完善论与民主工具论

Perfectionism and the Purely Instrumental Account of Democracy

自由主义的完善论在确立一个社会最根本政治道德内容和取向上否决了中立论传统的“公民间合理同意”的标准,主张把个人自主性作为增进人类繁盛的客观正确价值,并且赋予国家合法权力去维持和增加依照上述正确标准判断为有价值的选项。但为容纳多元、自由以及保护公民自尊的考虑,完善论把增进人的福祉理解为人们对客观善好的主观介入,这在政治制度安排上为民主留下了空间,但也使得完善论一直坚持的民主仅仅具有工具价值的立场变得不融贯。

Liberal perfectionism rejects the traditional standard of“reasonable endorse among citizens”in the establishment of the content of the fundamental political and moral principles of a society.It advocates that individual autonomy should be regarded as the objective and correct value to promote human prosperity,and that the state should be given legitime power to maintain and increase the valuable options judged according to the above correct standards.However,in order to accommodate the consideration of pluralism,freedom and the protection of citizen’s dignity,liberal perfectionism also holds that without the endorsement of the agent,engagement with the objective goods does not contribute to individual well-being.This understanding not only leaves space for democracy in a perfectionist political system arrangement,but also makes the position that democracy only has instrumental value that liberal perfectionism has been insisting on become incoherent.