在个体善和城邦善之间——亚里士多德论伦理学和政治学

Between the Good of the Individual and the Good of the City:Aristotle on Ethics and Politics

亚里士多德在《尼各马可伦理学》的开端与结尾处都明确指出,伦理学和政治学之间具有不容忽视的重要联系,前者是后者的预备研究,后者构成了前者的目标。如何看待这个主张是重要的,因为它在某种程度上影响了我们如何理解并评价亚里士多德有关个体与城邦、道德与政治之间关系的论述:如果按照亚里士多德的字面意思而强调二者之间的相似性和连续性,好处是我们可以对伦理学中的疑难加以澄清和解释,坏处则是需要接受伦理学(道德生活)对于政治学(政治生活)的附属地位,甚至可能需要接受个体对于共同体的从属地位。而如果我们强调伦理学的独立地位,则可以保留个体善和道德生活的独立性,但同时也不得不承受亚里士多德伦理学乃至整个伦理学本身存在张力甚至冲突的可能。本文尝试说明,亚里士多德的伦理学更适合第一种解释路径,但这是因为他竭力想要避免一种柏拉图式的、强的道德实在论。此外,如果充分考虑亚里士多德的论证的复杂性,我们可以认为,他并没有主张一种共同体对于个体的优先性观点。

In the first and the last chapter of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle explicitly claims that there is some connection of critical importance between ethics and politics, for example, in the sense that ethics serves as the preliminary study for politics and is thereby subordinated to politics. How to construe this claim is of a great importance for us since it will, to some extent, influence our understanding and evaluation of Aristotle's account of the relationship between individuals and city as well as morality and politics. In particular, it will make a difference for us to emphasize the similarity and continuity between Aristotle's ethics and politics, or insist on the relative independence of ethics itself from politics. If the former were to be adpoted, we would be able to clarify some difficulties and remove some doubts in interpreting Aristotle's ethical works, and yet we may have to accept that the political life has some superiority over the ethical life. On the other hand, if the latter is to be granted, it seems inevitable to concede that there is some tension or even self-contradiction existing within ethical inquiry itself, because we have to face the ultimate moral dilemma when an individual is required to choose between the good of the city and the good of his own. In this paper,I try to show that the first account seems more suitable for interpreting Aristotle's ethics. Still, it might be more appropriate for us to regard his claim as a departure from the Platonic position on the relationship between the individual and the city, rather than literally read him as holding the view that the community possesses unconditional priority over the individual by its very nature.