Nine Freedom and the Foundation of Right(2)
第九章 自由与权利的基础(2)
THE FOUNDATION OF LAW
法律的基础
It is a telling sign of the difficulty and complexity of Hegel’s political thought that it has been subject to such conflicting interpretations. This is especially the case with regard to Hegel’s views on the foundation of law. Hegel has sometimes been read as a voluntarist, as someone who bases right on the will rather than reason.9 In this vein, Hegel has been seen as the last great spokesman in the modern voluntarist tradition, which begins with Hobbes and Grotius and blossoms in Rousseau and Kant. However, Hegel has also been read as just the opposite: as a rationalist, as someone who derives right from reason and gives it a value independent of the will.10 Accordingly, some scholars have placed Hegel in the natural law tradition, a tradition which ultimately goes back to Aristotle and Aquinas. Finally, Hegel has also been understood as an historicist, as someone who thinks that law is ultimately based on the history and culture of a people.11 In this respect Hegel has been placed in the tradition of Montesquieu, Möser and Herder, who saw law as one part of the spirit of a nation.
黑格尔的政治思想一直遭到如此多的相互冲突的阐释，这本身就是它的困难与复杂性的极具说服力的表征。这种情形尤其适合于黑格尔关于法律基础的观点。黑格尔当时被解读为一个意志论者，这种人把权利建立在意志而非理性的基础之上9。通过这种方式，黑格尔一直被视为现代意志论传统中最后一位伟大的代言人，这种传统始于霍布斯和格劳秀斯，而在卢梭和康德那里达到鼎盛。然而，黑格尔也被解读为与之势不两立者，认为权利来源于理性并且赋予它们独立于意志的价值的理性主义者10。相应地，某些学者把黑格尔放进自然法的传统之中，这个传统最终可以回溯到亚里士多德或者阿奎那。最后，黑格尔还被理解为一个历史主义者，这种人认为法律最终建基于一个民族的历史与文化11。在这方面，黑格尔被放入孟德斯鸠、摩塞尔和赫尔德的传统之中，他们把法律看作是民族精神的一部分。
It is a no less striking sign of the subtlety and sophistication of Hegel’s political thought that all these interpretations are both right and wrong, both partially correct and partially incorrect. It was Hegel’s grand aim to synthesize all these traditions, to preserve their truths and cancel their errors in a single coherent account of the basis of law. In a phrase, Hegel’s doctrine was a rational historicism or an historicist rationalism, a rational voluntarism and a voluntarist rationalism.
所以这些阐释既对又错，既部分正确，又部分错误，这也是黑格尔政治思想既错综复杂又微渺难识的一个同样引人注目的表征。黑格尔的伟大目标就是综合所有这些传统，在一个关于法律基础的一以贯之的解释中保存它们的真理和删除它们的错误。用一个词组来说，黑格尔的学说是一种理性的历史主义或者一种历史主义的理性主义、一种理性的意志论和意志主义的理性主义。
But such apparent oxymorons raise the ultimate question: Did Hegel really have a coherent doctrine? Before we can assess this question, we must first examine the strengths and weaknesses of the opposing interpretations, and consider more closely what Hegel accepted and rejected from these conflicting traditions.
但是这种表面上的矛盾修辞法（oxymorons）提出了根本的问题：黑格尔真的有一个一以贯之的学说吗？在我们能够评估这个问题之前，我们必须首先来考查一下这些相互对立的阐释的力量与缺点，更为切近地考察黑格尔从这些传统中接受与拒绝了什么。
There is much evidence in favor of the voluntarist interpretation. Hegel justifies right on the basis of freedom, which he understands as the expression of the will (PR §4A). Furthermore, he defines the good in terms of the will, as the unity of the particular will with the concept of the will (PR §129). Finally, he places himself firmly in the voluntarist tradition when he states that Rousseau was right to make the will the basis of the state (PR §258R). It is indeed of the first importance to see that Hegel denied one of the fundamental premises of the natural law tradition: that value exists within the realm of nature, independent of the will (VRP III, 93). He accepts one of the basic theses of Kant’s Copernican revolution in ethics: that the laws of reason are created by us and and not imposed upon us by nature.
有许多证据偏向意志论的阐释。黑格尔在自由的基础上证明了权利的正当性，他把权利理解为意志的表现（PR第4节补充）。此外，他根据意志把“善”定义为特殊的意志与意志概念的统一性（PR第129节）。最后，在他陈述卢梭把意志当作国家的基础是对立的之时，他把自己坚定地放入到意志论的传统之中（PR第258节附释）。事实上第一重要的是看到，黑格尔否定了自然法传统的一个根本前提——价值存在于自然的领域之中，独立于意志（VRP. Ⅲ.第93节）。他接受了康德在伦理学中的哥白尼式的革命的一个基本论题：理性的法则是我们创造的，而非自然加诸我们的。
However, there is also much evidence against the voluntarist reading. It is a central thesis of the voluntarist tradition that whatever the will values is good simply because the will values it. But Hegel protests against the purely formal and abstract will chiefly because the will alone cannot be a source of the law (PR §§135–40). It is also a basic premise of the voluntarist tradition that nothing can be good in itself or in nature, independent of human agreements or contracts. But Hegel insists that some things are valuable in themselves, whether they are enshrined into law or recognized by governments (PR §100R). Hegel’s distance from the voluntarist tradition could not be greater when he attacks the social contract theory. If we make right depend on the will of the individual, he argues, we undermine all obligation because a person will have the right to quit the contract whenever he dissents from it (PR §§29R, 258R).
然而，也有存在着大量的反对意志论的解读的证据。意志论传统的一个核心论题：无论意志是什么，价值都是善的，这仅仅是因为意志重视它。但是黑格尔反对纯粹形式的和抽象的意志，这主要是因为，单单意志不能成为法律的来源（PR第135—140节）。意志论的传统还有一个基本的前提，即如果不依赖于人的统一或者契约，没有什么自在地或者依其本性是善的。但是，黑格尔坚持认为，某些事物自在地是有价值的，无论政府是否庄严地把它们载入法律，或者奉为神圣（PR，第100节附释）。在黑格尔攻击社会契约论之时，他和意志论传统之间的距离已经无以复加了。他论证说，如果我们使得权利依赖于个体的意志，那么，我们就侵蚀了所有义务的基础，因为一个人有权利放弃契约，无论他是否对它持有异议（PR，第29节附释，258节附释）。
There is just as much evidence for the rationalist as the voluntarist interpretation. Hegel seems to endorse the central principle of rationalism when he writes that ‘in a political constitution nothing should be recognized as valid unless it agrees with the right of reason’ (VVL IV, 506/281).12 Although Hegel bases right on the will, it is necessary to add that he defines the will in terms of reason, so that it seems to amount to little more than an imperative of practical reason. Hence he stresses that there is no separation between the will and thought because the will is really only ‘a special manner of thinking’: ‘thinking translating itself into existence, thinking as the drive to give itself existence’ (PR §4A). It is also noteworthy that Hegel makes a sharp distinction between the objective will and the subjective will, where he virtually identifies the objective will with rational norms. He then stresses that the norms of practical reason have an objective validity whether or not they are recognized by the subjective will, which consists in only individual desires (PR §§126, 131, 258R). When he stresses the objectivity of norms against the formality and particularity of the subjective will he is clear that their objectivity consists in their rationality (PR §§21R, 258R).
理性主义阐释的证据与意志论阐释的几乎同样多。当黑格尔写道，“在一个政治宪政中，没有什么应该被承认为有效的，除非它同样是理性的权利”（VVL，IV, 506/281）12，他似乎推崇理性主义的核心原则。尽管黑格尔把权利建基于意志之上，但是有必要补充一点，他是依据理性定义意志的。因此，这似乎不多不少相当于实践理性的命令。他强调说，意志与思想不可分离，因为意志实际上只是“思想的一种具体方式”：“思想把它自身翻译为存在，思想作为赋予它自身的存在的冲动”（PR第4节补充）。还有一点值得注意，黑格尔在主观意志和客观意志之间作了明显的区分，他实际上将客观意志等同于理性的规范。然后，他强调说，实践理性的规范具有客观的有效性，无论它们是否得到只存在于个体欲望中的主观意志的承认（PR第126节，131节，258节附释）。当他强调与主观意志相对立的规范的客观性之时，他对于规范的客观性就在于它们的理性之中这一点了然于胸（PR第21节附释、第258节附释）。
Still, there are at least two serious difficulties with the rationalist interpretation. First, Hegel never accepted the natural law doctrine, so central to rationalism, that norms exist in nature or in some eternal realm, independent of human activity. For Hegel, the ultimate basis of the law – and here he shows his voluntarist loyalities – lies in freedom, which cannot be understood apart from the will. Second, although Hegel insists that the will consists in and depends on thinking, he also stresses the converse as well: that thinking consists in and depends on willing (PR §4A). This is not a mere gesture on Hegel’s part, a routine recognition of the equality of opposites; rather, it reflects his teaching, which he develops at great length in the Encyclopedia (§§440–82), that all the stages in the development of spirit are simply ‘the way by which it produces itself as will’ (PR §4R). True to the voluntarist tradition, therefore, Hegel assigns primacy to the role of the will in the development of reason. Reason is for him essentially a form of practical intelligence.
但是仍然至少有两个严重的困难困扰着理性主义的阐释。首先，黑格尔从来不曾接受自然法学说，而这种学说对于理性主义是如此核心，以至于规范就存在于自然或者某种永恒的领域之中，独立于人类活动。对黑格尔而言，法律的最终基础——在这里，他显示了对于意志论的忠诚——在于不能从自由之外得到理解的自由之中。其次，尽管黑格尔坚持认为，意志就在于思维之中，并且赖于思维，但是他也强调相反的一面：思维就存在于意志之中，并且端赖于意志（PR第4节补充）。从黑格尔的角度而言，这不仅仅是一种姿态、一种按部就班的对于对立者的平等性的承认，毋宁说，它反映了他在《哲学百科全书》中详尽无遗地发展出来的学说（第440—82节），亦即，精神发展的所有阶段都仅仅是“它产生作为意志的它自身的方式”（PR第4节附释）。因此，对于意志论传统来说，真实的是黑格尔在理性的发展进程中把优先性分配给了意志的角色。理性对他来说本质上是实践理智的形式。
The historicist interpretation has no less evidence in its behalf than the voluntarist and rationalist readings. In his youth Hegel was deeply influenced by the historicist tradition.13 He acknowledged that debt in the Philosophy of Right when he praised Montesquieu’s ‘genuinely philosophical viewpoint’ that ‘legislation in general and its particular determinations should not be considered in isolation and in the abstract but rather as dependent moments within one totality, in the context of all the other determinations, which constitute the character of a nation and an age’. It is within such a context, Hegel significantly adds, that laws ‘gain their genuine significance and hence also their justification’ (PR §3R). In the Philosophy of Right Hegel would endorse other central doctrines of historicism. First, that though they can be changed, constitutions cannot be made (§§273R, 298A). Second, that the policies of a government should be in accord with the spirit of a nation, in agreement with its concrete circumstances and way of life, and not imposed from above by some leader or committee (§§272, 274, 298A).
历史主义的阐释能够为自己找到证据并不比意志论的和理性主义的解读少。在青年时期，黑格尔深受历史主义传统的影响。13他在《法哲学》中表彰了孟德斯鸠的“真正哲学的观点”。他说：“立法就其一般的和特殊的规定而言，不应该被看作是独立的和抽象的，而毋宁应该被看作是一个总体性中的、在所有其他规定的语境中的相互依赖的环节，这些环节构成了一个民族和一个时代的特征。”这是他承认自己从历史主义中受惠良多。黑格尔意味深长地补充说，正是在这种语境之中，法律“赢得了它们真正的意义和它们因此而得到的证成”（PR第3节附释）。在《法哲学》中，黑格尔赞同历史主义的其他核心观点。首先，尽管宪政可能会改变，但是它们不能被创制（第273节附释、第298节补充）。其次，一个政府的政策应该和民族精神相一致，和它具体的环境与生活方式保持相符合，而不是由某个领导或委员会自上而下地强加的（第272节、274节、298节补充）。
But the historicist interpretation too suffers from fatal problems. Hegel makes a sharp distinction between the historical explanation of a law and its conceptual demonstration, warning us in the firmest tones never to confuse them (PR §3R). To establish the moral validity of a law, he argues, it is not sufficient to show that it arose of necessity from its historical circumstances. Since circumstances are constantly changing, this cannot provide a general justification for a law or institution. If we show that a law came from specific circumstances in the past, that is all the more reason to conclude that it is no longer valid under new circumstances in the present. Hegel also could not accept the relativism implicit within historicism. If we attempt to justify a law by showing that it plays a crucial role in a culture, then we have to accept the value of all laws and institutions, no matter how morally reprehensible. It is indeed telling that Hegel points out just this consequence of historicism with regard to slavery (PR §3R). Such a consequence was sufficient for him to reject the doctrine that sanctioned it.
但是历史主义的阐释也遭受了某些致命的困难。黑格尔明显地区分了法律的历史阐释和它的概念的证明，以最坚定的音调警告我们不要混淆它们（PR第3节附释）。他论证说，为了建立起法律的道德有效性，指出它必然来自它的历史环境是不够的。既然环境在不断地发生变化，它就不可能提供法律或者制度的一般性的证成。如果我们显示出法律来源于过去的某些特定的环境，那么，就更加有理由推断出，在当前的新的环境之中，它就不再有效了。黑格尔也不能接受蕴含在历史主义之中的相对主义。如果我们试图通过指出法律在文化中扮演至关重要的角色来证成法律，那么，我们就必须接受所有法律和制度的价值，而不管它们在道德上是如何受到指责。非常具有说服力的是，黑格尔联系奴隶制来公正地指出了历史主义的这种后果（PR第3节附释）。那样一个后果足以让他拒绝这种认可奴隶制的学说。
It is one of Hegel’s striking departures from historicism – and one of his most telling endorsements of the natural law tradition – that he insisted that there are certain universal and necessary principles of morality and the state. Hence in the Philosophy of Right he states that everyone deserves certain basic rights just in so far as they are human beings, regardless of whether they are Catholics, Protestants or Jews (§209); and he is clear that there are some fundamental goods that are inalienable and imprescriptable for all persons in so far as they are free beings, such as the right to have religious beliefs and to own property (§66). Then, in a later essay, Hegel praises the monarch of Württemberg for introducing a rational constitution that comprises ‘universal truths of constitutionalism’ (VVL, IV, 471/254). Among these truths are equality before the law, the right of the estates to consent to new taxes, and the representation of the people.
黑格尔背离历史主义的一个引人注目之处是——也是他推崇自然法传统时最具说服力的一点——他坚持认为，道德和国家有几条特定的和必然的原则。因此，在《法哲学》中，他声明，所有人都应该得到最基本的权利，只是因为他们是人，而不管他们是天主教徒、新教徒还是犹太人（第209节）；他非常清楚，有某些最基本的善对于所有人而言都是不可剥夺的和不可侵犯的，因为他们是自由的存在者，比如具有宗教信仰的权利和拥有财产的权利（第66节）。然后，在他的晚期论文中，黑格尔表彰了维滕堡的君主，因为他采用了包含着“宪政主义的普遍真理”的理性宪法（VVL，IV, 471/254）。这些真理中包含法律面前一律平等，同意新税收的产权，代表人民的权利。
The problems with all three readings raise anew the question: Does Hegel really have a single coherent doctrine, one that saves the strengths and cancels the weaknesses of voluntarism, rationalism and historicism? He indeed does have such a doctrine, though it is profoundly metaphysical, resting upon his absolute idealism.
所有这三种解读所具有的难题又提出了新的问题：黑格尔真的有一套唯一的一以贯之的学说，而这个学说节省力量，并去除了意志主义、理性主义和历史主义的缺点？他的确有一套这样的学说，尽管它是极度形而上学的，建立在他的绝对观念论的基础之上？
Hegel’s theory about the sources of normativity is based on his social and historical conception of reason, which ultimately derives from his Aristotelian view that universals exist only in re or in particular things. The fundamental claim behind this conception is that reason is embodied in the culture and language of a people at a specific place and time. There are two more basic theses behind this claim, both of them deeply Aristotelian. First, the embodiment thesis: that reason exists as the specific ways of talking, writing and acting among a specific people at a specific time. This thesis states that to understand reason, we must first ask ‘Where is reason?’, ‘In what does it exist?’ It claims that the answer must lie in the language, traditions, laws and history of a specific culture at a specific time and place. Second, a teleological thesis: that reason also consists in the telos of a nation, the fundamental values or goals that it strives to realize in all its activities. The teleological thesis derives from Hegel’s immanent teleology, which he applies to the historical world as well as the natural. Hegel thinks that just as each organism in the natural world has a formal–final cause, so each organism in the social world has such a cause, which consists in its defining values or ideals. In his philosophy of history Hegel will argue that these values and ideals play a decisive role in determining the actions of people in a culture, even if they do not pursue them in an organized and co-ordinated manner, and even if they are not aware of them (pp. 267–70).
黑格尔关于规范性的来源的理论建基于社会的和历史的理性概念之上，这种概念最终来源于他的亚里士多德式的观点，即共相只存在于事物之中（in re）或者具体的事物之中。这种观念背后的基本主张是，理性具体化为一个民族在特定的空间和时间中的文化和语言。在这种主张背后有两个更加基本的论题，而且两者都根本上是亚里士多德式的。首先，具体化的主题：理性作为特定时代中特定民族的谈论、写作和行动的具体方式？这个主题声称，为了理解理性，我们首先必须追问“理性在哪儿？”“它存在于什么之中？”它主张，答案必定存在于特定的时空中的具体文化的语言、传统、法律和历史之中。其次，目的论的主题：理性也存在于一个民族的目的之中，一个民族在所有活动中发奋要实现的基本价值和目标之中。目的论的主题来源于黑格尔的内在目的论，他把目的论既应用于历史之中，也应用于自然之中。黑格尔认为，正如每一个自然世界中的有机体都有一个形式——目的因，每一个社会世界中的有机体也有一个这样的原因，而它就存在于它的确定的价值和理想之中。在历史哲学中，黑格尔论证说，这些价值和理想在规定某个文化中民族的行动时扮演了至关重要的角色，即使他们没有以一种组织严密和彼此呼应的方式追求这些价值和理想，即使他们没有觉察到它们（第267-270节）。
True to his immanent teleology, Hegel understands norms and values essentially as the formal–final causes of things. The norm or law for a thing consists in its formal–final cause, which is both its purpose and essence. In Aristotle, the form or essence of a thing and its purpose or end are essentially one and the same, because it is the purpose or end of a thing to realize or develop its inner essence or nature. Hence we determine whether something is good or bad, right or wrong, according to whether it realizes this purpose or essence. The good or right is that which promotes the realization of this end; the bad or wrong is that which prevents its realization.
黑格尔忠实于内在目的论，把规范和价值理解为本质上是事物的形式——目的因。一个事物的规范或者法律就在于它的形式——目的因之中，它既是事物的目标又是它的本质。在亚里士多德那里，一个事物的形式或者本质和它的目标或者目的本质是一个东西和同一者，因为他是一个事物为了实现或者发展它的内在本质或本性的目标或者目的。因此，我们依据某个事物是否实现了这种目标或者本质来规定这个事物是好的还是坏的，对的还是错的。那个促进这种目的实现的东西就是好的或者对的，而坏的或者错的事物就是阻碍它实现的东西。
It is important to see that this formal–final cause has both a normative and an ontological status: a normative status because a thing ought to realize its essence; and an ontological status because this essence exists in things as their underlying cause and potentiality. It is for this reason that norms have an objective status for Hegel: the formal–final causes are in things whether or not we recognize or assent to them. It is also for this reason, however, that norms are not simply to be identified with whatever happens to exist: the norm is what is essential to a thing, and it is not necessary that it is realized in all circumstances. Since the norm has an objective status, existing inherently in things, we cannot understand it, pace the voluntarists, as the result of convention or agreement; but since the norm is also the essence of a thing, its ideal or intrinsic nature that it might not realize in its specific circumstances, we also cannot reduce it down to any accidental or incidental facts, such as the present status quo, pace the historicists. Hence Hegel breaks decisively with one of the basic premises of the voluntarist tradition: the distinction between ‘is’ and ‘ought’, between facts and values. But in doing so he never fell into the historicist camp, which virtually conflated ‘ought’ and ‘is’ by identifying the rational with any set of social and historical circumstances.
重要的是要看到，这个形式——目的因具有规范的和目的论的两重身份：具有规范的身份，是因为一个事物应该实现它的本质；而具有目的论的身份，是因为这个本质作为它们的基础性的原因和潜能存在于事物之中。正是由于这个原因，对于黑格尔而言，规范具有客观的身份：形式——目的因在事物之中，无论我们是否认识到或者赞成它们。然而，也正是由于这个原因，规范就不仅仅等同于碰巧存在的东西，规范是对于一个事物而言本质的东西，它并不必然要在所有环境中实现。尽然规范有一个客观的身份，内在地存在于事物之中——请意志论者容我辩白——我们不能把它理解为约定俗成或者同意的结果，但是既然规范是一个事物的本质，它的理想或者内在的本性就有可能不能在具体的环境中实现，我们也不能径直把它还原为任何意外的或者偶然的事实，——请历史主义者容我辩白——比如目前的现状。因此，黑格尔当机立断和意志论传统的一个基本前提断绝关系：在“是”与“应当”之间，在事实与价值之间做出区分。但是在这样做时，他从来没有掉进历史主义的阵营，历史主义由于把理性和任何一套社会和历史环境等同起来而合并了“应当”与“是”。
In fundamental respects, Hegel’s Aristotelian doctrine places him very firmly in the scholastic branch of the natural law tradition. It was indeed Aristotle’s metaphysics that inspired some of the classics of that tradition, such as Hooker’s Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie (1597) and Suarez’s De Legibus ac Deo Legislatore (1612). Hegel was fully aware of his debt to the Aristotelian natural law tradition, which he was intent on preserving and continuing. It is indeed for this reason that he subtitles the Philosophy of Right ‘Natural Law and Political Science in Outline’. It would be a serious mistake, however, to see Hegel’s theory simply as a revival of the traditional scholastic doctrine. For, in two basic respects, Hegel transforms that tradition so that it accords with his modern age. First, Hegel identifies the formal–final cause not with perfection, the traditional concept, but with freedom itself, in accord with the modern definition of humanity given by Rousseau, Kant and Fichte. Second, he applies his immanent teleology on the social and historical plane, so that it applies to the entire spirit of a nation, the whole social and political organism. Thus Hegel took the central concept of the historicists – the Volksgeist, the spirit of a nation – and cast it in Aristotelian terms, so that it became the underlying formal–final cause of a nation. When we put both these points together – that the formal–final cause is freedom and that all nations have such a formal–final cause – we get the fundamental thesis of Hegel’s philosophy of history: that the goal of world history consists in the self-consciousness of freedom. Armed with this thesis, Hegel believed he could take into account the truth of historicism while still avoiding its relativisitic consequences. Since the self-awareness of freedom is the goal of world history, it provides a single measure or criterion of value. We can now talk about progress, appraising cultures according to whether they promote or hinder the realization of this goal.
在某些基本的方面，黑格尔-亚里士多德式的学说把他坚定地置于自然法传统的经院派的支脉之中。的确，是亚里士多德的形而上学启发了这个传统的某些经典作品，比如胡克的《教会国家组织的法律》（Laws of Ecclesiatical Politie）（1597年）和苏阿雷兹的《论法律及神作为立法者》（De Legibus ac Deo Legislatore）（1612年）。黑格尔完全意识到他从亚里士多德式的自然法传统受益良多，而他也刻意保存和延续这种传统。确实，正是出于这个原因，他为《法哲学》配的副标题是“自然法和政治科学概要”。然而，把黑格尔的理论仅仅看作传统的经院主义学说的复兴，将会是一个严重的错误。因为，在两个基本的方面，黑格尔改造了那个传统，以使它和现时代协调一致。首先，黑格尔并没有把形式—目的因等同于完美这个传统的概念，而是把它等同于自由自身，而自由又和卢梭、康德以及费希特给出的关于人性的现代定义相一致。其次，他是在社会和历史的层面上运用他的内在目的论的，因此，它运用于整个民族精神、整个社会和政治有机体。因此，黑格尔是以亚里士多德的方式接受了历史主义者的核心概念——民族精神（Geist）——并改造了它，结果，它变成了一个国家的奠基性的形式—目的因。当我们把这些观点——形式—目的因是自由，而所有民族都有一个形式—目的因——汇聚在一起之时，我们就得到了黑格尔历史哲学的基本论题：世界历史的目标存在于自由的自我意识之中。由于用这些装备武装起了自己，黑格尔认为他既能够重视历史主义的真理，同时又可以避免它的相对主义的后果。既然自由的自我觉察是世界历史的目标，那么，它就提供了价值标准的唯一尺度。现在我们能够讨论进步，依据诸文化是否促进或者阻碍这个目标的实现来评判它们。
Understanding Hegel’s normative theory in Aristotelian terms enables us to explain what at first sight seems an irresolvable contradiction: namely, Hegel’s insistence upon the objective status of value and his claim that values are made by human beings. This apparent contradiction is resolved as soon as we recall the Aristotelian distinction between the order of explanation and the order of existence (pp. 56–7). While Hegel thinks that the formal–final cause is first in the order of explanation, he does not think that it is first in the order of existence. It is only through the activity of particular wills, he argues, that it comes into existence. So, although having normative status does not depend on the wills of individuals, these norms are still realized or actualized only in and through these individual wills. The voluntarist then made the classic confusion: he assumed that what is first in order of existence – the particular will – is also first in the order of essence and explanation.
依据亚里士多德来理解黑格尔的规范理论，能够使我们解释乍一眼看起来似乎是一个不可解决的矛盾的东西了：也就是说，黑格尔坚持认为价值的客观身份，而他又主张，价值是人为的。一旦我们回忆起亚里士多德在解释的次序和存在的次序之间所作的区分（第56-57页），这种表面上的矛盾就涣然冰释了。尽管黑格尔认为，形式—目的因在解释的次序中是第一位的，但是，他的确不认为它在存在的次序中也是第一位的。他论证说，只有通过特殊意志的活动，他才能够进入存在。因此，尽管具有规范性的身份并不依赖于个体的意志，但是这些规范仍旧只能在并且通过个体意志才得以实现或者现实化。那么，意志论者的混淆就是经典的：他断言说，在存在的次序中处于第一位的东西——特殊意志——在本质和解释的次序中也处于第一位。
We are now finally in a position to understand, in summary fashion, how Hegel’s social-historical teleology preserves the truths and cancels the errors of the rationalist, voluntarist and historicist traditions. The rationalists were correct that values are within nature and that they have an objective status; but they were wrong to see them as eternal norms above history or as static essences within nature; rather, these values are realized only in history and through the activity of particular individuals. The voluntarists were right to stress the central role of freedom, and to emphasize the role of the will in bringing values into existence; but they went astray in thinking that the will alone – rather than reason – is the source of normativity. Finally, the historicists were correct to see norms embodied in the way of life of a people; but they were too indiscriminate, identifying the formal–final cause, the norm of historical change, with any specific set of social and historical circumstances. Since they did not understand history in teleological terms, the historicists confused the historical explanation of values with their conceptual demonstration: the historical explanation focuses on the factual causes, whereas conceptual demonstration accounts for the underlying formal–final cause.
现在我们终于站在某个立场上以简明扼要的方式理解，黑格尔的社会—历史目的论如何保存了理性主义、意志主义和历史主义的传统。诸价值在自然之中，它们具有客观的身份，在这一点上理性主义者是正确的；但是他们把诸价值看作是凌驾于历史之上的永恒规范，或者自然之中的静止的本质，在这一点是错误的；毋宁说，这些价值只有在历史之中和通过特殊个体的行动才得以实现。意志论者强调自由的核心作用，着重指出意志在把价值带向存在过程中的作用，是对的；但是他们认为单单意志——而非理性——是规范性的来源，亦误入歧途。最后，历史主义者认为规范体现在一个民族的生活方式之中，这是对的；但是他们在把形式—目的因，历史变迁的规范，等同于任何一套特定的社会和历史环境之时，也太不加区别了！因为他们不以历史主义的方式理解历史，所以历史主义者混淆了价值的历史解释和它们的概念性的证明：历史的解释聚焦于事实性的原因，而概念的证明解释奠基性的形式—目的因。
So, ultimately, Hegel’s normative doctrine was original, profound and coherent. In a remarkable fashion it fused the rationalist, voluntarist and historicist traditions, preserving their truths and cancelling their errors. But there should also be no doubt that the doctrine was deeply speculative and metaphysical, resting upon Hegel’s Aristotelian metaphysics. Hegel made at least three basic metaphysical claims: (1) that universals exist in re, (2) that we can apply such formal–final causes to organisms in the natural world, and (3) that we can also apply them to ‘organisms’ in the social-political world. All these claims added together yield absolute idealism. We have seen Hegel’s rationale for the first claim in chapter Three and his justification for the second in chapter Four; we will consider his defense of the third claim in chapter Eleven. Whatever the success of Hegel’s arguments, it should be clear that his entire account is intelligible and defensible only as a metaphysics. So if we insist on a non-metaphysical reading of Hegel’s social and political theory, we cannot appreciate its foundation.
因此，最终，黑格尔的规范学说是匠心独运的、入木三分的和始终如一的。它以某种令人瞩目的方式融合了理性主义、意志主义和历史主义的传统，保存了它们的真理并且去除了它们的错误。但是毫无疑问的是，这个学说从根本上说是思辨的和形而上学的，建立在黑格尔的亚里士多德式的形而上学的基础之上。黑格尔至少提出了三条基本的形而上学的主张：（1）共相存在于事物当中（in re）；（2）我们能够把这种形式—目的因应用到自然世界的有机体之中；（3）我们也能把它应用到社会—政治世界的“有机体”之中。所有这些主张加在一起就产生了绝对唯心主义。我们在前三章中已经看到过黑格尔第一个主张的基本原理，在第四章中看到过他关于第二个主张的证明；我们将在第十一章考察他为第三个主张所作的辩护。无论黑格尔的论证的成功之处在哪里，有一点是明白无误的，即，他整个的解说只有作为一种形而上学才是可理解的和可辩护的。因此，如果我们坚持对于黑格尔的社会和历史的理论做一种非形而上学的解读，那么，我们就不能理解这种基础。
MACHIAVELLI’S CHALLENGE
马基雅维利的挑战
For Hegel, the question of right – ‘How are we to justify the law?’ – was never only a matter of its mode of justification but also one of its application. The rationalist, voluntarist and historicist traditions really only quarrelled about how to justify right; but they took it for granted that it had an application to the political world. It was one of Hegel’s great merits as a political thinker that he fully recognized and struggled with the issue of its application. Beginning in his later Frankfurt years, Hegel saw the force of Machiavelli’s challenge: that moral principles cannot be applied to the political world because if people act according to them they destroy themselves. Some of Hegel’s central and characteristic doctrines arose from his attempt to answer Machiavelli.
对黑格尔而言，权利的问题——“我们如何去证成法律？”——从来都不是一个仅仅事关证成模式的问题，而且还是一个它的应用的问题。理性主义、意志主义和历史主义的传统实际上只是在为如何证成法律而争论不休；但是，它们都想当然地认为，它可以应用到政治世界。黑格尔作为政治思想家的最大功绩之一是，他充分认识到它的应用的问题并与之进行斗争。在他后法兰克福岁月的一开始，黑格尔就看到了马基雅维利的挑战的压力（force）：道德原则不能被应用到政治世界之中，因为如果有民族根据道德原则而行动，那么，他们就会自取灭亡。黑格尔的学说中某些最为核心和最具特色的方面就源自于他回答马基雅维利的尝试。
As an idealistic youth, Hegel had the greatest confidence in the power of moral principles in the political world. In April 1795 he wrote Schelling that he expected a revolution in Germany from the Kantian philosophy.14 He saw himself as a Volkserzieher, an educator of the people, who would promulgate the principles of the Kantian philosophy to the public. If the people were only aware of their natural rights, he believed, they would demand them and overthrow their oppressors. Still, Hegel’s early moral idealism was not really as naive as it seemed. It was based on his hope that his native Württemberg would be liberated by invading French armies, which would impose a new modern constitution. The French army had already invaded his homeland in 1796; though it had soon retreated, its return seemed imminent. If the French had already created new republics in Milan, Rome and Switzerland, why should Württemberg not be next? Like many young Swabians, among them Schelling and Hölderlin, Hegel saw himself as ‘ein Patriot’, someone who believed that the Swabian constitution should be reformed along modern French lines.15
还是一个年轻的观念论者之时，黑格尔对于道德原则在政治世界中的力量抱有绝对的信心。在1795年4月，他给谢林的信中说，他期望康德哲学给德国带来一场革命。14他自认为是一个民族教育家（volkserzieher），这个民族教育家要向民众大肆鼓吹康德哲学的原则。他相信，只要这个民族觉察到了他们的自然权利，他们就会要求这些权利，并推翻他们的压迫者。不过，黑格尔早期的道德观念论实际上没有像它看起来那么天真幼稚。它基于他的这样一种期望，即，他的祖国维滕堡将会由于法国军队的入侵而获得解放，他们将会强加给维滕堡一部新宪法。1796年，法国军队已经侵入了他的故乡；尽管它很快就撤退了，但是似乎它的返回指日可待。如果说法国已经在米兰、罗马和瑞士创立了一个新的共和国，那么维滕堡为什么不可以是下一个？就像许多斯瓦布的年轻人，其中包括谢林和荷尔德林，黑格尔同样把自己看作“一个爱国者”。爱国者们相信，斯瓦布的宪法应该依照现代法国精神来进行改革。15
Eventually, these hopes crashed against reality. The rude awakening came with the Congress of Rastatt, a peace conference between the French and German empires, which took place between December 1797 and April 1799. Hegel knew of the proceedings of this conference from inside sources: his friends Hölderlin and Isaak von Sinclair attended the conference and gave him detailed reports about their discussions with the Württemberg delegates. Along with Hölderlin and Sinclair, Hegel became deeply disillusioned by the outcome of the conference. It showed that the French had no interest in exporting their revolution but only in acquiring power for themselves. Furthermore, the states of the German Empire acted only in their self-interest and sacrificed nothing for the empire as a whole. For Hegel and his friends, the congress confirmed a sad reality that everyone knew but no one would admit: there was no longer a Holy Roman Empire.
最终，这些愿望在现实面前撞得粉碎。随着猛然的醒悟而来的拉斯塔特议会、在法兰西帝国和德意志帝国之间的和平会议，发生在1797年11月和1799年4月之间。黑格尔从内部渠道多少了解了这次会议的进程：他的朋友荷尔德林和伊萨克·冯·辛克莱参加了这次会议，并且以报告的形式告诉他其和维滕堡代表之间进行磋商的细节。和荷尔德林与辛克莱一道，黑格尔对于会议的成果有一种深深的幻灭之感。这显示出，法国人根本没有兴趣输出他们的革命，而只对为他们自己获得权力感兴趣。此外，德意志帝国的各国家仅仅代表它们自己国家的利益行动，而不肯为作为整体的帝国牺牲任何东西。对黑格尔和他的朋友而言，议会证实了一个悲哀的现实，即所有人都知道但是无人愿意承认，神圣罗马帝国已经一去不返。
Rastatt taught Hegel a deeply sobering lesson about the political world: that politicians act not to realize their ideals but to maximize their power. They would make treaties but violate them whenever it suited their self-interest. It was pointless to condemn politicians on moral grounds, Hegel realized. They acted from sheer necessity, for the sake of mere survival. In the political world one was either victor or loser, perpetrator or victim. Since ‘ought’ implies ‘can’, moral ideals apply to the political world only if we can act on them; but experience shows we cannot, because if we do act on them we destroy ourselves, and no one has an obligation to allow their self-destruction.
拉斯塔特国会在政治世界方面给了黑格尔一个十分沉痛的教训：政治家们的行动不是为了实现他们的理想，而是为了使他们的权力最大化。他们也许会订立条约，但是只要是符合他们的自我利益，他们随时会违反它们。黑格尔意识到，站在道德的立场上责备政治家根本上是无的放矢。他们的行动是出自纯粹的必然性，仅仅为了幸存的目的。在政治世界，一个人要么是成功者，要么是失败者，要么是作恶之人，要么是受害之人。既然“应当”意味着“能够”，那么，只有在我们能够根据道德理想而行动的时候，道德理想才会应用于政治世界；但是经验指出，我们不能依据它们行动，因为如果我们依据它们而行动，我们就会自取灭亡，而没有人有义务允许他们自取灭亡。
The lesson was pure Machiavelli. It was indeed no accident that Hegel would soon invoke his name in his first major work on political philosophy, his essay on the German constitution, the socalled Verfassungsschrift, which he wrote from 1799 to 1800 after the disillusionment of Rastatt.16 One of the most striking features of Hegel’s tract is its outspoken defense of Machiavelli, who still had a terrible reputation in eighteenth-century Germany. If you read Machiavelli’s theory in the context of his times, Hegel argued, it shows itself to be ‘one of the truest and greatest conceptions of a genuine political head of the greatest and noblest kind’ (I, 555/ 221). Hegel’s sympathy for Machiavelli derived not least from the similarity he saw between his own situation and Machiavelli’s. Like Italy in the sixteenth century, Germany was now torn asunder by foreign powers; furthermore, the independent states of the empire were like the independent Italian cities, which acted only for their own self-interest and to aggrandize their power. On Hegel’s reading, Machiavelli’s perfectly legitimate overriding interest was the salvation of Italy, the end of anarchy and the achievement of Italian unity (I, 556/221).
这个经验纯粹是马基雅维利式的。实际上绝非偶然的是，黑格尔很快在他第一部论述政治哲学的重要著作，论述德国宪政的论文，所谓的《宪法论文》（Verfassungsschrift）中援引他的名字。这部著作写于对拉斯塔特议会的幻想破灭之后的1799年到1800年间。16黑格尔的这本小册子一个最引人注目的特征是他公开为马基雅维利辩护，而在18世纪的德国，马基雅维利仍然恶名昭著。黑格尔论证说，如果你在他那个时代的语境中阅读马基雅维利的理论，它将显示自己为“一个最伟大和最高贵的类型的真正的政治头脑的最真实和最伟大的思想”（I, 555/221）。黑格尔对于马基雅维利的心有戚戚，不只是源于他所看到的在他自己的处境和马基雅维利的处境之间的相似性。就像十六世纪的意大利，现在的德国也由于外来的力量而四分五裂；此外，帝国的那些独立的国家就像意大利那些独立的城市，它们仅仅为了自己的利益而行动和扩张它们的武力。在黑格尔的解读中，马基雅维利完全无视立法的兴趣是拯救意大利、结束无政府主义，以及达成意大利的统一（I, 556/221）。
Not surprisingly, given his sympathy for Machiavelli, some scholars have seen Hegel’s Verfassungsschrift as essentially a defense of Realpolitik. Realpolitik is the doctrine that politicians always act in their self-interest, that their self-interest consists in acquiring, maintaining or increasing power, and that therefore the principles of morality have no application to the political world. Such was the doctrine ascribed to Hegel by Friedrich Meinecke, the great scholar of German historicism.17 For Meinecke, there were three great figures in the history of Realpolitik: Machiavelli, Friedrich II and Hegel. Though now largely forgotten, Meinecke’s interpretation has had some eminent followers, among them Ernst Cassirer, Karl Popper and Isaiah Berlin.18
毫不奇怪，鉴于他对于马基雅维利的惺惺相惜，某些学者视黑格尔的《宪法论文》为本质上是为实在政治（Realpolitik）辩护。实在政治（Realpolitik）是这样一种学说，即政治家总是出于他们的自我利益而行动，他们的自我利益在于获得、维持并增强权力，道德原则因此而不能应用到政治世界之中。这就是弗里德里希·梅涅克，伟大的德国历史主义学者，归之于黑格尔的学说。17对于梅涅克而言，在实在政治的历史上，有三位伟大的人物：马基雅维利、弗里德里希二世和黑格尔。尽管现在在很大程度上已被遗忘，但是梅涅克的阐释已经产生了一些颇负盛名的追随者，其中包括恩斯特·卡西尔，卡尔·波普尔和以赛亚·柏林。18
Was Hegel really a champion of Realpolitik? This question raises anew the old controversy whether Hegel was a progressive or a reactionary. The consensus of contemporary scholarship is that Hegel was a liberal reformer, and the reactionary interpretation has now been so discredited that it has virtually attained the status of a myth.19 But many of the more liberal interpretations of Hegel are based upon a consideration of Hegel’s later Prussian context. They consider only his later Philosophy of Right, virtually ignoring the Verfassungsschrift.20 This still ignores the question whether Hegel was really championing Realpolitik in the Verfassungsschrift, and if so whether we should read his later work in the light of the earlier one.
黑格尔真的是实在政治的拥护者吗？这个问题重新挑起了那个古老的争论，黑格尔是进步论者还是反动派？当代学者一致同意，黑格尔是一个自由的改革派，而极端保守的阐释现在已经名誉扫地，以至于它实际上获得了一个神话的身份。19但是许多对于黑格尔的更加自由主义色彩的阐释建基于对黑格尔晚期的普鲁士语境的考察之上。它们仅仅考虑他晚期的《法哲学》，而完全忽略了《宪法论文》。20这也就仍然忽视了追问，黑格尔实质上是否在《宪法论文》中拥护实在政治的问题，以及如果答案是肯定的，那么我们是否应该借助他早期的著作来解读他的晚期著作的问题。
A close examination of the Verfassungsschrift reveals considerable evidence for Meinecke’s interpretation. Four aspects of his theory seem to confirm it conclusively. First, Hegel maintains that the essence of the state, its central and defining characteristic, is having power, the power to enforce and defend its policies and laws (VD I, 472–85/153–64). He excludes religion, culture, the form of government, national identity, from having any necessary role in the concept of the state. Second, Hegel argues that right consists in nothing more than the advantage of the state, as acknowledged and settled by treaties (I, 541/209). He then stresses that no state is bound by its treaties if other states do not act on them (I, 540; 208); and he is explicit that other states will not act on them (I, 565/229). Third, Hegel is convinced that in politics nothing really matters besides power. He stresses that there is no real difference between politics and Faustrecht, i.e. the right of the stronger, and that moral idealists delude themselves when they overlook the central fact that in politics ‘the truth lies in power’ (I, 529/199). Fourth, Hegel apparently identifies right with historical necessity. In the introduction to the Verfassungsschrift he attacks moral idealists who tell us about how the political world ought to be and stresses that the way the world must be is the way it ought to be (I, 463/145).
仔细检查《宪法论文》会暴露大量的梅涅克的阐释的证据。他的理论的四个方面似乎确凿无疑地证实了这一点。首先，黑格尔坚持说，国家的本质，它的核心的和明确的特征，就是拥有权力，增强和捍卫它的政策和法律的权力（VD I, 472—85/153-64）。他排除了宗教、文化、政府形式、民族认同等在国家概念中扮演的必要角色。其次，黑格尔论证说，权利无非就在于为条约所确定和固定的国家的优点之中（I, 541/209）。然后，他强调，如果其他国家不依照条约而行动，那么任何国家都不受条约的限制（I, 540；208）；他明确提到，其他国家也将不依据它们而行动（I, 565/229）。第三，黑格尔确信，在政治和拳头政治（Faustrecht），亦即强者的权利之间没有真正的区别。当道德理想主义者忽视了在政治中“真理就在强权之中”这个关键事实之时，他们就是自我欺骗（I, 529/199）。第四，黑格尔明显把权利等同于历史的必然性。在《宪法论文》的引言中，他攻击那些道德理想主义者，他们告诉我们政治世界应当如何如何，并且强调这个世界必定会成为的样子就是它应当会成为的样子（I, 463/145）。
After considering such evidence, it might seem that Hegel is indeed a champion of Realpolitik. But a closer examination of the text shows that this conclusion would be premature. There are three mitigating factors. First, although Hegel emphasizes having power as the central feature of the state, he also maintains that there is a purpose to such power: namely, protecting the rights of its citizens (VD I, 481–2, 520/161–2, 192). The objective of state power is ‘the immutable maintenance of rights’ (I, 543/211), and to prevent the relationships between states degenerating into the rights of the stronger (I, 542/210). Hegel defends a single central state because this is the only means to ensure basic law and order, which is the foundation for freedom, the enjoyment of one’s basic rights and property (I, 550, 555, 556/217, 220, 221). Second, Hegel thinks that the powers of the state should be severely limited, so that it does only what is necessary to organizing and maintaining a central authority and administration. He is a severe critic of both the old absolutist state and the modern revolutionary state for attempting to control everything from above. The state should allow room for the freedom and the initiative of its citizens. Hence he writes: ‘Nothing should be so sacrosanct to the government as facilitating and protecting the free activity of citizens in matters other than this [organizing and maintaining authority]’ (I, 482/ 161–2). Third, Hegel’s defense of Machiavelli is not that he saw the great value of power for its own sake, but that he saw that power is sometimes the only means of eradicating anarchy (I, 556/221). Machiavelli recognized that the first obligation of the state is to maintain law and order, and that to do so it is sometimes necessary to commit immoral actions. Such extreme measures were only justified, Hegel held, in cases of necessity, where the very existence of law and order was threatened (GW VIII, 259).
在考察这些证据之后，似乎黑格尔事实上就是实在政治的拥护者。但是进一步细勘文本就会发现，下这个结论还为时过早。有三个因素可以缓和这个结论。首先，尽管黑格尔强调拥有权力是国家的核心特征，但是他也强调说，这种权力有一个目标：也就是说，保护它的公民的权利（VD I, 481-482，520/161-162，192）。国家权力的目标是“不可动摇地维护权利”（I, 543/211），以及防止国家之间的关系蜕变为更强者的权利（I, 542/210）。黑格尔之所以捍卫唯一的中央国家，是因为这是确保基本权利和秩序的唯一手段，它是自由和享有一个人的基本权利和财产的基础（I, 550，555，556/217，220，221）。其次，黑格尔认为，国家的权力应该受到严重限制，以至于它只能做对于组织和维持一个中央权威和行政而言必不可少的事情。他既是古老的绝对主义国家的批评者，又是现代革命国家的批判者，因为它们试图自上而下地控制一切事物。国家应该给与公民的自由和首倡精神以空间。因此，他写道：“对于政府而言，真正神圣不可侵犯之事应该是像保证和保护公民的自由行动这样的事情，而非这一点（组织和维持权威机构）”（I, 482/161-2）。第三，黑格尔为马基雅维利所作的辩护不是他看到了权力的自身价值，而是他看到了权力有时候是根除无政府主义的唯一手段（I, 556/221）。马基雅维利认识到，政府的第一义务应该是维持法律和秩序。而为了要做到这一点，有时候就有必要作出不道德的行动。黑格尔强调说，这种极端的尺度仅仅是在必要的时刻，法律和秩序受到威胁之时，才能证明其正当性（GW，VIII, 259）.
So, although a closer examination of the Verfassungsschrift does not vindicate Meinecke’s interpretation, it does show that Hegel was much closer to the tradition of Realpolitik than many of his more liberal interpreters allow. If Hegel was still an idealist in politics, he was an idealist of the most realistic kind. He still wanted to overcome the gap between theory and practice; but he recognized that his ideals would have to be achieved through, and not in spite of, the quest for power. We will examine later Hegel’s mature attempt to meet Machiavelli’s challenge in his philosophy of history (pp. 267–70).
因此，尽管细致考察《宪法论文》并不使梅涅克的阐释失效，但是它的确显示出一种传统，比他那些自由主义的阐释者所允许的更加接近实在政治的传统。如果黑格尔在政治中也是一个观念论者（理想主义者），那么，他就是一个最具有实在论色彩的观念论者。他仍然想要克服理论和实践之间的鸿沟；但是他认识到，他的理想不得不通过——而且不能放弃——寻求权力才能达到。我们将会在他的历史哲学中考察晚期黑格尔想要接受马基雅维利的挑战的成熟的尝试（第267-270页）。
THE IDEALISM OF A REFORMER
一个改革者的观念论（理想主义）
Hegel’s sympathy for Machiavellianism in the Verfassungsschrift seems to leave an insurmountable gap between theory and practice. If politicians act only on their self-interest, if their chief end is to acquire power, then moral ideals seem to have no validity in the political sphere at all – except, of course, as disguises for selfinterest. In the preface Hegel himself seemed to draw just this conclusion (I, 461–4/142–5). Here he expressed his contempt for all idealists who presume to teach the world how it ought to be. His main target was the old legal theorists who refused to admit that the empire had collapsed, and who persisted in trying to find some constitution behind the chaos of its three hundred autonomous states.21 But he also directed his scorn against those radicals and reformers – persons like himself years earlier – who think that they can change the world according to their moral ideals. Against all such idealists Hegel now preached a gospel of bitter resignation, of patient acquiescence. The sole purpose of his tract, he declared, is to know the deeper causes behind the collapse of the empire, and why events must be and cannot be otherwise. If we only knew the necessity behind historical development, he explained, this would promote ‘a calmer outlook and a moderate endurance of it’. What makes us resentful is not reality itself but the thought that reality is not as it ought to be. If, however, we recognize that reality is as it must be, then we will accept that it is as it really ought to be. Here Hegel anticipated his later statement in the preface to the Philosophy of Right that the purpose of philosophy is not to prescribe how the world ought to be but only to reconcile us to why it must be.
黑格尔在《宪法论文》中对于马基雅维利的同情似乎在理论与实践之间造成了一道不可弥缝的鸿沟。如果政治家们只是依据他们的自我利益而行动，如果他们的主要目的是获得权力，那么道德理想似乎在政治领域压根儿就没有任何有效性——当然，除了它只是当作幌子。在《序言》中，黑格尔本人得出的正是这个结论（I, 461-4/142-5）。在这里，他表达了他对于所有想要教导这个世界应该如何成其所是的理想主义者的轻蔑。他主要的靶子是那些老的法学理论家，他们拒绝承认帝国已经崩塌，但却仍然顽固不化地试图在三百个独立的国家的混乱无序的背后发现某种宪政。21但是他也对那些激进主义者和锐意改革者——那些人就像稍早些年的他本人——嗤之以鼻，他们认为，他们能够依据他们的道德理想来改造这个世界。与所有这些理想主义者背道而驰，黑格尔现在训诫一种苦涩的顺从的福音，容忍的默许的福音。他宣称，他的论文的唯一目标是认识帝国崩溃背后更深层次的原因，以及这些事件为什么必定如此发生而不可能呈现其他面目。他解释说，只有我们知道了历史发展进程背后的必然性，这才会促进“对于它的更加镇定自若的展望和不偏不激的忍受”。使我们心怀怨恨的不是实在自身，而是实在没有和它应当所是那样的思想。然而，如果我们认识到，实在正是如它必定所是那样，那么，我们就会接受它实际上正是如它应该所是那样。在这里，黑格尔已经预示了他后来在《法哲学》的序言中的陈述，即哲学的目的不是为世界应该怎样开处方，而仅仅是让我们和世界为什么必定如此之间达成和解。
Nevertheless, despite such resignation, Hegel does not reject idealism as such. What he criticizes is a specific kind of idealism: that which preaches how things ought to be, or that which ignores the real motivations of human action. But he still upholds another kind of idealism: that which perceives the goals behind historical development. When he gives historical necessity his normative sanction he does not mean to approve any form of historical development at all; he has a very definite idea of where history is going and why it ought to be as it must be. Already in the Verfassungsschrift he suggests a central theme of his later philosophy of history: that the end of history is the realization of freedom, and more specifically the principle that the people should have some definite share in government. The modern principle of representation – that each individual should participate in the state – grew out of the forests of Germany and will eventually dominate the entire modern world (VD I, 533/203).
话说回来，尽管提倡顺从，但是黑格尔并不拒绝理想主义本身。他所批判的只是某种类型的理想主义：这种理想主义训诫事物应当成为什么样子，或者它忽略了人类行动的真正动机。但是他仍然坚执另一种类型的理想主义（观念论），这种理想主义观察历史发展历程背后的目标。当他赋予历史必然性以他的规范性制裁之时，他压根儿不是想同意任何形式的历史发展历程；关于历史在哪里发生，以及它为什么应该如其必定之所是那样，他有一个确定的观念。在《宪法论文》中，他已经暗示了他后期的历史哲学中的核心主题：历史的目的是自由的实现，更具体地说，是人民应该有限地参与到政府之中这个原则。现代的代议制原则——每一个个体都应该参与到国家之中——是从德国的森林之中产生出来的，而最终将统治整个的现代世界（VD I, 533/203）。
Ultimately, then, Hegel never really renounced his ideals; he simply read them into history itself. He could accept the realities of history only because he believed that they were stepping-stones toward progress, means of the realization of the higher ends of reason. The great lesson he learned from the post-revolutionary era is that reason is not an eternal norm above history but the immanent purpose and inner necessity of history itself. Hegel’s famous thesis of the cunning of reason was his reaffirmation of idealism in the face of the harsh realities of the political world. This thesis states that even if politicians act only for their self-interest, they are still the unwitting instruments for the higher purpose of reason, of which they have only a vague presentiment. Hegel’s message was that reason is more cunning than the most cunning political tactician, cleverer than all the wily snares of Realpolitik (pp. 267–70).
那么，最终，黑格尔从来没有放弃他的各种理想；他只是把它们读解进历史本身。他不能接受历史的诸种实在，只是因为他相信，它们是朝向进步的进身之阶，是实现历史的更高目的的手段。他从后革命时代学到的最大的教训是，理性不是凌驾于历史之上的永恒规范，而是历史自身的内在目标和内部的必然性。黑格尔关于历史的狡计的著名论点是他面对政治世界中诸种残酷无情的实在时对于理想主义（观念论）的再次肯定。这个论题认为，即使政治家只是为了他们自己的利益而行动，他们也仍然不知不觉地充当了理性的更高目的的工具。他们对于它只有模糊的预感。黑格尔要传递的信息是，与最诡计多端的政治策士们相比，理性要更加老谋深算，与实在政治中各种狡猾的圈套相比，理性要更加聪明灵巧（第267-270页）。
Hegel’s grand theme of reason in history grew out of not only the disillusionment of Rastatt, but also his attempt to resolve the famous theory–practice dispute of the late 1790s (pp. 31–3). It was his attempt to find a middle path between the extremes of rationalism and empiricism. The rationalists (Kant and Fichte) held that practice should follow theory, or that we ought to change the world to conform to the moral ideals of reason; the empiricists (Möser, A.W. Rehberg, Friedrich Gentz) countered that theory should follow practice, or that we should determine our political principles by following tradition, precedent and historical experience. Hegel agrees with the rationalists that the principles of the state should be founded on reason; but he disagrees with them that they should be imposed on history. He concurs with the empiricists that good laws and policies should arise from history and adapt to local circumstances; but he parts company with them in their emphasis upon precedent, privilege and tradition as the basis for the law. In short, the main problem for the rationalist is that he emphasizes reason at the expense of history; and the chief difficulty of the empiricist is that he stresses history at the expense of reason. The middle path between these extremes is that there is reason within history. The fundamental principles of the Revolution – liberty, equality and fraternity – are really the ends of history itself. The faulty premise behind the false antithesis between rationalism and empiricism is that history consists in nothing more than an accumulation of facts. This gives the rationalist his motive for neglecting history, and the empiricist his excuse for neglecting reason. What both failed to see is that there is reason in history, that its final purpose is the realization of freedom, the self-awareness that man as such is free.
黑格尔关于历史中的理性这个宏大主题不仅仅生自它对于拉斯塔特议会幻想的破灭，而且也生自他想要解决1790年代晚期著名的理论——实践争论的尝试（第31—33页）。他想方设法要在理性主义和经验主义的两个极端之间发现一条中间道路。理性主义者（康德和费希特）强调实践应该服从理论，或者我们应该改变世界以遵从理性的道德理想；经验主义者（莫塞尔，A. E.雷伯格和弗里德里希·根茨）反对说，理论应该服从实践，或者我们应该通过遵从传统来决定我们的政治原则。黑格尔同意理性主义者的是，国家的原则应该建基于理性；但是他反对他们的是，这些原则应该强加诸历史之上。他与经验主义者意见一致的地方是，好的法律和政策应当从历史中产生，并且适应地方的环境；但是在他们强调惯例、特权和传统作为法律的基础之时，他就和他们分道扬镳了。简言之，理性主义者的主要问题是，他以历史为代价来强调理性；而经验主义者的主要困难是，他以理性为代价强调历史。在这两个极端之间的第三条道路是，把理性置入历史之中。法国大革命的基本原则——自由、平等和博爱——实际上就是历史自身的终结（目的）。在理性主义和经验主义的虚假对立背后一个有瑕疵的前提是，历史无非就是一堆历史事实的堆积。这就给与理性主义者以忽略历史的动机，给与经验主义者以忽视理性的借口。双方都没有能够看到，历史之中是有理性的，历史的最终目标是自由的实现，自我觉察到人本身是自由的。
We are now in a better position to understand Hegel’s famous ‘double dictum’ (Doppelsatz) in the preface to the Philosophy of Right. The double dictum declares: ‘What is rational is actual; what is actual is rational.’ There is probably no other statement of Hegel’s that has created more commentary and controversy; but its basic meaning becomes clear as long as we remember Hegel’s middle path between rationalism and empiricism. The first dictum – that the rational is the actual – means that reason is a self-actualizing end, a purpose that of necessity realizes itself. The rational is not just an ideal about what ought to be but an end that must be. This dictum is directed against conservatives, who tend to dismiss ideals as unrealizable, quixotic or utopian. The second dictum – that the actual is the rational – states that the actual embodies, realizes and develops the idea. It is directed against radicals, who want to sweep away the past for their moral ideals. It is important to note, however, how Hegel explicitly qualified the second half of the dictum in his Enzyklopädie (§6). Anxious to avoid the objection that he was sanctioning all forms of the status quo in saying that the actual is rational, he explained that we have to distinguish actuality (Wirklichkeit) from reality (Dasein) or existence (Existenz). Actuality is what of necessity realizes the essence of a thing, and so it is not mere reality or existence, which is contingent. Hence Hegel does not mean to endorse every aspect of the existing social and political world as rational. Crime, poverty and tyranny might be real or exist but they are not actual because they do not realize any ideal of reason.
我们现在站在一个更佳的位置上理解《法哲学·序言》中黑格尔那个著名“双向格言”（Doppelsatz）。这个双向格言宣称，“凡是合理的都是现实的，凡是现实的都是合理的”。也许黑格尔的名言警句当中再也没有哪一句比这句产生了更多的评论与争议；但是只要我们记住黑格尔在经验主义和理性主义之间的中间道路，它的基本意思就昭然若揭。前半句格言——凡是合理的都是现实的——意味着，理性是一个自我实现的目的、一个必然要实现它自身的目标。合理的不仅仅是一个关于应当如何的理想，而是必定如是的目的。这条格言是专门针对那些把理想当做绝无实现之可能、堂吉诃德式的或乌托邦式的东西而不屑一提的保守派的。后半条格言——凡是现实的都是合理的——说的是，现实体现了、实现了和发展了理念。它是专门针对那些由于它们的道德理想而想要把过去彻底清除的激进主义者。然而，重要的是注意到，黑格尔在《哲学百科全书》（第六节）中是如何明白无误地描述这条格言的后半部分的。由于急于避免有人提出异议说，他认可了所有形式的现状，因为他说凡是现实的都是合理的，黑格尔解释说，我们必须区分现实性（Wirklichkeit）和定在（Dasein）或者实存（Existenz）。现实性是必然使一个事物的本质得以实现的东西，因此，它就不仅仅是实在或实存，因为后者是偶然的。因此，黑格尔的意思不是同意现存社会和政治世界的每一个方面都是合理的。犯罪、贫困和暴政也许是实在的或者实存的，但是它们从来不是现实的，因为它们不能实现任何理性的理想。
When understood in its historical context, Hegel’s dictum shows itself to be neither radical nor reactionary. It is not radical because it demands that the statesman build on the historical past; and it is not reactionary because it forces him to recognize the progressive forces of history. Hegel’s dictum therefore advises the statesman to seek the middle path of reform. This is indeed just what we expect Hegel to say when we place him in his Prussian context. Although Hegel has often been seen as a spokesman for the Prussian Restoration, several basic facts refute this interpretation. (1) Hegel’s connections in Prussia were not with reactionary court circles, but with the reforming administration of Stein, Hardenberg and Altenstein. It was indeed Altenstein who called Hegel to Prussia because he was attracted to his reformist views.22 Rather than siding with the reactionaries, Hegel criticized them sharply in his correspondence and in the Philosophy of Right.23 For their part, the reactionary circles in the Prussian court under Count von Wittgenstein harrassed and spied upon Hegel and his pupils.24 (2) Hegel developed the outlines, and even the details, of his organic conception of the state before his association with Prussia in 1818.25 Until 1805, when the foundation of his views had already been laid down, he regarded not Prussia but Austria as the major hope for reform in Germany.26 (3) Rather than glorifying the status quo, most aspects of Hegel’s ideal state were far from a reality in the Prussia of 1820. Indeed, Hegel’s demands for a constitutional monarchy, an elected assembly, local self-government, and a powerful civil service were all defeated by the Prussian reactionaries in 1819. (4) Hegel’s organic state closely resembles the ideals for the reform of the Prussian state put forward by Stein and Hardenberg. Like Hegel, Stein and Hardenberg advocated (a) a bi-cameral estates assembly, (b) more local self-government, (c) more freedom of trade and the abolition of feudal privileges, (d) a constitution ensuring fundamental rights to all citizens and placing limits upon the powers of the monarchy, (e) greater equality of opportunity, so that positions in the army and civil service were open to anyone with sufficient talent, and (f) a more powerful bureaucracy, which did not simply execute the orders of the king and cabinet but which actively formulated government policy.
如果从它的这种历史语境中来理解，黑格尔的格言就显示自身既不是激进的，也不是反动的。它之所以不是激进的，是因为它要求政治家以历史的过去为基础；它之所以不是反动的，是因为它强迫他承认历史的进步的力量。因此，黑格尔的格言建议政治家寻求改革的第三条道路。这就是当我们把他置于普鲁士的语境之时期望他所说的东西。尽管黑格尔常常被看作是普鲁士复辟的代言人，但是几个基本的事实拒绝这种阐释。（1）黑格尔在普鲁士和反动的宫廷圈子没有什么关系，而是和斯泰恩、哈登伯格和阿尔腾斯坦的改良政府之间有联系。事实上是阿尔滕斯坦把黑格尔招往普鲁士的，因为他被黑格尔的改良主义主张所吸引。22黑格尔没有与反动派并肩战斗，相反他在通信中和在《法哲学》中尖锐地批判了他们。23就反动派而言，他们在普鲁士宫廷由考恩特·冯·维特根斯坦领导的圈子肆意骚扰和暗中监视黑格尔和他的学生。24（2）黑格尔在他于1818年和普鲁士发生关联之前就已经发展出了他关于国家的有机观念的纲要，甚至细节。25迟至1805年，黑格尔的观点的基础就已经奠定了，他不是把普鲁士而是把奥地利看作是德国改革的最大希望。26（3）黑格尔非但没有为现状歌功颂德，相反，他的理想国家的绝大多数方面都和1820年普鲁士的实况有十万八千里之遥。实际上，黑格尔对于立宪君主制、民选议会、地方自治和强大的行政部门的所有吁求都于1819年被普鲁士的反动派挫败。（4）黑格尔的有机政府最接近斯泰恩和哈登伯格提出来的普鲁士政府改革的理想。和黑格尔一样，斯泰恩和哈登伯格支持（a）两院制的等级议会，（b）更多的地方自治，（c）更多的贸易自由和废除封建特权，（d）制定宪法保证所有公民的基本权利，并且限制君主的权力，（e）更大的机会平等，以便军队和行政机关的位置向任何具备足够才能的人开放，（f）更强有力的官僚系统，它并不只是执行国王和内阁的命令，而是也积极制定政府政策。
Given all its affinities with the Prussian Reformation, and all its tensions with the Prussian Restoration, it is tempting to regard Hegel’s theory of the state as the philosophy of the Prussian Reform Movement. This is indeed a more accurate characterization of Hegel’s position. It is important to remember, however, that Hegel developed almost all his ideas before the formation of this movement, so that they are at best only an ex post facto rationalization of it.27
如果所有这些和普鲁士改革派有着亲缘关系，而又和普鲁士的复辟派产生紧张，那么，把黑格尔的国家理论看作是普鲁士改革运动的哲学，就很有诱惑力了。事实上，这也是黑格尔立场的更为准确的定位。然而，重要的是记住，在这场运动形成之前，黑格尔已经发展出了几乎他的全部想法，因此它们充其量只是它的事后的理性化。27
