是否存在“自然法”这样的东西？——施特劳斯对历史主义的一个防御性回应

Does There Exist Something Like “Natural Law”?——A Defensive Response by Leo Strauss to Historicism

实证主义与历史主义方法支配了我们时代的思想,二者是相对主义的两种主要哲学形态,而相对主义是“现代性危机”的本质,它拒斥自然法。政治哲人列奥·施特劳斯(Leo Strauss)在《自然权利与历史》(1953)一书的第一章中认真思考,并批评了“历史主义”。一方面,作为理论的历史主义在逻辑上是自我击败的;另一方面,作为实践的历史主义则会落入虚无主义与狂热蒙昧主义的规范后果。历史主义与自然法格格不入,施特劳斯试图通过批评历史主义,从而“迎回”自然法。但施特劳斯的论述仍只是产生防御性而非建构性的效果,围绕自然法理论还有很多工作要去做。

Thoughts of our time have been dominated by positivism and historicism approaches,both of which are major philosophical morphologies of relativism.Relativism is the essence of“crisis of modernity”,which rejects natural law.Political philosopher Leo presents his thoughts in Chapter One of Natural Right and History(1953)and criticizes“historicism”.On the one hand,historicism as a theory is logically self-defeated;on the other hand,historicism as a practice would cause normative effects of nihilism and fanaticism.Historicism is in conflict with natural law.Strauss tries to criticize historicism in order to bring natural law back.However,his arguments are only defensive instead of constructive.There remains much work to be done about natural law.