明代王亲政策的政治寓意与伦理困境

The Political Implications and Ethical Dilemma of the Policy toward Relatives of Imperial Family in the Ming Dynasty

王亲,即王府亲戚。明代的王亲政策,是在藩禁日严、王亲的平民化与人数日增的背景下展开的。对王亲的优礼,意在有限度地广亲亲之恩,范围极为有限。授官限于王妃父与世子妃父;优免差役限于王妃父、将军夫人父之家;优礼考核与致仕限于布政使身份的王亲。但优礼的程度与爵位尊卑、血脉疏近成正比,符合伦理常情。对王亲的禁制,意在最大限度地制藩,如王亲不任京官,王亲居官者禁与缔姻宗室同城,王亲禁掌兵权等。王亲禁制的范围,经历了从悉禁所有宗室之亲及其族属到仅禁亲王、郡王爵级的王亲及其"同祖亲枝",即从宽泛到更精确地定位于潜在威胁皇权的王亲群体,合于情理,达到了限王亲而制宗藩的目的,但也陷入了愈亲者禁之愈严、愈疏者禁之愈阔的伦理困境。

Relatives of the Ming imperial family refers to relatives of prince families. In the Ming dynasty the policy toward relatives of prince families was practiced in the background of increasingly strict banning on princedom and plebification of relatives of royal relatives by marriage. Favored treatments to relatives of prince families had the purpose of expressing giving grace to relatives of the royal househould, and the boundary was strictly limited. Granting office was limited to princess＇ father and father of the wife of a prince＇ s and Commandery Princece＇ s eldest son. Favored exemption of corvee was limited to princess＇ father and father of the wife of a general. Favored evaluation of official performances and ending official career were limited to commissioner relatives of a prince. But the degree of preferring treatment and the rank of nobility were determined reasonably by distance of blood linkage. Banning on relatives of prince families aimed at checking princedom in the highest degree, for example, relatives of prince families were not allowed acting as capital officials, as officials they were not promised to living in the same city where their families-in-marriage lived,relatives of prince families were not allowed to having military power, etc. The prohibitive targets changed from including all relatives of royal relatives by marriage and their clans to only prince＇ s and commandery prince＇s relatives and their clans, from loosely to more accurately selected princes who had potential menaces to royal sovereign. This change was reasonable and succeeded in checking and reducing the power of princedom, but it fell into an ethical dilemma of strict prohibition of direct clans and loose prohibition of indirect clans.