马克思理论视野中的社会契约论

Theory of social contract in Marx′s perspective

马克思在建构自己理论的过程中 ,对西方近代自由主义的社会契约论思想进行了批判。他的批驳主要体现在 3个方面 :反对社会契约论所采用的个人主义的理论前提 ,认为人本质上是社会性存在 ;揭示社会契约论所预设的个人自由的实质 ,认为这只是形式的自由 ,人的本质同人的存在处于尖锐对立之中 ;在研究方法上 ,认为在对社会 (包括对社会的经济形态和政治制度 )进行的科学分析中 ,应坚持以经验为基础 ,而社会契约论者所采用的高度抽象的论证方式 ,因袭的是传统社会理论的抽象研究方法论范式。

Three main aspects of Marx's method clash with the assumptions of the social contract tradition. The first is his opposition to the individualist premises. The second is his belief that the formal freedom postulated in liberal theory provides the framework of a society in which the majority of people enjoy little substantive freedom. The third is Marx′s commitment to empirically grounded research and his distrust of the high level of abstraction at which so much previous political theory has been couched.