What Makes an Action Right? 是什麼讓一件事是對的？

🔊The first theory was met in the last lesson. For the utilitarian, the right act is the one that produces the most well-being for everyone it affects, each person counting for one and nobody for more than one. Its strength is its impartiality. It has no place for the claim that my happiness matters more because it is mine, or that the suffering of a distant stranger matters less, and most of the moral reforms of the last two centuries, from the abolition of slavery to the protection of animals, were argued for in its terms. The Chinese philosopher Mozi had made the same move in the fifth century BCE. The disorders of the world, he taught, come from partiality, and the remedy is to “regard other people’s states as one regards one’s own, other people’s families as one regards one’s own, and other people’s persons as one regards one’s own.” He judged every policy by whether it benefited the people.

第一種理論，上一課已經遇過了。對效益主義者來說，對的行為就是為所有受影響的人產生最多福祉的那一個；每個人算一個，沒有人算超過一個。它的力量在於不偏私。它容不下這樣的主張：我的幸福比較重要，因為那是我的；或者，一個遠方陌生人的苦比較不重要。過去兩個世紀大多數的道德改革，從廢除奴隸制到保護動物，都是用它的語言來論證的。中國哲學家墨子在西元前五世紀就走了同一步。他教導，天下的禍亂來自「別」（偏私），對治的辦法是「視人之國若視其國，視人之家若視其家，視人之身若視其身」。他評判每一項政策，看的是它是否利於人民。

🔊Kant begins from a different observation. “Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good, without qualification, except a good will.” Intelligence, courage, and happiness itself can all be put to bad use. Only the will to do right is good in every circumstance, and its goodness does not depend on what it achieves. He uses the shopkeeper as his example. A prudent tradesman “does not overcharge, but keeps a fixed price for everyone, so that a child buys of him as well as any other.” People are honestly served. But if he does it because cheating would be bad for business, his act agrees with duty and has no moral worth. It has moral worth only if he does it because it is right.

康德是從另一個觀察出發的。「在世界之內，甚至在世界之外，除了一個善的意志，不可能設想任何東西可以無條件地稱為善。」聰明、勇氣，乃至幸福本身，都可能被拿去做壞事。只有「要做對的事」的那個意志，在每一種情境下都是善的；而它的善，並不取決於它成就了什麼。他用的例子就是那位店主。一位精明的商人「不抬價，對每個人都維持固定的價格，所以一個小孩向他買東西，跟任何別人一樣划算」。人們得到了誠實的服務。但是，如果他這樣做是因為欺騙對生意不好，他的行為只是「合乎」義務，並沒有道德價值。只有當他是因為這樣做是對的才這樣做，它才有道德價值。

🔊How do we know what duty requires? Kant’s test is that I must be able to will the principle I act on as a law for everyone: “Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” Suppose I need money and consider borrowing it with a promise to repay that I know I cannot keep. If everyone in need did this, no one would believe such promises, and the practice I am trying to exploit would not exist. My plan works only if others do not act as I do. I am making an exception of myself, and that, for Kant, is the mark of wrongdoing. The strength of the theory is that it explains why a person may not be sacrificed for the sum. Mencius draws the same line when he says of the sages that they would not commit one unrighteous act or kill one innocent person, though they could gain the whole world by it.

我們怎麼知道義務要求什麼？康德的檢驗是：我必須能夠意願我據以行動的那條原則，成為每一個人的法則：「你要只依照這樣的準則行動：你能夠同時意願它成為一條普遍法則。」假設我需要錢，考慮去借，並且許下一個我明知無法兌現的還錢承諾。如果每一個有需要的人都這樣做，就不會有人相信這種承諾，而我想要利用的這個慣例也就不存在了。我的計畫，只有在別人不像我這樣做的時候才行得通。我是在把自己當成例外；而對康德來說，這就是作惡的標記。這個理論的力量，在於它解釋了為什麼不可以為了總和而犧牲一個人。孟子談到聖人時劃的是同一條線：「行一不義、殺一不辜而得天下，皆不為也。」

🔊The oldest of the three theories asks a different question. Aristotle wants to know what kind of life is good for a human being, and his answer is that we flourish when we do well the things that are distinctive of our kind: “human good turns out to be activity of soul in accordance with virtue,” and this “in a complete life. For one swallow does not make a summer.” A virtue is a settled trait of character, and each lies between two ways of going wrong. Courage is between cowardice and rashness, generosity between meanness and waste. The mean is not a matter of arithmetic. It is to feel and act “at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way.”

三種理論當中最古老的一個，問的是另一個問題。亞里斯多德想知道的是：對人來說，哪一種人生是好的？他的答案是：當我們把自己這個物種特有的事做好的時候，我們就活得興旺：「人的善，原來就是靈魂合乎德行的活動」，而且是「在完整的一生當中。因為一隻燕子造不成夏天」。一項德行是一種穩定的品格特質；每一項都位於兩種出錯的方式之間。勇敢在怯懦與魯莽之間，慷慨在吝嗇與揮霍之間。這個「中道」並不是算術問題。它是「在對的時候、對於對的事、向著對的人、出於對的動機、以對的方式」去感受與行動。

🔊No rule can say in advance what that is. It is seen by a person of practical wisdom, who has become wise through experience, and virtue itself is acquired by practice: “we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.” On this view the honest shopkeeper is no longer tempted. He does not consult a rule or calculate an outcome. Cheating a child is simply not something he would do. Confucius describes the same ideal. The gentleman, he says, “has nothing he is set on and nothing he is set against. He sides with what is right.” The strength of the theory is that it is about a whole life, and that it finds a place for the feelings, the relationships, and the judgment that the other two leave out.

沒有任何規則能預先說出那是什麼。那要由一個有實踐智慧的人來「看出」，而他是透過經驗才變得有智慧的；德行本身，則是靠練習得來的：「我們做公正的事而成為公正的人，做節制的事而成為節制的人，做勇敢的事而成為勇敢的人。」照這個看法，那位誠實的店主已經不再受到誘惑了。他不查閱規則，也不計算結果。欺騙一個孩子，根本不是他會做的事。孔子描述的是同一個理想：「君子之於天下也，無適也，無莫也，義之與比。」這個理論的力量，在於它談的是整個人生，並且為另外兩種理論所遺漏的情感、關係與判斷找到了位置。

🔊Each theory has a case that embarrasses it. The utilitarian’s is the surgeon of the last lesson, or the sheriff who hangs an innocent man to stop a riot. Kant’s was put to him in his lifetime by the French writer Benjamin Constant. A murderer comes to your door and asks whether your friend, whom he means to kill, is hiding in your house. Kant replied that even here you may not lie. Truthfulness is a duty owed to everyone, and a lie, however kindly meant, damages the basis of all agreements. Few readers have followed him, and his defenders have worked ever since to show that his principles do not require the answer he gave. The difficulty for Aristotle is of another kind. Told to do what the virtuous person would do, I may fairly ask how to tell who the virtuous person is, and it seems that I must already know what is right in order to pick him out.

每一種理論，都有一個讓它難堪的案例。效益主義者的，是上一課的那位外科醫師，或是為了平息暴動而吊死一個無辜者的警長。康德的，是他在世時法國作家貢斯當對他提出的。一個兇手來到你家門口，問你的朋友（他打算殺掉的那個人）是不是藏在你家裡。康德回答：即使在這裡，你也不可以說謊。誠實是對每一個人都負有的義務；而一個謊言，不管出於多大的善意，都損害了一切約定的基礎。很少有讀者跟著他走；而為他辯護的人，從那時起就一直在努力證明，他的原則並不要求他所給的那個答案。亞里斯多德的困難是另一種。有人告訴我「去做有德之人會做的事」，我大可以問：怎麼分辨誰是有德之人？而看來我必須已經知道什麼是對的，才挑得出他來。

🔊One case from the Analects separates the three more cleanly than any trolley. The governor of She said to Confucius: “In my district there is a man called Upright Gong. His father stole a sheep, and the son gave evidence against him.” Confucius replied: “The upright in my district are different. A father covers for his son, and a son covers for his father. Uprightness lies in that.” The governor speaks for impartial law. A theft is a theft, and justice does not ask who the thief is. Confucius holds that the bond between parent and child is the root of all moral feeling, and that a society in which children inform on their parents has cut that root, whatever it gains in recovered sheep. Mozi would have sided with the governor, and so, on most readings, would Kant, though he would add that the son need not volunteer what he is not asked. Aristotle, who gave two books of his Ethics to friendship and family, is closer to Confucius. The quarrel is alive today wherever a law requires relatives to testify.

《論語》裡有一個案例，把這三者分得比任何電車都乾淨。葉公對孔子說：「吾黨有直躬者，其父攘羊，而子證之。」孔子回答：「吾黨之直者異於是：父為子隱，子為父隱，直在其中矣。」葉公代表的是不偏私的法。偷就是偷，正義不問偷的人是誰。孔子主張：親子之間的連結是一切道德情感的根；一個子女告發父母的社會，已經把那條根砍斷了，不管它找回了多少隻羊。墨子會站在葉公那一邊；照多數的讀法，康德也會，不過他會補充：沒有人問，兒子就不必主動說。亞里斯多德把《倫理學》的兩卷給了友愛與家庭，他比較接近孔子。凡是法律要求親屬作證的地方，這場爭論今天都還活著。

🔊It would be convenient if one theory were simply correct. Two centuries of argument have not produced a winner, and many philosophers now doubt that there will be one. Derek Parfit spent his last years arguing that the best versions of the three are “climbing the same mountain on different sides.” The Oxford philosopher W. D. Ross held that we have several distinct duties, to keep faith, to do good, to avoid harm, to be just, and that no formula ranks them. When they conflict we can only weigh them in the case before us, which brings back Mencius’s word quán.

如果其中一種理論就是正確的，那會很方便。兩個世紀的爭論並沒有產生贏家，而許多哲學家現在懷疑將來也不會有。帕菲特晚年一直在論證：這三者最好的版本，是在「從不同的側面攀登同一座山」。牛津的哲學家羅斯主張：我們有好幾種各不相同的義務，守信、行善、避免傷害、公正，而沒有任何公式為它們排出高下。當它們衝突的時候，我們只能在眼前的個案裡權衡它們；這就把孟子的那個「權」字帶回來了。

🔊In the meantime the theories can be used as lenses. Faced with a hard choice, one can ask three questions in turn. What will happen to everyone affected if I do this? Could I accept everyone’s acting on the principle I am about to act on, and am I using anyone? What would this choice make of me, and what would a person I admire do? When the three answers agree, as they do for the shopkeeper, one can act with confidence. When they disagree, one has at least found out where the difficulty lies.

在這之前，這些理論可以當作鏡片來用。面對一個困難的抉擇，可以依序問三個問題。如果我這樣做，所有受影響的人會怎麼樣？我能不能接受每個人都依照我即將依照的這條原則去行動？我有沒有在利用任何人？這個抉擇會把我造就成什麼樣的人？一個我敬佩的人會怎麼做？當三個答案一致的時候（就像那位店主的情況），人可以有把握地行動。當它們不一致的時候，至少已經找出困難在哪裡了。