在功利与权利之间——论诺齐克对功利主义的批判

Between utility and rights——On Nozick's criticism and reflection of utilitarianism

自二十世纪下半叶、特别是在罗尔斯的《正义论》发表之后,功利主义政治哲学遭到了一系列严重的批评。所有批评都认为最大化功利主义存在着一个最大的过失,即它忽视了人的分立性的道德重要性。这种功利主义可能会被误用,从而导致对所有消除不平等的尝试的论证缺乏公信度。而这也是诺齐克自由至上主义的政治理论的理论基石。作为新观念的代表理论,它确立了个人权利的绝对至上性,但是它存在理论上的悖谬,导致其可能接受为未受限制的最大化的功利主义所最无法接受的结论;况且,不顾后果的政治优先性理论的建议由于在很大程度上漠视了人们最终能够享有(或不享有)的实质自由而陷入困境。因此,这种新观念虽然有闪光之处,但最终无法令人信服。

Since the second half of the 20th century, especially after John Rawls＇s ＇A theory of Justice＇ was published, the utilitarian political philosophy has suffered lots of serious criticism. The central point of these criticism is that the biggest fault of maximal utilitarianism is that it ignores the moral importance of the separateness of persons, and the proper object of maximization should be the average welfare rather than the total welfare. While Robert Nozick points out that this kind of utilitarianism might be misused, which might cause the arguments for all attempts to eliminate all kinds of inequalities, this notion is the cornerstone of his libertarian political theory. As a representative theory of this new idea, it establishes the absolute supremacy of individual rights, but the paradox of this theory might lead to unacceptable conclusions; besides it will get into trouble because its negligence of consequences ignores people＇s actual freedom in real life. Therefore, this new idea, although there are some shining points, is not convincing in the final analysis.