公德与对抗力:张东荪对民初共和政治的反思

Public Virtue and the Counter Force:Zhang Dongsun's Rethinking of Early Republican Politics of China

民初共和试验迅速蜕变为内战与革命,这一历史性失败引发了张东荪的反思。他认为,共和政治需以具有内在一致性的公民道德为基础,而晚清以来的公德-私德二分说与此存在紧张,为解决这一问题,必须重新理解作为共和政治基础的"社会",探讨其构成方式及与公民道德的关联。他认为,社会由以自治为根本原则的各分子互相对抗而成,这种社会性对抗构成了共和政治的基础。"对抗论"模式展现了他思想中自由主义与19世纪进化论的内在关联,但其是否能生成具有共和道德的新公民阶级,仍是个有待讨论的问题。

During the 1912—1913 period,the attempt to establishing a new Republic quickly decayed into a civil war and revolution,a failure of historical significance from which Zhang Dongsun started his thinking.Zhang argued that republican politics needed a new type of virtue with inner consistency,which could not be achieved through the dichotomous scheme of public-private virtue proposed by Liang Qichao in the late Qing period.So the composition of 'society'(as the true base of republican politics)and its relation with citizen virtue are of importance.Zhang proclaimed that it was autonomous elements countered against each other(the counter force)that created society and built the base of the new Republic,and called it'the counter force theory',which revealed that he as a liberal intellectual,was also influenced by the Darwinism in the 19 th century.Yet it is still in question whether new citizens with the republican virtue could be made by Zhang's theory.