On April 23, World Book Day, the National Library of China announced the 17th Wenjin Book Award. Curated by Movable Type Culture, "Only This Life: Eight Lectures on the Philosophy of Life" won the final prize.
"Only This Life: Eight Lectures on the Philosophy of Life" is the profound work of scholar He Huaihong's decades of study of ethics. This book explores life and death, human nature, virtue, but also about the self, others and the world, and is a philosophical meditation for contemporary youth.
Professor He Huaihong is a true scholar. He graduated from Chinese University in 1988 with a doctorate in philosophy. In the 1980s, he mainly studied Western philosophy and ethics and engaged in translation, and since the 1990s, he has focused on the principles of ethics and Chinese history and culture, and has entered some research areas of applied ethics.
Professor He Huaihong has many important academic works, such as "Theory of Conscience", "Bottom Line Ethics", "Life and Virtue", "Introduction to Justice Theory", "Hereditary Society", "Electoral Society", etc. The question of life has always been the question of his thinking and discussion, and he has written books such as "Meditations on Life", "Morality and God and Man", "Cherish Life", "Live but Remember", "Drift Away and Gradually Have No Books", and edit "Ecological Ethics".
As an ethicist concerned with human society, in recent years he has paid more and more attention to and thought about how to treat life as a body and a flesh. Today, Movable Type Jun and book lovers shared excerpts from a dialogue between He Huaihong and Ma Guochuan, as well as an article on "The Meaning of The Body" in Professor He Huaihong's new book "Only This Life".
In this age of absurdity, this book is suitable for everyone who thinks about life.
We may personally have a basic trend or life prospects, for example, the beginning of my birth, my genetics, my talents, my personality, what kind of country and family I was born into, etc., so that my life can have a basic direction, but many things will happen during this period, especially when I realize that I have a certain freedom, I can add my efforts into the chain of cause and effect, so that my own free will can become one of the "causes". Maybe I can't change the most basic destiny, but I can still change many things.
Always put the principles of life first
Ma Guochuan: From a philosophical point of view, how to treat compatriots and treat human beings is civilized?
He Huaihong: My major is moral philosophy, especially social ethics. My first monograph was Meditations on Life, published in the 1980s, and most recently, Alive, But Remember. In the middle, he has also published books such as "Cherishing Life", "Life and Virtue", and editing "Ecological Ethics". It can be said that the question of life has always been a problem that I think about and explore.
But in the past three decades, the focus of thinking has changed. "Meditations on Life" is mainly a commentary on a French thinker in the 17th century, Pascal, who realized the fragility of human physical life, but his thinking was mainly the life of the spirit, the life of faith. As an ethicist who pays attention to human society, I am increasingly turning to thinking about how to deal with life as a body, a flesh.
Ma Guochuan: Pascal's most famous saying is, "Man is a reed that thinks." This metaphor also implies the fragility of life.
He Huaihong: Yes, human physical life is very fragile, a stone, a drop of poisonous juice is enough to break the reeds of this life. However, people still have thoughts, and there will be valuable pursuits and aspirations. But I did talk more and more about life in a metaphysical sense, but more and more about the physical life of man. At least for the living, the spirit is closely connected to the flesh, the mind and the body. Except for a very small number of saints and heroes, the vast majority of people are concerned with the safety of life first.
It is reasonable for a person to care about his or her own life, but what is the ethical significance of caring about life? This involves the relationship between people and society, and between people and others. In how to treat the body and physical life of others, a moral attitude arises. We may all have moments of our own spirit and soul, or the pursuit of such moments, but I want to emphasize the point that if you do not treat the flesh of others well, that is, you do not treat your own soul well. Whether all spiritual ideas, including noble ideals of all kinds, are justified or not, in the final analysis, must be judged by the principle of whether they contribute to the preservation of others, not only to you, but also to the lives of all people other than you. Of course, spiritual beliefs that have passed this validation can often provide strong support for the basic norms of preserving life.
Our own lives are always related to the lives of others. We do have and should have more autonomy in dealing with our own lives and lifestyles, but if our actions affect others, we can't all do as we please. For example, not long ago there was a heavy snowfall in Beijing, and I would like to take the bus to the Summer Palace to see the snow, if such a thing just brings me any danger, I may not care much. But during the epidemic period, not only may I be infected, I may also become a source of infection to infect others, so I become a link in this chain of infection, so even if the probability of infection is not large, it is best not to go. We are responsible not only for our own lives, but also for the lives of others.
Claude Monet's Camille Monet On Her Deathbed
Ma Guochuan: In fact, many times it is easy to be responsible for yourself, so it is difficult to be responsible for the lives of others, especially in special periods, such as those who dared to speak out in the early days of the epidemic.
He Huaihong: So, I think they are mortals and heroes. Heroes are in a marginal situation to do things that others are unwilling or afraid to do, such as Dr. Li Wenliang. In life, he is like ordinary people, but he has more compassion than the average person and wants to tell the truth to more people. He issued the news of the epidemic in the group of classmates, which was the first time he spoke out, and he was under pressure to talk, be disciplined,* and be characterized by the mainstream media as a "rumor-monger." But I also value his second voice, after he contracted the disease at the end of January, he issued his statement on Weibo, and later gave interviews to some media, showing a stronger sense of responsibility and self-awareness. To be able to hold on to one's duty on the margins is to be a hero. From the night of February 6th to the early morning of February 7th, like countless others, I spent a scorching sleepless night. He was indeed an ordinary man and a hero at the same time. Such a person, we must firmly remember.
Ma Guochuan: Specifically, what are the principles of life?
He Huaihong: First, life itself is precious, not as a means and tools, but as a precious end, and life itself is also an end; second, the life of all people is equally precious and must be treated equally; third, the principle of life is the first principle of morality, and it is the fundamental principle that we should give the highest priority. Some individuals and groups tend to use a variety of reasons, even seemingly superb theories, to make people despise life and harm life, which is a major bitter lesson of the twentieth century.
Ma Guochuan: Since the principle of life is the first principle of morality, it means that this is a bottom line that cannot be broken.
He Huaihong: Yes, we need to understand the principles of life from the perspective of bottom-line thinking. From a historical point of view, there are three major causes of large-scale killing of people's lives: war, plague (referring to all vicious infectious diseases) and famine. In addition to the fact that wars are man-made, plagues and famines are related to natural causes, but human factors can also intervene, sometimes directly as causes. For example, this new crown pneumonia is likely to be related to some people trading and indiscriminate eating of wild animals. Human factors may contain the spread of disasters, and may also exacerbate the outcome of disasters, thus turning natural disasters into man-made disasters and natural disasters.
The shadow of war is still there, leaving aside. As things stand, a massive famine is unlikely because the world is rich in food production and as long as the news is not blocked, rescue will arrive quickly. What about the plague? On the one hand, we have successfully contained or even eliminated some vicious infectious diseases, such as smallpox, but on the other hand, new viruses continue to appear, coupled with globalization and urbanization, once the outbreak spreads rapidly. The COVID-19 in front of us is a warning. (Click to read "Philosopher He Huaihong: Always Put the Principles of Life First", March 21, 2020)
The meaning of the body
Monet, "Tugboat in Honfleur", Towing a Boat, Honfleur, 1864
Philosophers tend to despise the body, but I think that today's philosophers, especially those who have experienced or studied the history of the twentieth century, should pay attention to the body.
We have to die precisely because we have a body. We have desires, but also because we have bodies. A baby who has just given birth, still with his eyes closed, instinctively looks for a pacifier, and once he gets it, he sucks it desperately. After sucking in enough, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Human vulnerability also comes from here, that is, the first and most important thing comes from the body. The body needs constant safety, it also needs constant nutrition, especially humans, and compared to other animals, we see how helpless human babies themselves are, requiring long periods of breastfeeding and protection.
How long have we experienced the longest period of non-eating? I myself am just a day and a night. A person who eats a very full meal probably does not want to eat the next meal. But the next meal will definitely be hungry. There are also people who can "break the valley" and not eat for several days and nights, but still have to drink water. This probably depends on the previous accumulation of the body. I don't think it will work for a long time, at least not for most people.
The human body is also vulnerable. Don't say guns, sometimes it's a fruit knife, a needle, it can also kill people. People are not people made of special materials such as steel and silicone, but people are people made of flesh. You hit him and it hurts. If you stab him, he will bleed, and when the blood is almost flowing, he will die. The human body is still afraid of heat, afraid of cold, and even more afraid of all kinds of torture.
At least from the consciousness of the people we see, the body is also the carrier of consciousness. When a person's body is gone, his consciousness is also absent in the eyes of the living person. The dead never brought an echo.
A philosophy that is fully aware of and cared for by this vulnerability of the human body is a philosophy that is neither divorced from humanity nor from humanity. I cherish and care for my body, but I also respect and protect other people's bodies. Without a body, life would not exist. Physical pain and limitation, and it cannot be denied that it is pain and limitation. It is possible for some to rely on mental strength to alleviate and dilute this suffering, but the other possibility is even greater: that is, in more people, this suffering will be extended, bringing about psychological suffering.
Therefore, any theory and philosophy involving man, especially social theory and political philosophy, should first consider how the body of others should be treated, or the body of man in general. The most basic function of the state is a kind of "night watchman" role, that is, to give priority to ensuring the physical safety and basic survival of people in this political society.
We emphasize the spiritual side of man, and man must have a spirit. But this should be more of a self-requirement, for others, we can not forcibly transform the spirit of others, and in fact, the spirit also reflects the external physical behavior, even the most violent external behavior can not be transformed, you can only hurt or even destroy it. You cannot lift another person's spirit through physical repression.
This attitude also has a moral significance. So, we can even say that if a person does not treat the body of others well, he does not treat his own soul well. In the same way, a political society can never be a good society if it does not treat the bodies of all members of society well, such as providing security and basic material living conditions for the bodies of all.
The reason why modern totalitarianism, which we witnessed in the twentieth century, is more powerful and pervasive than the authoritarian dictatorships of the past is indeed because it has extended to all aspects of society through ideological and other means, coercing and oppressing many people, but it must also be based on and backed by violence against the body.
Therefore, if philosophers emphasize too much "soft knife killing" and forget "hard knife killing", overemphasize the implicit suppression of the psychological level and ignore the explicit suppression of the physical level, and overemphasize vigilance against the so-called "micro power" that affects people's psychology and ignore the physical "macro power" of the hard state of the body, it is inappropriate, and even objectively may become a cover for real atrocities.
In any case, the guarantee of physical safety and continuity is still primary, and this guarantee is more dependent on others and society. Although this guarantee has also increased greatly in recent decades, and violence has shown a decreasing trend in human history, there are indeed some unpredictable risks in the future.
There are some personal philosophies of life or religious beliefs that can indeed put the body on the back burner, but there should be a kind of "difference between man and me": even if you believe that the spirit is more important, even if you ignore or even torture your body for this purpose, you cannot force others to do this.
We see that the basic moral precepts of the major religions of mankind are almost always directed to the body or its extensions, "do not kill" and "do not rape", which are directly prevented from harming the body; and some point to the possessions of the body, such as "no theft" and "no fraud", often because it will bring damage to the material interests needed by the body. The body also needs a space for the free movement of a person as a human being. The protection of property rights is important, first of all, because it guarantees the body and its scope of free movement.
Of course, we may not have to pay too much attention to the body. Under the economic conditions of normal society, it is not difficult to ensure the basic survival of human beings. Thoreau had done an experiment on walden Lake, and he had spent more than twenty dollars on raw materials to build a hut in less than a month that was enough to shelter from the wind and rain. Socrates taunted an athenian expert in exercise and wellness who lived a few years longer than the average person, which was almost equal to the time he spent exercising and maintaining health. Socrates went to the plethora of markets and said he had seen many things he didn't need. He also lived peacefully to the age of seventy. Nor was his later death due to material deprivation.
Naturally, our ordinary people's lives do not have to be as simple as theirs. Some of the luxuries of the past may also become our necessities today. People also retain their interest in different novelties according to their own conditions. But many health and health products may be redundant, and maintaining a certain dietary balance and exercise balance is almost enough to maintain the basic health of the body. In today's highly developed scientific and technological and economic situation, material nutrition products are greatly enriched, although there is still a national and regional imbalance, but for many people in developed and developing countries, the health requirements seem to be more focused on the need to suppress excessive intake of nutrients than to prevent nutritional deficiencies.
The ancient Chinese people said: "The skin of the body, the parents, can not be destroyed." "Even if people play down its source today, they do need such a protective attitude towards their own bodies." Although this can still be analyzed, people in ancient times attached importance to hair, and even sometimes "cut their hair to Mingzhi", sometimes "grow a beard to Mingzhi", and they are extremely precious to blood, but these views may be due to the addition of certain conceptual, conscious or spiritual factors. Today's science tells us that some body components, such as hair, will not hurt the body, and what hairstyle to cut will not be. Even a regular and moderate amount of blood donation is actually no big deal. In fact, our bodies are constantly spitting out the old and the new, and such a body is "alive".
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