THE phrases “ethic of conviction” and “ethic of responsibility” mean little to most English-speakers. In Germany the equivalent terms—Gesinnungsethik and Verantwortungsethik—are household words. Pundits drop them casually during television talk shows. Hosts use them as conversation-starters at dinner parties. The concepts draw on the opposition between idealism and pragmatism that runs through politics everywhere. But they also capture a specific moral tension that is “very German”, says Manfred Güllner, a sociologist and pollster. Anyone interested in understanding German politics, on anything from the euro to refugees, would do well to get a handle on them.
對大多數說英語的人來說，“ethic of conviction”(信念倫理)和“ethic of responsibility”(責任倫理)沒有多大區別。在德國，這兩個對詞語對應的德語Gesinnungsethik和Verantwortungsethik可是家喻戶曉。專家在電視訪談中隨口就會說出這兩個詞，主人把它們當做晚宴的開場白。這兩個概念將貫穿政治領域的理想主義和現實主義對立了起來。社會學家和民意測驗專家曼弗雷德.蓋爾納(Manfred Güllner)認為，這兩概念也體現出“非常德國化”的道德衝突性。任何有興趣瞭解德國政治，如歐元區及難民等話題的人，最好先了解這兩個概念。
The terms come from the sociologist Max Weber, who used them in a speech he gave in January 1919 to a group of leftist students at a Munich bookstore. Germany had just lost the first world war. The Kaiser had abdicated, the country was in the throes of revolution and Munich was about to become the capital of a short-lived “Bavarian Soviet Republic”. Armed with only eight index cards, Weber gave a talk that would become a classic of political science. (“Politics as a Vocation” was published in English only after the second world war.) The lecture ranged broadly through history, but its main purpose was to curb the Utopian romanticism then gripping the ideologues fighting over the direction of the new Germany, including those sitting in front of him.
這兩個術語最先由社會學家馬克斯·韋伯（Max Weber）提出：1919年，他在慕尼黑一家書店向一群左翼學生演講時，提出了這兩個概念。那時的德國剛剛在一戰中戰敗，德國皇帝凱撒退位，整個國家處於革命的浪潮之中，慕尼黑即將成為短命的“巴伐利亞蘇維埃共和國”的首都。韋伯當時拿著八張書卡發表演說。這場演說堪稱政治科學的經典。（《政治作為一種志業》在二戰之後才翻譯成英文發表）。演說談古論今、話題廣泛，主要目的是抑制烏托邦浪漫主義的興起——這種思潮吸引包括聽韋伯演講的聽眾在內的，為新德國的走向而奮鬥的信徒。
Weber described an “abysmal opposition” between two types of ethics. Those following their convictions wish to preserve their own moral purity, no matter what consequences their policies may have in the real world. “If an action of good intent leads to bad results, then, in the actor’s eyes, not he but the world, or the stupidity of other men, or God’s will who made them thus, is responsible for the evil.” By contrast, someone guided by responsibility “takes account of precisely the average deficiencies of people…(H)e does not even have the right to presuppose their goodness and perfection.” This sort of politician will answer for all the consequences of his actions, even unintended ones. Weber left no doubt about his sympathies. Ethicists of conviction, he said, were “in nine out of ten cases windbags”.
韋伯稱這是兩種勢不兩立的倫理觀。那些擁護信念倫理的人希望保持道德純潔，卻對他們的政策在現實世界中產生的後果不管不顧。“如果是好心辦壞事，那麼，在他們看來，這不是他們的錯，而是這個世界的錯，或其他人的愚蠢或者上帝的旨意造成，不需要他為此負責。”相反，一個遵守責任要求“準確地考慮到人們都會有的缺點……他甚至都沒有權利“假設人們都是善良完美的“。這一類的政治家會對自己的行為造成的後果負責，會對哪怕是無意造成的後果負責。毫無疑問，韋伯對此表示支持。對於信念倫理擁護者，他認為“十之九個都是空談者”。
The prevailing view today, like Weber’s in 1919, is that “Germany has a surfeit of Gesinnungsethik,” says Wolfgang Nowak, who served as an adviser to Gerhard Schröder when he was chancellor. The postwar yearning of Germans to atone for their nation’s Nazi past through extravagant moral posing exacerbates the tendency. In general, the ethic of conviction is most prevalent among leftists and Protestants, and slightly less so among conservatives and Catholics, says Mr Güllner.
德國前總理格哈特·施羅德（Gerhard Schröder）的顧問沃爾夫岡·諾瓦克（Wolfgang Nowak）認為， 當下流行的觀點和韋伯1919年的觀點一樣，即”德國信念倫理擁護者過多“。 二戰後，德國人渴望通過氾濫的道德作秀來彌補納粹時期的暴行，這種行徑卻使得這種趨勢更為惡化。蓋爾納認為，總的說來，信念倫理在左翼和新教徒中最為流行，在保守派和天主教中相對較弱。
Thus the Social Democrats, who view themselves as crusaders for social justice, often give the impression that they are not only “unable but unwilling” to govern, lest they bear actual responsibility, Mr Güllner thinks. That may explain why there has been a Social Democratic chancellor for only 20 years since 1949, compared with 47 years under the Christian Democrats. Many of Germany’s most strident pacifists, meanwhile, are Lutherans. Margot Käßmann, the church’s former leader, dreams of Germany having no army at all. She disavows force even to prevent or stop a genocide.
蓋爾納認為，社會民主黨視自己為社會公平的維護者，通常給人的印象就是不僅“沒能力甚至不願”去治理社會，生怕擔負實際的責任。這也就是在1949年後，社會民主黨總理任職時間只有20年，而基督教民主黨總理任職時間可達47年的原因。德國大多數最堅定的和平主義者也是路德教派成員。教堂主教馬戈·開斯曼（Margot Käßmann）夢想德國不要有軍隊，她甚至不主張使用暴力避免或阻止大屠殺。
But an ethic of conviction also runs through the centre-right, which since the 1950s has approached the European project as an end in itself, a way for Germany to become post-national and dissolve its guilt along with its sovereignty. In the process, Germans deliberately overlooked the fact that most other Europeans never shared this goal. Once the euro crisis erupted, many conservatives opposed bail-outs out of an ethic of conviction, argues Thilo Sarrazin, a controversial pundit. They wanted to decry rule-breaking by crisis countries as inherently bad—even at the cost of letting the currency zone unravel.
不過，中右翼黨裡也存在信念倫理。自20世紀50年代以來，中右翼就把歐洲一體化當做終極目標，將之視德國成為後民族國家，將二戰的罪惡感隨著國家主權的消失而消亡。在這個過程中，德國刻意忽略了一個事實，即大多數他歐洲人都不接受這個目標。頗受爭議的專家蒂洛·扎拉青（Thilo Sarrazin）認為，一旦歐元危機爆發，很多保守派出於信念倫理，將會反對經濟救援行動。他們甚至不惜以歐元區瓦解為代價，想要通過危機來譴責違規行為，證明這些國家本質上為惡。
The ethic of responsibility holds that such stances are not merely impractical but wrong, and that what will not work cannot be moral. Those governing Germany have mostly been of this camp. In the 1980s millions of Germans marched against the modernisation of NATO’s nuclear arsenal, but Chancellor Helmut Schmidt let the missiles deploy, accepting the grim logic of deterrence. (His reward from his fellow Social Democrats was largely disdain.) In the euro crisis, Angela Merkel reluctantly agreed to bail-outs in order to hold the currency zone together.
擁護責任倫理的人認為這樣的立場不僅不切實際，而且錯誤，只有實幹才是道德。德國政府人士基本都屬於該陣營。20世紀80年代數百萬的德國人遊行反對北約核武現代化，但是，總理赫爾穆特·施密特（Helmut Schmidt ）還是允許部署導彈，接受了此舉會阻止戰爭的說法（他得到了社會民主黨同仁的蔑視）。歐元危機發生時，安吉拉·默克爾為了保住歐元區，勉強同意了提供經濟援助。
Transports of joy
喜不自勝
That is what makes Mrs Merkel’s historic opening of Germany’s borders to refugees on September 4th, 2015 so remarkable. “She galloped away with an ethic of conviction,” says Konrad Ott, a professor of philosophy and author of a book on migration and morality. At the time this aligned her with a euphoric “welcome culture”, as ordinary Germans volunteered to help refugees and the press celebrated the country’s humanitarian example. Mrs Merkel refused to put a numerical limit on accepting human beings in dire need, a position she still maintains.
因此，默克爾2015年9月4日開放德國邊境，允許難民進入就顯得意義重大。哲學教授、《移民和道德》一書作者康拉德·奧特（Konrad Ott）說道：“默克爾追隨信念倫理”。這樣也就把她和開心的 “歡迎文化”聯繫起來了，德國民眾都自願幫助難民，媒體也讚揚這個國家的人道主義。默克爾並不限制難民的數量，這是她一直堅持的立場。
But as predicted by ethicists of responsibility (in whose ranks Mrs Merkel is usually found), the mood soon turned. Other Europeans accused Germany of “moral imperialism”, the flip side of Gesinnungsethik. And many Germans felt that too much was being asked of their society. Some, in a development that would not have surprised Weber, turned xenophobic.
但是，正如擁護責任倫理的人（默克爾就屬於此類）所預測的那樣，人們的態度變化得很快。很多歐洲人批評德國走向了信念倫理的另一面，即“道德霸權”。許多德國人認為別人向他們索要過多。正如韋伯所預料的那樣，有些人發展為排外傾向。
The history of the past year can thus be seen as Mrs Merkel’s attempt to return to an ethic of responsibility without betraying her convictions. This includes biting her tongue as she deals with an increasingly authoritarian Turkey, whose cooperation she needs to reduce the migrant flows, and other moral compromises. Max Weber would have found her dilemma compelling. Even someone with an ethic of responsibility, he said, sometimes “reaches the point where he says: ‘Here I stand; I can do no other.’
默克爾在2015年的做法就是試圖在不背叛信念的同時迴歸責任信念。受此影響，由於減少難民潮方面需要土耳其幫助，德國在與愈加獨裁的土耳其合作時忍氣吞聲，還要做其他道德上的妥協。如果馬克斯·韋伯活著的話，也會發現她的處境十分艱難。韋伯表示，即便是擁護責任倫理的人，有時也會陷入他所說的“處在那個位置，別無他法”的境地。
編譯：郭娜
審校：屈揚銘
編輯：翻吧君
英文來源：經濟學人
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