论公民伦理——兼谈梁启超的“公德”、“私德”问题

On Civil Ethic——With Comments on Liang Qichao's Notion of “Private Moral” and “Public Moral”

公民伦理是人们在公共生活或公共交往中可以相互地提出的那些有效性要求,即诉诸于对于他人的恰当的尊重的态度和出于这种态度的恰当的行为习惯。公民关系的自然基础是由兄弟关系引申的同邦人关系。公民伦理只在同陌生人的关系对人们成为重要的生活关系,人们对陌生人的排斥心理已经基本消除,并且把他(们)当做与自身地位同等的公民而相互对待时才是生活的伦理。梁启超曾试图用“私德”、“公德”概念分析私人生活、私人交往与公共交往生活的不同准则含义,但由于没有引入对交往的分析,使得这两个概念一个变得过于宽泛,一个变得过于褊狭,都不具有分析的意义。

Civil ethic stands for the valid requirements that individuals may propose mutually in public life, i.e., those attitudes that appealed to respects to other citizens as well as those behavior habits out of these attitudes. The natural basis of civil relationship is the relationship between countrymen derived from brotherhood. Civil ethic exists only when the communication with unknown people becomes important in the life of everyone, when the motive of refusing those unknown dies out, and when they are treated equally. Liang Qichao tried to analyze the different norms of private life, private communication, and public communication with the notion of private moral and that of public moral. Without introduce the analysis of the form of communication, however, the notion of private moral became too broad in meaning, while that of public moral too narrow, both losing their analytical senses.