中國傳統文化對生命倫理的影響

The Influence of Traditional Chinese Culture on Bioethics

Abstract

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.

中國傳統文化的特點是整體性、綜合性，是互為經緯的一體文化，其核心是倫理道德思想。與生命倫理相關的重要觀念有：天人合一、神形相即、知行合一以及豐富的生命觀。當代生命倫理學必須在生命、倫理兩方面以及兩者的關係上，在理論探索與實踐活動的結合上下功夫，更須思考倫理問題背後的本質性終極性的理念。生命倫理學不是簡單的應用倫理，它會深涉生命哲學、道德哲學等領域，中國傳統文化中的豐富思想可以為生命倫理學的發展提供寶貴的思想資源。

China, with a civil history of 5000 years, has rich cultural resources. Chinese culture differs from Western culture in the content of thought, the means of thinking and the form of expression. Generally, Chinese culture is not an analytical, discursive, dualistic system. Rather, it is characteristic of an entire, comprehensive monism. In the humanities, the Chinese have integrated literature, history and philosophy into one system, making them an integral whole. As the main body of Chinese culture, Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism agitate and annotate each other, becoming a cultural unity. Finally, the core of Chinese culture is the thought of morality.

The important ideas of Chinese culture include the following. First is the unity of heaven and human. From the Chinese view, nature as a big cosmos and human as a small cosmos are closely bound up and regarded as an organic whole. The concept of "the unity of heaven and human" runs through the every aspect of human social life: political, economic, custom, moral as well as the relation between human and nature.

Second is the unity of mind and body. Under this view, the body and the mind are interdependent. It emphasizes that the life is an integral whole and cannot be separated sharply between mind and body. The process of life is the process of keeping balancing and harmonizing between body and mind. The third is the unity of knowing and doing. This idea takes that knowing and doing cannot be taken separately, they must be linked up with each other. A focus is give to practice - knowing is always serving for the purpose of doing. Finally, Chinese culture carries rich concepts of life.

These characteristics exert great influence on bioethics. Take the issue of euthanasia as an example. Should euthanasia be moral and legal? How should we choose euthanasia? From the Chinese view, these are in-depth problems concerning at least how we should understand human life as a unity of mind and body. A terminal patient usually has both bodily and psychological suffering. If we only attempt to relieve his bodily suffering by offering euthanasia, we will cut apart his whole life and be unable to embody the humanistic spirit of medicine.

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