论人的道德权利与社会变革的合法性——反思孟子心性论的人文价值

在孔孟之道所象征的儒家文化传统中,孔仁孟义中的义和思孟学派中的心性都与孟子的思想人格紧密关联。义具有天下道义的奥义,它对于家中的亲长权力和国中的君父权力均有神圣的超越性,常以大义灭亲和替天行道标而出之;心性则是对《中庸》性命观念的创造性转化,突出了儒家的认识论和宇宙论的主体性与伦理性。在孟子思想体系中,心性与道义的结合,揭示出了人的普遍道德权利和伦理义务,也蕴含着其对天子、国君和权臣的世俗权力的伦理性超越和限制,其辩证的结论就是:当世俗权力侵害普遍道德权利时,社会变革就成为维护人的普遍道德权利的必然而正当的选择。

On Moral Rights and Justifications of Social Change: Reflecting on the Heart-Nature Theme of Mencius

In the Confucian tradition symbolized by The Tao of Confucius and Mencius,the doctrine of Mencius’ Righteousness in the Paragon of Confucian Humaneness(kong ren) and Mencius’ Righteousness(meng yi) has been associated with Heart-Nature(xin xing),which leads consequently to an intended personality of Confucian ethics and politics.The concept of righteousness,for Mencius,connotes the cosmological ethics under the heaven,transcending the secular powers of father in family and monarch in country under the auspices of heavenly sanctity.Such transcendence is often vindicated by Righteousness-Oriented Destruction of One’s Relatives(da yi mie qin) and The Overthrow of Government by Performing Heaven’s Mandate(ti tian xing dao).The concept of Heart-Nature in Mencius was the transformation of Heaven-Mandated-Nature(xing ming) from the Doctrine of the Mean(zhong yong),attesting to the subjectivity and ethics in Confucian epistemology and cosmology.The combination between Heart-Nature and Tao-Righteousness in Mencius reveals the universally existed moral rights and ethical obligations of human beings as well as the ethical transcendence and restrictions on secular powers of Son of Heaven,monarchs and dukes.The dialectics exposed in this relation between moral rights and its restrictions on administrative powers justifies social changes in cases of moral rights being violated and abused by administrative powers.