边沁理论的哈佛一课

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  言了了 楼主 2010-02-20 21:19:28

  教授迈克•杉德尔（Michael Sandel）开设的《公平正义》（Justice）课是哈佛大学最为热门的课程之一，至今已有超过一万四千名学生聆听过这门课程。它囊括时下热点话题，渗透政治哲学的历史流脉，关乎伦理准则与道德困境，拷问法律公正与人性曲折，并展示了人类思考的亘古价值和伟大力量。听罢不觉让人用仰望的姿态发出赞叹：这才是真正的大学课堂。[ Jeremy ] ••••••••••••••••••••••••• Episode One / Part One: The Moral Side of Murder The Course Introduction

  ■ Transcribed and Translated by 顾忆青

  If you look at the syllabus, you'll notice we read a number of great and famous books. Books by Aristotle, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill and others. You'll notice too from the syllabus we don't only read these books, we also take up contemporary political and legal controversy that raise philosophical questions. We'll debate equality and inequality, affirmative action, free speech versus hate speech, same sex marriage, millitary conscription - a range of practical questions. Why? Not just to enlive these abstract and distant books, but to make clear to bring out what's at stake in our everyday lives including our political lives, for philosophy? So we'll read these books and we'll debate these issues and we'll see how each informs and illuminates the others. 在教学大纲中，你会发现我们要阅读不少伟大的著作，包括亚里士多德，约翰•洛克，伊曼努尔•康德，约翰•斯图亚特•米尔，以及其他人的书。同样，你也会发现，我们不仅要读这些书，还要探讨当代政治及法律领域内的争端，并思考其背后的哲学问题。我们将对这些话题进行辩论，涉及平等与不平等、支持行为、言论自由与攻击性言论、同性婚姻、兵役征召等，涵盖一系列实际问题。究竟为何？这门课并非仅仅为了让这些抽象而又遥远的书籍可触可感，而是让我们更明确，在日常生活中，包括政治生活，哲学究竟起到了怎样的关键作用？因此，我们阅读这些书，对这些议题展开辩论，探讨彼此之间的联系，感悟相互的关照和启示。

  This may sound appealing enough but here I have to issue a warning. And the warning is this: To read these books in this way, as an exercise in self-knowledge. To read them in this way carries certain risks -risks that are both personal and political; risks that every student of political philosophy has known. These risks spring from the fact that philosophy teaches us and unsettles us by confronting us with what we already know. 这听起来很吸引人，但在此我要给大家提个醒。我要提醒你们：阅读这些书的时候，要把它作为认识自我的一种训练。阅读这些书是有风险的——包括个人风险和政治风险。作为政治哲学专业的学生，这些风险你们应该一清二楚。之所以会有风险，源于这样一个事实：哲学教导我们，使我们面对已知的事物，不再因循守旧。

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  言了了 楼主 2010-02-20 21:20:24

  There is an irony. The difficulty of this course consist in a fact that it teaches us what you've already known. It works by taking what we know from familiar unquestioned settings and making it strange. That's how those examples work, the hypotheticals with which we began with the mix of playfullness and sobriety. It's also how those philosophical books work. Philosophy estranges us from the familiar, not by supplying new information but by inviting and provoking a new way of seeing. 说来讽刺，学习这门课的难处正在于我们所学习的是我们已知的事物，将平日熟视无睹、毋庸置疑的一切变得陌生起来。刚才我举的例子就是这样，之前提到的假设，融合了趣味性和严肃性。你们所要阅读的哲学书籍也是如此。哲学让我们对熟悉的事物产生陌生感，它并不提供给我们新的信息，而是引导我们从一个新的角度看待它们。

  But, and here's the risk. Once the familiar turns strange, it's never quite the same again. Self-konwledge is like a lost innocent, however unsettling, you find it you can never be unthought or unknown. What makes this and your enterprise difficult but also riveting is that moral and political philosophy is a story, and you don't know where the story will lead, but you do know is that the story is about you. Those are the personal risks. 而风险正在于此。一旦我们熟悉的事物变得陌生，那它们就再也回不到原来的样子了。认识自我的过程，如同一个迷路的无知者，无论内心多么不安，你会意识到，你已经不能停止思考了。是什么让你的探索既困难重重，又充满乐趣？道德与政治哲学，就好像一个故事，你不清楚它将如何发展下去，但你清楚，这个故事与你息息相关。这正是你所要担负的个人风险。

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  言了了 楼主 2010-02-20 21:21:18

  Now where're the political risks? One way of introducing a course like this would be the promise you by reading these books and debating these issues, you'll become a better, more responsible citizen. You'll examine the presuppositions that public policy. You'll hone your political judgement. You'll become a more effective participant in public affairs. But this would be a partial and misleading promise. Political philosophy for the most part hasn't worked that way. You have to allow for the possibility that political philosophy may make you a worse citizen rather than a better one. Or at least a worse citizen before it makes you a better one. And that's because philosophy is a distant thing, even debilitating activity. 那么政治风险又是什么呢？我或许可以这么介绍这门课程，我会向你们承诺，通过阅读这些书，并探讨这些话题，你们将成为更好、更负责任的公民，你们将重新审视过去那些公共政策中的假设，你们将磨练自己的政治判断力，你们将为有效地参与到公共事务中去。但这一承诺不但片面，而且会误导你们。大部分的政治哲学并不是那样的。你必须考虑到，学习政治哲学，有可能非但没有让你成为更好的公民，反而使你变坏了。或者至少在你成为更好的公民之前，先使你变坏。那是因为，哲学的玄妙不易参透，它甚至会让你一蹶不振。

  And you see this going back to Socrates. There's a dialogue the gorgeous in which one of Socreates's friends, Callicles, tried to talk him out of philosophizing. Callicles tells Socrates, 'Philosophy is a pretty toy, if one indulges in it with moderation at the right time of life; but if one pursues it farther than one should it is absolute ruin. Take my advice', Callicles says. 'Abandon argument. Learn the accomplishment of active life. Take for your models, not those people who spend their time on these petty quibbles but those who have good livelihood and reputation and many other blessings.' So Callicles is really saying to Socrates: Quit philosophizing. Get real. Go to business school. 这可以追溯到苏格拉底。他的朋友卡利克勒试图说服苏格拉底放弃哲学。在这场精彩的对话中（见柏拉图《高尔吉亚篇》——译者注），卡利克勒这么对苏格拉底说：“年轻的时候，有节制地学习哲学，那么它是一样好东西；但倘若过度地研究它，那么它无疑会将你腐蚀毁灭。听我的劝告吧。”卡利克勒继续说道：“放弃你的争论。更积极地去生活。那些浪费时间研究些模棱两可之物的人不值得你效仿。你应该看看那些家当富足、声名斐然之辈是怎么生活的。”卡利克勒想对苏格拉底说的其实就是：放弃哲学。现实点。不如去商学院吧。

  And Callicles did have a point. He had a point because philosophy distances us from conventions, from established assumptions, from settled beliefs. Those are the risks, personal and political. 卡利克勒的说法有一点是正确的。哲学让我们摆脱过去的习惯，从预定的假设和固有的信条中挣脱出来。这些正是我所谓的风险——包括个人风险，以及政治风险。

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  言了了 楼主 2010-02-20 21:22:03

  And at the face of these risks there's a characteristic evasion. And the name of the evasion is scepticism. It's the idea that goes something like this. We didn't resolve once and for all, either the cases or the principles we're arguing when we began. And if Aristotle, and Locke, and Kant, and Mill, haven't solved these questions after all of these years. Who are we to think? That, we here in Sanders Theater over the course of this semester can resolve them. So maybe it's just a metter of each person having his or her own principles and there's nothing more to say about it. No way of reasoning. That's the evasion, the evasion of scepticism. 面对这些风险，我们有一个特别的回避方式。这种回避方式被称为怀疑论。怀疑论是这样的，我们不会一劳永逸地解决问题，不论是之前我们所探讨的案例或者原则。倘若亚里士多德、洛克、康德、米尔，这么多年来还没有为这些问题画上句号。那你觉得我们是谁？我们眼下正坐在桑德斯剧场里，通过一学期的课程，我们就可以解决它们。或许，每个人都还坚持着自己的原则，不容分说。不去进行推理思考。这就是在逃避，这就是怀疑论者的逃避。

  To each I'd offer the follwing reply. It's true these questions have been debated for a very long time. But the very fact that they've recurred and persisited may suggest, though they're impossible in one sense, they're unavoidable in another. And the reason that they're unavoidable, the reason that they're inescapable, is that we live some answer to these questions everyday. So scepticism, just throwing up your hands and giving up by moral reflection, is no solution. Immanuel Kant described very well the problems with scepticism when he wrote,'Skepticism is a resting place for human reason where it can reflect on dogmatic wanderings and gain some knowledge of the region, but it cannot be permanent dwelling place. Simply to acquiesce in skepticism can never suffice to overcome the restlessness of reason.' I've tried to suggest to these stories and these arguments, some sense of risk and temptation of the perils and the possibilities. 对此，我这样答复你们：这些问题确实已经争论多时了。然而事实上，它们依然在重复发生。这也许意味着，即便在一种情况下，它们不可能发生，但在另一种情况下，它们确是不可避免。它们之所以不可避免，是因为我们每天正活在这些问题的答案之中。因此，怀疑论并非解决之道，它只是让你放手，放弃应有的道德反思。对于怀疑论，伊曼努尔•康德曾作过如此精彩的描述，他说：“怀疑论乃人类理性之休憩所，在此处，理性能反省其独断的漫游旅程，检查理性所在之地域，俾在将来能更正确选择其途径。但此非能永久安居之处。但一任吾人只安于此，绝不足以克服理性之不安者也。”（见康德《纯粹理性批判》——译者注）我试图讲述这些故事，提出这些观点，同时我也面对一些风险。

  I would simply conclude by saying that the aim of this course is to awaken the restlessness of reason and to see where I might lead. Thank you very much. 简而言之，我总结一下，这门课程的目的是唤醒你们永不停歇的理性思考，然后看看我将把你们带向何方。非常感谢。

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