儒家政治哲学中的“霸道”

“Ruling by Force”(ba dao) in the Confucian Political Philosophy

追求“王道”,反对“霸道”,一般被视作儒家政治哲学的基本立场。若对这一认识进行严肃的思想史考察,则会得出一系列与之相悖的结论:霸道在早期儒家经典中非但不是“坏政治”,而且作为一种德性政治被孔子肯定,它在经史传统中有其制度根源;孟子尊王贱霸是因其政治修辞的需要;荀子则将霸道视为“次优”的政治类型;汉儒将霸道视为不充分的仁政。对霸道的认识在北宋发生转折:邵雍将其视作实力政治,程颢、程颐将其贬低为功利政治。从朱熹到王阳明,对霸道的评价越来越低,最终将其视为一切“坏政治”的渊薮。宋明儒学对霸道的贬低导致三个方面的理论后果:政治思考的空间大为收窄,以致无法容纳现实政治;唯道德主义倾向间接促成政治和道德的截然二分;泛和平主义想象无视政治体之间的永恒冲突,因而发展不出成熟的敌友政治。

It has been widely acknowledged that the basic stance of Confucian political philosophy is to favor“ruling by virtue”(wang dao) over against“ruling by force”(ba dao). However, a careful review of the intellectual history shows that this may not have always been the case. Ruling by force was not only not“bad politics”in the early Confucian classics, but was affirmed by Confucius as a kind of virtue politics with its institutional roots in the classical and historical tradition. Mencius honored ruling by virtue and despised ruling by force because of his need for political rhetoric. Xunzi regarded ruling by force as a“suboptimal”type of politics. The Han Confucians saw ruling by force as inadequate benevolent governance. The perception of ruling by force took a turn in the Northern Song Dynasty. Shao Yong saw it as power politics, and the Cheng brothers relegated it to utilitarian politics. From Zhu Xi to Wang Yangming, ruling by force was continuously debased until it eventually became the source of all bad politics. The disparagement of ruling by force by the Song and Ming Confucians led to three theoretical consequences. First, the space for political thinking was so greatly narrowed as to be unable to accommodate realpolitik. Second, preoccupation with moralism indirectly contributes to the divorce of politics and morality. Third, from the pan-pacifist imagination which turns a blind eye to the eternal conflict between political bodies there can never develop a mature politics of friend and foe.