以友辅仁:论儒家的友伦与政治传统

Promoting the Moral with Friends:On the Ethics of Friendship and Political Tradition of Confucianism

在中国两千多年的思想传统中,朋友伦理始终与政治实践密切相关。中国古代政治制度表现出"家国同构"的特征,它的思想基础是以宗族血亲关系为核心的自然伦理。友伦与自然伦理不同,其完全依赖于主体间的平等交往,在政治参与中展开为明道、辅仁和责善三个向度。阳明心学的肇兴为友伦的深化提供了三项思想基础,其分别为"圣凡平等""万物一体"与"立志成德"。中晚明时期的士人尤为重视友伦,他们通过交游讲学发挥出了相当大的政治影响力。晚清至民国时期,一些学者认识到友伦与民主制度的内在联系,他们认为友伦相对于家庭伦理更为重要,因为前者蕴含的个人本位主义与平等主义是建立民主政治制度的重要基础。

In China's intellectual tradition for more than two thousand years,the ethics of friendship has always been closely related to political practice.The ancient political system of China showed the characteristics of syncretic form of country and family.Its ideological basis was natural ethics,which took clan kinship as the core.The ethics of friendship was different from natural ethics.It wholly depended on the equal communication between subjects,showed three dimensions,including the revealed moral,the promotion the moral and the encouragement in political participation.The rise of Yangming mind study provided three ideological bases for the deepening of the ethics of friendship,including the ideas of all men being born equal,the oneness with all things and the commitment to virtue.The scholar-officials in middle and late Ming Dynasty paid more attention to the ethics of friendship,and exerted considerable political influence by making friends and giving lectures. From late Qing dynasty to the Republic of China,some scholars recognized the connection between the ethics of friendship and democratic system,and believed that the ethics of friendship is more important than the ethics of family,for the individualism and egalitarianism which the former contained is the important foundation of democracy.