康德论历史性信仰的明智情形
Abstract
Chinese translation of a revised version of a conference paper originally entitled "Kant on the Prudential Status of Historical Faith". Here is the original abstract in English: Because his ethical theory is grounded on the assumption that actions are virtuous only to the extent that they are motivated by the moral law, Kant has rarely, if ever, been regarded as a friend of prudence. That he is also not an enemy of prudence has been demonstrated by several recent studies of Kant’s moral philosophy. What has heretofore gone unnoticed, however, is that in explaining the genuine (and possibly indispensable) role played by empirical religious traditions, Kant appeals explicitly to the prudential status of what he calls “historical faith”. This paper will carefully examine Kant’s references to prudence in his book, Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason, demonstrating that the prudential status of historical faith is the key to understanding both its limitations (as no more than the vehicle of true religion, not the moral core) and its real value. The wise person will be religious, in one form or another, because to abandon any and all prudential appeals to a faith-based vehicle for morality would render the goal of living a good life extremely difficult, if not impossible, for embodied beings to achieve.