The Buddhist Encounter with Liberal Humanism and Atayal Hunters in Contemporary Taiwan

Taiwan’s Life Conservationist Association (LCA) advocates for laws supporting “equality of life” as an alternative to “human equality.” According to Taiwanese Buddhism, equality of life stems from the capacity of all sentient beings to suffer, as opposed to the human capacity for rationality that underlies “human equality.” In 1994, LCA used an amendment to the Wildlife Conservation Act to tighten restrictions and enhance criminal penalties on hunting. In response, Taiwan’s indigenous people allied with the global indigenous rights movement and expanded their hunting rights in the 2005 Indigenous Peoples Basic Law. Taiwan’s indigenous people, including the Atayal hunters in this ethnography, contend that their traditional ecological knowledge sustains the balance of their local ecosystems, and many Atayal people point to the Buddhist release of life ceremony as a threat to ecological balance. Nicolaisen will argue that by seeking to substitute “equality of life” for “human equality,” LCA aims to liberate sentient beings from the constraints of liberal humanism, but in doing so, they also propagate Han colonial policies toward indigenous peoples. Yet, as the indigenous people ally with the indigenous rights movement and their Christian churches, they rely on the institutions of liberal humanism and Christianity to resist Han colonialism.