生命的感通与荀子道德主体的证成

An Inquiry into the Xunzian Moral Motivation

既有的荀子道德主体研究大多在知性的维度上强调行动者对礼义的认知能力,然而,如果行动者没有对礼义的内在要求,单纯的知性并不足以使礼义内化。特别地,以理性人假设为基础的博弈论道德推理的解释力也是有限的。这凸显出康德道德主体概念的局限性,而要求在理性/感性之外寻找作为道德动机的第三维度。在荀子"有血气之属莫不有知",此一"知"字所指并不限于一般意义上的知觉,更在于人类之间的生命感通。"有血气之属莫知于人",这意味着人类的生命感通能够使之冲破躯壳之私,产生普遍性的同情/同理心,而这也正是道德动力的存有论基础。另方面,基于血气的情感本身具有自在品格,须得经过主体的反思("处仁以义")达到理性自觉才成之为真正的道德情感。

The existing research on Xunzi’s moral subject mostly emphasizes the agent’s cognitive ability,the dimension of intellectuality.However,if the agent does not have the inherent demand for morality,pure intellectuality alone cannot not make ritual internalization.It should be noted that the need for morality differs from the need for food,and"that which one does not have within oneself,one is sure to seek for outside"is not enough to explain the internal motivation of moral self-improvement.This predicament highlights the limitations of Kantian moral subject and calls for the search for the third dimension of moral motivation beyond reason and sensibility.The so-called third dimension,which corresponds to Wertfuhlen in Scheler’s value ethics,corresponds to compassion(ceyin恻隐) in Mengzi’s ethics and to the feeling of empathy in Xunzi’s ethics.For Xunzi,"among all the living things between Heaven and Earth,those that have blood and qi are to have zhi 知."This zhi 知 refers not only to the general sense of awareness or perception,but also to the psychological ability of mutual interpersonal empathy among human beings."Among all the creatures that have blood and qi,none has greater zhi 知 than human",therefore the intense empathy enables human to break through the selfish and narrow patriarchal feelings,to feel with all its kind,so as to develop universal empathy. Needless to say,this is exactly the moral basis for the possible existence.On the other hand, although Xunzi takes empathy as moral motivation,Xunzi’s concept of moral agent still fundamentally differs from Mengzi’s in two aspects. First,the emotion of "love one’s own kind"based on the zhi 知 of blood-qi has its own character of naturalness. In short,this emotion does not necessarily lead to moral values. That is the reason that Xunzi proposes "dwells in ren仁 by means of yi 义"and insists that the natural emotion of"love its kind"can be taken as the true moral emotion only when it reaches the rational consciousness through the agent’s self-reflection.Second,based on the ontological basis of human empathy,mankind has the mental consciousness of how individuals should get along with each other whereas its content comes from acquired learning instead.Therefore,these different understanding of the moral agent correspondingly leads to two different ways of self-cultivation.