道德在什么意义下需要宗教?四种形态的讨论

Is Moral Practice Dependent on Religious Belief?An Examination of Four Types of Theories

本文称主张道德实践完全依赖于宗教信仰的立场为'强义依赖论',它可以细分成'神律论'与'神爱论'这两种不同的理论形态。而'弱义依赖论'则是主张道德虽有独立于宗教信仰之外的理性基础,但因人类的有限性,因而在实现道德的可能性上,仍需有宗教信仰的支持。这种立场同样可以再细分出'实践设准论'与'终极关怀论'这两种不同的理论形态。本文透过对上述四种理论形态的讨论,最后将支持'终极关怀论'的立场,以说明我们是在道德实践需要宗教信仰提供生命虽有限但可无限的意义下,才接受道德需要宗教的理性论证。

Regarding the issue whether the moral practice is dependent on religious belief,one can derive his theoretical basis from two broad sources:one is called the theory of strong dependence,and the other is the theory of weak dependence.The first view states that the human being can only fulfill the moral requirement by completely depending on the religious belief;this view divides into two branches:divine command theory and theory of divine love.The second view holds that we are able to fulfill the moral obligation without appealing to religion.Having said that,the theory of weak dependence believes that,due to finiteness of human’s life,we eventually have to reach the goal by grounding the basis on the religion.The second view splits into two types:theory of practical postulate and theory of ultimate concern.This article argues to favor the theory of ultimate concern after a detailed discussion of these four types of theories.The religious beliefs cannot be completely excluded from the argument for the fulfillment of moral requirement because one needs to use religion as the basis to argue for the infiniteness of human’s life.