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古代中国人对自杀的道德评价,与古代西方人很不同。古代的西方社会(启蒙时期前的欧洲)大部分对自杀的道德讨论,都是关于为自己的自杀,并且大都对这种自杀作一负面的评价。古代(民国以前)的中国社会,也同意为自己的自杀在道德上而言大都是错误的。然而,与古代西方社会不同,很少人对为自己自杀的个人权利作出辩护。古代中国人虽然也有对某些特殊的为自己自杀作出讨论(例如讨论为保持尊严而自杀),但大部分道德上的争论,都是集中于在古代相当普遍的为他人自杀。古代中国人并不认为为他人自杀是犯了道德上的错误,所以不需要为这个行动辩护。相反,在某些情况下如不肯自杀,才需要为不自杀而辩护,解释为何在这些情况下竟然不自杀。本文会分析儒家伦理对中国人自杀观的影响,并且把这些观点陈述为六个论题。笔者认为这六个论题,已充分地把儒家传统对自杀伦理的多元思考陈述出来。
Ancient Chinese moral evaluation of suicide, and the ancient Westerners are very different. Most of the ancient western societies (pre-Enlightenment Europe) talked about most of their moral debates about suicide, about their own suicides, and most of them made a negative assessment of such suicides. In ancient China (before the Republic of China), Chinese society also agreed that most of their moral suicide was wrong. However, unlike ancient Western societies, few defended their individual rights to commit suicide. Although ancient Chinese also discussed certain suicides (for example, discussing suicide in order to maintain their dignity), most of the moral controversy focused on the suicide of others who were quite common in ancient China. Ancient Chinese do not think it is a moral mistake to commit suicide. Therefore, there is no need to defend this action. On the contrary, in some cases, if they refuse to commit suicide, they need to defend themselves against suicide and explain why they should not commit suicide under these circumstances. This article analyzes the influence of Confucian ethics on the Chinese suicidal outlook and states these views as six topics. I think these six topics have fully stated the Confucian tradition’s pluralistic thinking on suicide ethics.