论牟宗三对自由民主的接纳与批评

On Mou Tsung- san's Acceptance and Criticism of Western Liberty and Democracy

新儒家哲人牟宗三对西方自由民主的双重论断构成近代中国知识人回应西方法政思想的典型个案。牟氏认同自由民主作为未来社会发展的方向并反省了中国的不足,不同于西方"分解的尽理之精神"(Decomposed Rational Spirit),中国"综合的尽理之精神"(Integrated Rational Spirit)造成了自由民主在制度上的缺失。牟宗三在适度接纳西方民主自由的同时,也批驳了其趋于外在物化、不能涵养心灵等多重弊端,并进而指出儒家文教系统可纠其偏。牟宗三将自由区分为"精神的自由"和"文制的自由",认为中国欠缺后一种政治法律制度建构上的自由,但富含前一种文化哲学上的自由(其核心为儒家道德理性)。他认为,只有借助德教的滋养,西方自由才能重现其精神品质。应该说,牟氏论证了自由的不同存在样式,丰富了对自由的多元理解。但他对西方民主自由的批判,只是截取外在制度而舍弃其价值底蕴,有失偏颇,重新陷入儒家道德主义的迷恋。

Double arguments of western liberty and democracy from Mou Tsung - san, a new Confucian philosopher, is a typical case that intellectuals in modern China responded to western legal and political thoughts. Mou Tsung - san agreed that Liberty and democracy should be the future direction of social develop- ment , and he also reflected on the disadvantages of Chinese culture, which is the lack of freedom and democ- racy in the system had caused by China＇s ＂integrated rational spirit＂ that is different from western ＂decom- posed rational spirit＂. Mou Tsung -san moderately accepted western freedom and democracy, and at the same time, he also dismissed their multiple disadvantages such as tendency of external materialization, and failure to self- restrain. And then he pointed out that the Confucian culture and education system can rectify the slant. Mou Tsung - san divided liberty into ＂the spirit of freedom＂ and ＂the system of freedom＂, and thought that China lacked of latter and bounded in the former. He believes that only with the aid of moral nourishing, west- ern freedom would reproduce their mental characters. It should be said that Mou Tsung - san demonstrated the different styles of freedom, and enriched the pluralistic understanding of freedom. But his criticism of the western freedom and democracy is biased, because he captured only external system instead of the value core of the western freedom and democracy, which seems to have a crush back into the Confucian Moralism.