試論從孟子到王陽明一脈相承的儒家 良心理論的優點和不足

Abstract

Chinese Confucian theories of conscience think the conscience highlights human's “class nature” and “human awareness of their subjectivity. They take the conscience as the basis for a person as a person, which is also one kind of subjective awareness for persons to comply with the social ethics. This system was discussed in the Mencius. He takes the conscience as the primary and fundamental difference between human and animal, which is the way of existence for human beings. The later Confucianism inherited this idea and made Construction of ontology. Above is summary of the advantages of Chinese Confucian theories of conscience on studying the conscience mechanism. The deficiencies Chinese Confucian theories of conscience on studying the conscience mechanism is that from Mencius to Wang Yangming in the heart-mind theory system which can be traced to the same origin all theories emphasize the function and target of conscience but lack the analysis of the source and composition and other aspects of conscience. The deficiencies are mainly manifested in the following four aspects:First, they emphasize the congenital features of conscience, ignoring the role of social norms. The conscience is as the result of acquired learning, but the theories of conscience exaggerate transcendentalism of conscience, and they think the conscience as connatural qualities, ignoring the roles of basic social norms and other external factors in the process of the formation of the individual conscience. Second, traditional Chinese Confucian thinkers always emphasized the comprehensiveness, intuition and self-sufficiency of the conscience which place the conscience in a mysterious realm, resulting in short of concrete analysis on its content; they always take the sense of right and wrong of saint as the sense of right and wrong, and regard the saints’ classic text as the standard, ignoring the impacts of the era changes on the standard of conscience. Third, they emphasize the speculation of the conscience, but exaggerate the role of abstract thinking in cognition. The theories of conscience emphasize the roles of abstract thinking in cognition highlighting the subjective consciousness, which is the contribution of the Confucian theory of conscience; but they also greatly exaggerate the roles of abstract thinking in cognition one-sidedly, which will separate the unity of opposite relation between the cognition of sense and the cognition of thinking. Fourth, they emphasize the universality of the conscience, ignoring the subjectivity of the individual of the conscience, and exaggerate the role of conscience for individuals in moral life; they have not made a deeper analysis of the conscience mechanism.