第15章 権力と道徳律, n.25 - 同情心の限界_猫と鼠の倫理学
猫と鼠の倫理の反駁は,それが可能な場合には,実際上のものであり,理論上のものではない。そのような倫理の二人の達人は,喧嘩好きの(二人の)少年のように,互いに次のように(喧嘩を)始める。「遊ぼう,僕が猫をやる。君は鼠だ」「いやだ,いやだ」と,彼らは互いに言い返す。「君には猫はさせない,猫は僕だ」。そのようにして,たいていの場合,彼らはキルケニーの猫のようになる(注:the Kilkenny cats 最後まで執拗に戦う人々のこと。アイルランドのキルケニーの人々は2匹の猫のしっぽをつないで戦わせ、しっぽしか残らないまで猫が戦うのを観戦したという話に由来)。しかし,もし彼らのうちの一人が完全に勝利すれば,勝利者は彼の(自分の)倫理を確立することになる。そうすると(その後には),キプリング(注:(Joseph Rudyard Kipling, 1865年12月30日 - 1936年1月18日) は、イギリスの小説家、詩人で,ジョージ・オーウェルは彼は「イギリス帝国主義の伝道者」と呼んだ)や,白人の重荷(注:White Man's Burden 白色人種が非白人の世話をするという仮想の責任)や,北方人種(の優秀性)や,あるいはある種の不平等の信条を得るように成る。そのような信条は、必然的に,猫に対してのみ訴え、鼠に対しては訴えない。(即ち),そのような信条は,むきだしの権力によって,鼠の上に押し付けられるのである。 |
Chapter 15: Power and Moral Codes, n.25All great moralists, from Buddha and the Stoics down to recent times, treated the good as something to be, if possible, enjoyed by all men equally. They did not think of themselves as princes or Jews or Greeks; they thought of themselves merely as human beings. Their ethic had always a twofold source: on the one hand, they valued certain elements in their own lives; on the other hand, sympathy made them desire for others what they desired for themselves. Sympathy is the universalizing force in ethics; I mean sympathy as an emortion, not as a theoretical principle. Sympathy is in some degree instinctive : a child may be made unhappy by another child's cry. But limitations of sympathy are also natural. The cat has no sympathy for the mouse; the Romans had no sympathy for any animals except elephants; the Nazis have none for Jews, and Stalin had none for kulaks. Where there is limitation of sympathy there is a corresponding limitation in the conception of the good: the good becomes something to be enjoyed only by the magnanimous man, or only by the superman, or the Aryan, or the proletarian, or the Christadelphian. All these are cat-and-mouse ethics.The refutation of a cat-and-mouse ethic, where it is possible, is practical, not theoretical. Two adepts at such an ethic, like quarrelsome little boys, each begin: "Let's play I'm the cat and you're the mouse." "No, no," they each retort, "you shan't be the cat, I will." And so, more often than not, they become the Kilkenny cats But if one of them succeeds completely, he may establish his ethic; we then get Kipling and the White Man's Burden, or the Nordic Race, or some such creed of inequality. Such creeds, inevitably, appeal only to the cat, not to the mouse ; They are imposed on the mouse by naked power. |