至善的追求──《大學》與康德哲學有關道德與政治關係之比較

The Pursuit of the Highest Good – A Comparison of the Relation between Morality and Politics in the Daxue and Kant’s Philosophy

儒家與康德基本上都強調道德是人的規定性所在，而且兩者也表現出對於整體人類在朝向其道德規定性的完成上，道德與政治之間的密切關係。這方面的思想具體呈現在兩者有關「天下平」和「永久和平」與至善的關聯性上。儒家與康德在道德與政治之間的關聯上，均不可能同意道德是為政治服務的。換言之，兩者的政治哲學均是以道德哲學為基礎。本文以《大學》做為先秦儒家道德政治思想的代表，將其和康德有關至善學說所透顯出的道德與政治之間的關聯進行說明與比較。這一比較的目的，除了梳理兩者在道德與政治關聯性背後思想觀念的異同外，筆者也想透過這樣的比較來對儒家思想對於當今政治思想還能具有什麼樣的意義提供些許的反思。

Fundamentally, Confucians and Kant both emphasized that morality was a definitive property of mankind. From a certain perspective, both also asserted a close relation between morality and politics in terms of humanity’s achievement of its moral destiny. This relation is concretely presented in the connection posited between Kant’s “perpetual peace,” the Daxue’s 大學 “peace under heaven” and the highest good. As for the relationship between morality and politics, neither Confucians nor Kant could countenance the claim that morality served politics. Put differently, both political philosophies were based in moral philosophy. In this paper, we take the Daxue as representative of the moral political thought of Pre-Qin Confucianism and compare it to the relationship between politics and morality in Kant’s doctrine of the highest good. The purpose of this comparison is not only to provide some insight into the meaning of Confucianism in contemporary political thought, but also to sort out the similarities and differences in the concepts informing morality and politics in Confucianism and Kantian philosophy.