"伦理"与"道德"辨析

在日常使用中,"伦理"与"道德"往往被当作同义词或近义词使用,这种现象已经引起了学术理论的混乱,本文归纳了学术界目前现存的几种有代表性的理论观点,并对"伦理"与"道德"的东西方涵义及二者的相互关系进行了辨析与梳理。笔者认为,西方的伦理与道德的涵义相近,但与中文里伦理与道德的涵义有别;中文里伦理与道德的涵义存在着本质的区别。东西方的词源词义不可能完全对应,更不能以西方文化中伦理与道德的词源学涵义来取代中国文化里伦理与道德的基本涵义。对二者的正确理解必须依赖于相应的文化背景。

Differentiation of Ethics and Morality

In daily life,the phenomenon that words "ethics"and"morality"are often considered to be synonyms has caused confusion in the field of academic theory.This paper sorts out the current representative theoretical concepts,differentiates and classifies oriental vs.western implications of,and relationship between,the two words.The author believes that the two words are synonyms in the west,whereas different in Chinese language by nature.So the oriental and western etymology and word meaning are unlikely to be totally correspondent,it is even impossible to replace the basic meaning of the two words in Chinese culture with that in western culture.Understanding the exact meaning of the two words must depend on the homologous cultural background.