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利無傷於德-明末清初天主教新義利觀初探

Profit Doesn't Hurt Virtue: On the New Catholic View of Righteousness and Profit in the Late Ming and Early Qing Dynasties

Abstracts


義利之辨是儒家思想傳統中的一個重要議題。傳統儒家認為利與義、德相對,主張重義輕利以及為善無意,即不為功利目的而為善。晚明入華的傳教士,借用儒家思想資源傳播天主教思想,就利與義、德之間的關係,與儒家士大夫展開了交流與對話,提出「利無傷於德」等主張,將傳統的義利之辨轉換成利德之辨,主張可以為了利而為善。天主教的重利思想,與晚明時期的商業發展頗為契合。本文首先梳理中國本土思想中的義利觀,其次討論天主教對義利關係的新理解,再次分析明清社會對天主教新義利觀的反應,最後探討天主教新義利觀的歷史影響。明末清初天主教新義利觀是明清天主教思想,與本土儒家思想交涉之後的產物,是晚明以來文明互鑒的一個典型案例。

Keywords

義利觀 天主教 儒家 思想交涉

Parallel abstracts


The distinction between righteousness and profit is an important issue in the Confucian tradition. Traditional Confucianism considers profit as opposed to righteousness and virtue and advocates the importance of righteousness, rather than of profit, and the doing of good without intention, i.e., doing good not for utilitarian purposes. The missionaries who came to China in the late Ming Dynasty borrowed the resources from Confucianism to disseminate Catholicism by engaging in exchanges and dialogues with Confucian scholars on the relationship between profit, righteousness and virtue, putting forward such ideas as "Profit does not harm virtue," which converted the traditional distinction between righteousness and profit into a distinction between profit and virtue, and advocated that one could still be good if one pursued profit for afterlife. Although the meaning of the so-called "profit, righteousness and virtue" in the Catholic writings has been changed, and it advocates that the most genuine and greatest benefits are for the afterlife, the idea of profit advocated by the Catholics is quite compatible with the development of commerce in the late Ming Dynasty, and it has had a profound influence on the society and thoughts of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. In this article, it firstly briefly sorts out the concept of righteousness and profit in Confucian thought, then discusses the new Catholic understanding of the relationship between righteousness and profit, then analyses the reaction of Ming and Qing societies to this new Catholic concept of righteousness and profit, and finally discuss the historical impact this new concept had. The new Catholic concept of righteousness and profit in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties was a product of the Catholic thought of the Ming and Qing dynasties interacting with the native Confucian thought, and is a typical case of civilizational mutual understanding since the late Ming.

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