在“洛克之难”与“自然状态之难”之间——理解霍布斯的公共理性观念

Between the Lockean Horn and the State of Nature Horn——Understanding Hobbes’s Idea of Public Reason

公共理性理念在维持现代多元民主社会的稳定性过程中扮演了重要角色。作为公共理性学说的开创性范式,霍布斯的公共理性观念为当代公共理性理念的发展提供了重要的理论资源。为了从运用私人理性所导致的战争状态中摆脱出来,霍布斯通过契约的方式建构了公共理性。他认为公共理性是绝对的主权者的理性,但这种绝对的公共理性不可避免地陷入了“洛克之难”。与此同时,霍布斯认为个体仍然持有自我保存的权利。如果主权者要求个体做伤害其生命的事情,那么个体可以拒绝服从,而这会再次陷入公共理性试图避免的“自然状态之难”。由此可见,霍布斯的公共理性会面临一种两难困境。为了应对这个困境,当代学者大致提出了两种解决路径:第一种是限制仲裁者的权力,比如“限制范围”方案以及“原则优先”方案;另外一种则是通过“薄绝对性”的方式来消解主权者绝对权力所带来的危险。虽然这两种路径各自都有一定的合理性,但是前者会因为再一次引入私人理性而陷入“自然状态之难”,而后者也不能完全消除绝对主权者滥用权力的可能性。事实上,霍布斯的两难困境之所以难以被化解,是由于其直接从个体私人理性推出正确公共理性的推导路径所决定的。

The idea of public reason plays an important role in maintaining the stability of the modern plural and democratic society.As the pioneering paradigm of public reason theory,the conception of Hobbes’s public reason provides an important theoretical resource for the development of contemporary idea of public reason.In order to escape from the state of war caused by the use of private reason,Hobbes constructed public reason by a contract.He regarded the public reason as the reason of the absolute sovereign,but this absolute public reason inevitably fell into the“Lockean horn”.At the same time,Hobbes believed that the individual still have rights to self-defense,if the sovereign asked the individual to do something that hurts his life,the individual could refuse to obey,then it will once again fell into“the state of nature horn”,which public reason tried to avoid.Thus,Hobbes’s public reason would face a dilemma.In response to this dilemma,contemporary scholars have roughly proposed two paths:the first is to limit the power of the arbitrator,such as the“scope limitation”scheme and the“principle-first”scheme,and the other is to eliminate the danger of absolute power of the sovereign by“thin absolutism”.Although both paths each have certain reasonableness,the former will fall into“the state of nature horn”because of the introduction of private reason again,and the latter cannot completely eliminate the possibility of abuse of power by absolute sovereign.In fact,Hobbes’s dilemma is difficult to resolve because of his derivation path of deriving correct public reason directly from the individual’s private reason.