Taoist concept of self

As long as [we make the ability the ground of worth],we continue to compare ourselves with others and respect ourselves more or less accordingly ....we must get away from the idea that there must be winners and losers in the pursuit of respect, and that means getting away from the view that respect is deserved in virtue of some quality that can be possessed. page 205
We have deep tendency to "enter the comparative process" and compete for' 'morality. This does not mean that we are to lose all awareness of moral categories....What it does mean is that we should not make respect for rules the primary foundation of respect for human beings. We should cultivate the part of us that spontaneously identifies with others, the state of consciousness in which the boundaries between self and others fall away. ....The idea is that once we are able to suspend looking at people through evaluative categories, we will be able to accept them for what the are, see them as beings like ourselves, and care for them as we care for ourselves.
page 208.....[T]he innocence of one who immediately identifies with others...and who is able to suspend the use of evaluative categories is like the innocence of the infant who has no conception of self as distinct from others. ..But the innocence of adulthood cannot be identical to the innocence of the infant because the adult transcends the self while never losing it entirely. page 214 Moral Relativity David B. Wong.