or utilitarian frameworks, which focus on how humans ought to act toward animals, Zhuangzi questions whether humans are epistemically entitled to intervene at all. The argument proceeds in three interconnected stages: an ontological one, which situates all beings within a continuum of qi and challenges assumptions of human exceptionalism; an epistemological one, which emphasizes the partial and situated nature of human knowledge; and an ethical one, which grounds a norm of non-action and restrained intervention. Close readings of animal narratives, such as the Fighting Cock, the Seabird allegory, and Bo Le’s horses, show that even well-intentioned intervention can disrupt species-specific flourishing, in which ethical harm arises from epistemic misjudgment rather than malice. By decentering the human standpoint and highlighting relational and cosmocentric dimensions of ethics, Zhuangzi offers a model of ethical engagement grounded in attentiveness, restraint, and recognition of nonhuman autonomy.