敬明与刑赏——黄道周政治教化思想解读

Respect and Insight Vs.Punishment and Reward——An Interpretation of Huang Daozhou's Political Education

晚明闽籍大儒黄道周对政治中的权术、法令、刑赏等进行深刻反思。尤其是刑赏方面,黄道周将其与政教联系起来,其推衍模式不同于宋儒的“政教→刑赏”,而是继承皇侃、孔颖达等人“刑赏→政教”的推衍进路,主要在外王的政治层面展开,突出经世致用的治道思想。黄道周的创新在于引进君子与小人的概念,故其推论模式可表达为“刑赏失当→小人进而君子退→政教不行”。并且黄道周运用自然灾害与雩祀的比喻,阐明政教不可完全依赖于刑赏,但又不能完全废弃,从而对刑赏进行扬弃。而黄道周的正面立论集中于“敬明”内涵,从哲学的高度上阐明“敬”是政治背后的本体,而“明”是“敬”之用,也就是政治的良好运行。由此提出君主应当先以“敬明”修身,从而避免滥刑轻爵,得以“敬明”治天下,亦即从修身一直到治天下的展开,体现了儒家内圣外王的进路。

Huang Daozhou,a great Fujian Confucian in the late Ming Dynasty,profoundly reflected on the political skills,decrees,punishments and rewards.In particular,Huang Daozhou interwove punishment and reward with political education,whose deduction mode was different from the"political education→punishment reward"in the Song Dynasty.Instead,he inherited the approach by Huang Kan,Kong Yingda,et al.,which,mainly carried out at the political level of outer kingliness,highlights the ideology of practical statecraft.Huang Daozhou's innovation lies in his introduction of the concept of gentlemen and villains,as a result of which his inferential model can be expressed as"improper punishment reward→villains hold sway while gentlemen retreat→political education failure".And Huang Daozhou used the metaphors of natural disasters and sacrificial offerings for rain to clarify that political education can neither rely completely on punishment and reward nor abandon the latter.Therefore,punishment and reward should be sublated.Huang Daozhou's positive argument focuses on the meaning of"respect and insight",making it clear that"respect"is the noumenon behind politics and"insight"is the application of"respect",i.e.,the good operation of politics.He thus proposed that an emperor should cultivate himself with"respect and insight"first so as to avoid the abuse of punishment and rule the country with respect and insight.That is,a transition from self-cultivation to the rule of the country reflects the Confucian approach of being a saint inside and a king outside.