ABSTRACT

To be moral is to be moved to act by reason; and to be moved to act by reason is to be moved by the good. But if reason moves us, what is the nature of its power to move? And what role does goodness play? These questions about rational motivation became a matter of fierce contention in the early modern period. An established theory of how reason moves us – the theory defended by late scholastics such as Suarez – met destructive opposition, from Hobbes, and this opposition eventually put the very possibility of rational motivation in doubt. Two questions were debated. The first was about power. Was there a power of reason to move us or was all power ordinary causation? The second was about the relation between morality as a motivating source of direction, and morality as a set of appraisive standards. Is one of these two aspects of morality primary and explanatory of the other as secondary to it? Or is one of these aspects even an illusion? Hobbes’ answers to these two questions threatened a complete ethical scepticism. Hume avoided this complete ethical scepticism, but at the price of a scepticism about practical reason in particular.

摘要

要有道德，就要有理性地行动。被感动以理性行事就是被感动。但是，如果理性使我们感动，那么它运动的力量的本质是什么？善良起着什么作用？在现代早期，这些关于理性动机的问题成为一个激烈的争论问题。由苏亚雷斯等后来的学者辩护的关于理性如何推动我们发展的既定理论遭到了霍布斯的破坏性反对，这种反对最终使人们对理性动机的可能性产生了怀疑。辩论了两个问题。首先是关于权力。是有理由使我们感动还是所有权力都是因果关系的呢？第二个是关于道德的动机作为指导的来源与道德作为一套评估标准之间的关系。道德的这两个方面中的一个是主要的，而另一方面的解释又是次要的？还是这些方面之一甚至是一种幻想？霍布斯对这两个问题的回答威胁到完全的道德怀疑主义。休ume回避了这种完全的道德怀疑，但是却以对实际原因的怀疑为代价。