公民德行：儒學與共和主義的比較研究

Abstract

西方當代政治哲學發展，從1970年代以正義與個人權利為中心，到1980年代轉向對個人作為社群成員身分之重視。進而，在「個人vs.社群」的持續論爭之外，亦出現一股匯合的趨勢。代表此種匯合趨勢者，即是公民資格 (Citizenship)理論，透過對自由主義的個人權利觀念與社群主義的群體身分二者的整合，展現嶄新的政治哲學研究視野。此一新的研究視野，強調公民德行(Civic Virtue)和公共精神(Public-spiritedness)的重要性，轉化自由主義立基於個人權利和自利的傳統思維主軸，發展出重視公民政治參與和公共責任的共和主義視野。本人近年來研究儒學與西方近代啟蒙傳統以下現代性思維之會通，檢視中國儒學傳統能否與時推移，融通民主、科學等現代世界的主流價值與制度建構。本計畫延續此一研究導向，擬以「公民德行」為主題，進行儒學與西方共和主義思潮之比較探討。西方晚近共和主義思潮包括亞理斯多德式共和主義與公民共和主義，因此本計畫將分兩期進行：第一年將以積極政治參與責任與公共精神為主要脈絡，進行儒學與古典共和主義的比較；第二年則將以「政治自由：積極自由抑或消極自由？」為主軸，進行儒學與公民共和主義之比較研究。

In term of the development of contemporary Western political philosophy, admittedly, there is an important shift from the justice and rights-based theory in the 1970s to the concepts of community and membership in the 1980s, and further, to focus on the convergence between liberalism and communitarianism, i.e. the emergence of the republicanism or citizenship theory. As a new perspective for the studies of political philosophy, the citizenship theory emphasizes the importance of civic virtue and public-spiritedness, and to transform the mainstream of liberalism based on individual rights and self-interest into a new thinking of republicanism which based on the active political participation and public responsibilities of citizen. In recent years, I have made an effort to reconcile Confucianism and liberalism based on their common ground of Enlightenment tradition. As a further study, this project will focus on the “civic virtue” to make a comparative exploration between Confucianism and Republicanism. The project includes two stages: first, I would investigate the comparative study between Confucianism and Aristotelian republicanism according to the clues of “active political participation and public responsibilities” in the first year, and then the comparative analyses between Confucianism and civic republicanism based on the issues of positive-negative liberty debate in the second year.