公德、私德之分與儒家傳統

The Distinction between Public Virtues and Private Virtues and the Confucian Tradition

二十世紀初梁啟超發表一系列名為《新民說》的政論文章，其中包括〈論公德〉與〈論私德〉兩節。梁啟超認為：儒家傳統論私德，已相當完備，但關於公德的論述相當貧乏。因此，為了培養中國人的國家意識與國民意識，使中國人成為現代公民，他特別提倡「公德」。這與後來李國鼎提倡「第六倫」，有異曲同工之處。梁啟超並無意否定私德的重要性，而是視私德為公德之基礎，公德為私德之延伸。但他未考慮到私德與公德之間可能發生衝突。在現代社會，公領域與私領域，以及公德與私德必須畫分開來，因為這種畫分可以使公德與私德各安其位，在公領域與私領域中各自發揮其功能。本文作者以孔子對管仲的評價與其「父為子隱，子為父隱」的主張，以及孟子關於「舜為天子，瞽瞍殺人」的議論為例，說明孔、孟思想中亦有公德與私德之辨。最後，作者討論近來大陸學者有關公德與私德的爭論，並強調公德與私德之辨必須置於現代社會的脈絡中來理解。

In the early twentieth century, Liang Qichao published a series of essays under the general title ''Discourse on the New Citizens'' (Xinmin shuo) , which included two essays ''On Public Virtues'' and ''On Private Virtues.'' Liang believes that the Confucian discourse on private virtues is quite complete, but the discussion on public virtues is rather poor. Therefore, in order to cultivate the national consciousness and civil consciousness of the Chinese people, and make the Chinese people become modern citizens, he especially advocated ''public virtues.'' This is similar to Li Guoding's promotion of the ''sixth ethical relationship.'' Liang did not deny the importance of private virtues, but regarded private virtues as the foundation of public virtues and public virtues as an extension of private virtues. But he did not take into account the possible conflict between private and public virtues. In modern society, the public sphere and the private sphere, as well as public virtues and private virtues, must be separated, because this division can allow public and private virtues to take their own places and perform their functions in the public and private spheres. The author of this article takes the remarks of Confucius and Mencius as examples to illustrate that Confucianism in ancient China also had a distinction between public and private virtues. Finally, the author discusses the recent debates among mainland Chinese scholars about public and private virtues, and emphasizes that the distinction between public and private virtues must be understood in the context of modern society.