中国古代“孝”文化的两重性

The Duality of the Ancient Chinese Doctrine of “Filial Piety”

孝的本义是“善事父母”。因为人为父母所生养而成长 ,应该给以回报 ,所以孔孟主张对父母尽孝。先秦儒家还提出父慈子孝的对等关系 ,在道德人格上是平等的。秦汉大一统以后 ,移孝作忠 ,伦理向政治伸延 ,君父对臣子形成统治与被统治的关系。汉朝称以孝治天下 ,建立察孝廉、奖孝悌的制度。对孝道的提倡 ,用以造就一批父慈子孝、兄友弟恭的孝悌家庭 ,对以家族为本位、家国同构的中国古代 ,儿女尽孝能和睦家庭 ,进而安定社会 ,增强中华民族凝聚力 ,有一定的正面作用。同时把孝亲与忠君联系起来 ,所谓忠臣出于孝子之门 ,对于维护汉皇朝的统治亦有安定的作用。但是历朝的孝治政策亦有负面效应。由于朝廷奖励孝子 ,有的人就弄虚作假 ,败坏社会风气 ,把孝道作为沽名钓誉的工具。有的虽然真心尽孝 ,但措施不当 ,形成愚昧行为。正面与负面就形成中国古代孝文化的两重性。

The innate connotation of filial piety refers to the respect paid to one's parents with benignity, for everybody is given birth to and bought up by his parents. The parents should therefore be redounded upon. And it is just in this sense that Mencius advocated that the parents be paid filial piety. In addition, the pre-Qin-Dynasty Confucians put forward a reciprocal relationship between the benign father and the filial son, that is, both of them were equal to each other in terms of moral personality. After the unification during the Qin Dynasty, ethics was been extended to politics as filial piety was converted into loyalty, thus forming a relationship of the ruler and the ruled between the father-sovereign and the son-minister. During the Han Dynasty, state affairs were run with the doctrine of filial piety, and a system of recommending filial people as candidates of functionaries and awarding filial piety and fraternal love was established. The calling for filial piety is to train quite a number of families of benign fathers and the filial sons and full of fraternal love. And, for the ancient China where the family was the basic unit, and the state and the family were isomorphic, these families have played a positive role in stabilizing the then society, and in accelerating the agglomeration of the Chinese people. Meanwhile, to relate filial piety to loyalty to the sovereign has, too, played the role to stabilize the rule of the imperial power. Yet, the policies to rule with the doctrine of filial piety in the past dynasties have also brought about negative impacts. As a result of the court's awarding filial sons, certain people, taking filial piety as a tool to fish for fame and compliment, have played falsification, and corrupted social ethos. Others, though sincerely filial, have indiscreetly turned their practice of filial piety into stupid deeds. Consequently, the positive and the negative have engendered the duality of the ancient Chinese doctrine of filial piety.