至善或意义?——论康德的终极目的概念

The Highest Good or Meaning: On Kant’s Concept of the Final End

《实践理性批判》中的至善学说将幸福视作至善的构成要素,并通过配当幸福的概念将至善规定为德福一致。基于康德对幸福的理解及其伦理学对质料性的幸福原则的拒斥,康德将该至善规定为“纯粹实践理性”的整全对象乃至道德的终极目的的做法面临着根本困难。在康德的后续著作,尤其是《判断力批判》的相关讨论中,康德论证至善与道德的终极目的等同的尝试亦未完全成功。但第三批判在目的论问题的视域中对世界的终极目的的思考,具有独立于至善概念的理论价值。基于对意义而非对幸福或至善的需要的终极目的概念,能够为世界性道德秩序即“道德世界”的可实现性的信念做最终辩护。

The doctrine of the highest good in Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason considers happiness as a constitutive element of the highest good and defines the latter as the “unity of virtue and happiness” through the concept of “worthiness to be happy”. On the basis, Kant’s understanding of happiness and his rejection of the material principle of happiness, we have fundamental difficulties in defining the highest good as the whole object of the pure practical reason. Kant’s attempt to justify the equation of the highest good with the final end of morality is also unsuccessful in the relevant discussions in his subsequent works, especially Critique of Judgment. However,the Third Critique’s conception of the finalend of the world in the context of the teleological problem has theoretical value independent of the concept of the highest good. This concept of final end based on the need for meaning rather than happiness or the highest good can ultimately justify the rational belief about the achievability of a moral order of the world, i.e. the “moral world”.