中国早期道德、文化心态与秦汉大一统国家秩序初建

Early Chinese Morality,Cultural Mentality,and the Initial Establishment of the Unified National Order in Qin and Han Dynasties

“约”在先秦、秦汉史料中频繁出现,按约定性质及内容不同,大体可分为国约、军约和私约,基本涵盖了各类社会关系与国家治理各个方面,调节着当时的家国秩序。在早期治国理政过程中,以“约信”为代表的道德规范长久以来既作为法律之外的重要秩序补充,也在秦汉大一统国家创建初期扮演着“通行法”的角色,其中有些约盟甚至在秦汉大一统国家建立后,成为万世不易的“祖制”。“约信”通过对双方未来的一些可能行为提前进行约束,为中国早期家国思想体系与中国早期道德文化的形成奠定了基础。随着“大一统”国家制度建设的不断完善,虽然“约”逐渐被具体的成文法令所取代,但其中的某些道德伦理规范性质较强、政治道德色彩浓厚的约定也成为法令的一部分。

“Treaty”,frequently appearing in historical materials of the pre-Qin and Qin-Han dynasties,can be roughly divided into national treaties,military treaties,and private treaties according to their nature and content,which basically cover all aspects of social relations and national governance,regulating the country order at that time.In the early country governance,the moral norms represented by“treaty”have long served as important supplements to the order beyond the law,and also played the role of“common law”.Some“treaty”even became an eternal“ancestral system”after the establishment of the unified state.The“treaty”laid the foundation for the formation of China's early national ideology and early moral culture by constraining in advance some possible future behaviors of both parties.With the continuous improvement of the unified national system,“treaty agreements”have been gradually replaced by specific written laws and regulations,while some of them,with strong moral and ethical norms and marked stamp of politics and morality,have also become part of the laws and regulations.