從意識經驗到道德良知─儒佛觀點的初步思考

Conscious Experience and Moral Conscience: A Preliminary Reflection from the Philosophies of Confucianism and Buddhism

本文初步思考意識與良知間的關係，除前言和結語，主要分三個部分：首先儒家以「仁」、「良知」等為主要的思想中心，而「仁」、「良知」之所以成立，感覺知覺經驗是其中的關鍵，因有所感、有所不忍而有仁心義行的道德行為。其次，就佛教的觀點來說，苦痛是經驗界的事實，佛教之「苦諦」概念已然預設意識經驗必然存在，而也因為苦的感知，才易有道德意識的生起，而這樣的道德意識暨心識品質直接關乎「業」的輪迴或解脫，顯示心理和倫理間緊密相關。最後，本文指出意識經驗賦予道德意義，意識與良知密不可分，此從拉丁文、西班牙文、法文及十七世紀前之英文，不分意識與良心之字詞使用可知；可知道德善惡或正誤等命題的判定，應關乎苦樂經驗之實存預設。如此，現今主流學界的意識研究，在科學進路下強勢主導，重視知覺經驗的生理面而忽略倫理面，當有一定的反思空間。

In this article the author discusses about the relationship between consciousness and conscience. In addition to the preface and conclusion, this article is divided into three parts: first, the importance of conscious feelings from the Confucian points of view is discussed, suggesting that consciousness is the premise to recognize moral concepts such as “benevolence” and “conscience”, and is the basis for generating moral behaviors. Secondly, it is pointed out that experience of pain is a fact in this empirical world, and the Buddhist “Noble Truth of Suffering” already presumes the necessary existence of conscious experience. It would be our perception of pain that facilitates the formation of morality. According to Buddhism, the quality of our mental consciousness is directly related to the continuum or liberation of karma, showing a close correlation between psychology and ethics (or soteriology). Finally, it is shown that our moral sense and conscious experience are deeply associated, just as the words consciousness and conscience are inseparable in Latin, Spanish, French, and also English before the seventeenth century. The moral judgments of good and evil or right and wrong presuppose real existences of our experience of suffering and pleasure. Thus, that the mainstream academic study of consciousness at the present stage, which is strongly dominated by the scientific approach, focuses on the physiological side of perceptual experience while ignoring the ethical side leaves much space for reflections.