現代社會與善之回復–Charles Taylor政治哲學之研究

Abstract

加拿大學者Charles Taylor以本體論的「善」的概念做為論述核心，認為現代性下之認同失根的問題，必須透過善的回復，才能重新尋回自我的意義，具體的作法便是在政治上採行愛國的自由政體，同時以承認政治論保障文化體的存續。對於政治共同體與文化社群間可能產生的高位善衝突，Taylor認為以整體共善作為基礎，透過理性的審議過程，定能得出當下最佳的解決方案。 在了解Taylor善的概念、共和主張及承認政治論後，我們將發現Taylor乃企圖整合共和主義與多元文化論，對於自由主義底下的程序主義加以排除，但他無法真正解決政治共同體與文化社群間的高位善衝突，反而留下的更劇烈的衝突可能。即便其論述仍存在著無法解決的矛盾，但他以理性對話作為調合的途徑，強調對文化差異的承認及尊重，的確在自由主義與持價值相對論的後現代主義之間，開闢出了一條不同的思維道路。

The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor is one of the most influential political theorists today. The concept of the ‘good’ constitutes the core in his philosophical and political thoughts, and is the object of my Thesis. Taylor believes that the retrieval of the good is the only way to resolve the identity crisis of modernity. To carry out the retrieval of the ‘good’ in political realm, he suggests that we should establish the patriotic liberal regime together with politics of recognition. He believes one could be able to deal with the conflicts of hypergoods between political and cultural communities by common deliberation. The ethical dimension of Taylor’s concept of the good is closely examined in Chapter 2. In Chapter 3, I demonstrate that the idea of practical reason is the link between Taylor’s concept of the good and his ideas of patriotic liberal regime and the politics of recognition. I suggest that in rejecting the procedural principle of liberalism, Taylor’s objective is to integrate republicanism with multiculturalism. However, he ultimately fails to achieve this objective because Taylor’s approach cannot solve the conflict between hypergoods. Moreover, Taylor’s conceptualization makes the conflict even more intense. However, though Tailor’s theory cannot solve the contradiction, his idea of reconciling the disputes by rational deliberation and the claim of the politics of recognition is still helpful to us.