现代道德哲学的危机及其出路

The Crisis of Modern Moral Theory and the Way out

现代道德哲学既不能确证道德,也不能提供道德动机,因而处于危机中。究其原因,根源在于其无神论的前提,它认为道德规范没有实存的处所,因而道德规范不属于宇宙中的存在。从约翰·麦凯、吉伯特·哈曼、伯那德·威廉姆斯和尤尔根·哈贝马斯的思想来看,现代道德理论遭遇双重失败(为道德提供确证或动机)。以最低限度有神论的世界观为基础,可以解决这个双重失败问题。这种世界观主张,道德规范的确是宇宙结构的组成部分,它们在一定程度上能影响我们的经验。怀特海哲学所采取的样式是大多数文化可以接受的,它通过本体论原理为我们提供了一种对神圣实在的尊重。

Modern moral theory is in crisis, being unable to justify morality or to provide motivation to be moral. This inability is due to its atheism, understood as the doctrine that there is no place for moral norms to exist, so that they do not belong to the fabric of the universe. The first part of this paper illustrates modern moral theory＇s twofold failure （to provide justification or motivation for morality） in terms of the thought of John Mackie, Gilbert Harman, Bernard Williams, and Jurgen Habermas. The second part argues that this twofold problem can be overcome by means of a worldview that is theistic in a minimal sense, meaning that it holds that moral norms do belong to the fabric of the universe and in a way in which they can affect our experience. The third part suggests that Whitehead＇s philosophy, by virtue of its ontological principle, provides the requisite kind of theism in a form that could be accepted by many cultures.