经济学人214:实用主义者并非好人

 　　Moral philosophy

　　道德哲学

　　Goodness has nothing to do with it

　　无关善良

　　Utilitarians² are not nice people

　　实用主义者并非好人

　　Sep 24th 2011 | from the print edition

　　IN THE grand scheme of things Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill are normally thought of as good guys. Between them, they came up with the ethical³ theory known as utilitarianism. The goal of this theory is encapsulated in Bentham’s aphorism⁴ that “the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.”

　　大体来看，约翰?穆勒和杰里米?边沁通常是被看做好人，因为这二者设想建立了叫做实用主义的一种道德理论。这一理论的意义就深藏在边沁的一句格言中：道德与法律的根本在于大多数人的最大程度上的幸福。

　　Which all sounds fine and dandy until you start applying it to particular cases. A utilitarian¹, for example, might approve of the occasional torture of suspected terrorists—for the greater happiness of everyone else, you understand. That type of observation has led Daniel Bartels at Columbia University and David Pizarro at Cornell to ask what sort of people actually do have a utilitarian outlook on life. Their answers, just published in Cognition, are not comfortable.

　　这些听起来真是完美无瑕，但当你开始将其应用在某一特殊案例中，完美理论就瓦解了，比如说，一个实用主义者或许会认可对恐怖主义嫌疑分子做一些拷问折磨，为了每个人最大程度的幸福，当然你会理解。此种观察引起哥伦比亚大学的Daniel Bartels和康纳尔大学的David Pizarro二位学者的疑问：怎样的人群是真正抱有实用主义的人生观？而二人在《认知》杂志上揭晓出的答案让人不太舒服。

　　One of the classic techniques used to measure a person’s willingness to behave in a utilitarian way is known as trolleyology. The subject of the study is challenged with thought experiments involving a runaway⁶ railway trolley⁵ or train carriage. All involve choices, each of which leads to people’s deaths. For example: there are five railway workmen in the path of a runaway carriage. The men will surely be killed unless the subject of the experiment, a bystander in the story, does something. The subject is told he is on a bridge over the tracks. Next to him is a big, heavy stranger. The subject is informed that his own body would be too light to stop the train, but that if he pushes the stranger onto the tracks, the stranger’s large body will stop the train and save the five lives. That, unfortunately, would kill the stranger.

　　检测人们选择实用主义地办事的意愿如何有一个经典的方法，叫做“电车学”。该研究的主体要受到一些思维实验的考验，是有关一列运行中的有轨电车或是火车。但它们都涉及抉择，而且任选其一都无法避免死亡。举个例子，在火车前方的铁轨上有5个铁路工人，火车正在前进，这些人必死无疑除非实验主体即故事中的旁观者不袖手旁观。设定他站在铁道上的一座桥上，站在他旁边的是一个巨胖的陌生人，而他自己无力阻止列车前行；但是如果他把那个陌生人退下去，此人的巨大身体会阻拦住列车从而就拯救了五条人命。不幸的是，这也会使这个陌生人丧生。

　　Dr Bartels and Dr Pizarro knew from previous research that around 90% of people refuse the utilitarian act of killing⁷ one individual to save five. What no one had previously⁸ inquired about, though, was the nature of the remaining 10%.

　　Bartels博士和Pizarro博士从之前的研究中得知有90%的人不会选择这种实用主义的行为，牺牲一个救五个。但是之前也没有人去探问剩下10%的人到底有着怎样的天性。

　　To find out, the two researchers gave 208 undergraduates a battery of trolleyological tests and measured, on a four-point scale, how utilitarian their responses were. Participants were also asked to respond to a series of statements intended to get a sense of their individual psychologies⁹. These statements included, “I like to see fist fights”, “The best way to handle people is to tell them what they want to hear”, and “When you really think about it, life is not worth the effort of getting up in the morning”. Each was asked to indicate, for each statement, where his views lay on a continuum that had “strongly agree” at one end and “strongly disagree” at the other. These statements, and others like them, were designed to measure, respectively, psychopathy, Machiavellianism and a person’s sense of how meaningful life is.

　　为了探明这一问题，这两位研究者给208位大学生做了一连串的电车测试并以四探针测试仪那样的精细程度检测他们反应的实用主义程度几何。参与者们还要对一些陈述作出回应以此来检测个体心理，这些陈述包括；我喜欢看拳击；掌控别人的最好方式就是说他们爱听的；当你真正去思考生活时，生活都不值得你为之生活。对于每一个陈述，每个参与者都要表明其观点是落在完全赞成或是完全反对的一方。这些以及其他类似的表达都是专门设计分别来检测精神变态、权术主义和人生价值观的。

　　Dr Bartels and Dr Pizarro then correlated the results from the trolleyology with those from the personality tests. They found a strong link between utilitarian answers to moral dilemmas¹¹ (push the fat guy off the bridge) and personalities¹² that were psychopathic, Machiavellian¹⁰ or tended to view life as meaningless. Utilitarians, this suggests, may add to the sum of human happiness, but they are not very happy people themselves.

　　然后，Bartels和 Pizarro把电车测试的结果和人格测试结果联系起来，他们发现对道德抉择（即把那个胖子推下桥）的实用主义选择和精神变态、不择手段或是厌世情绪的人格有着很大联系。他们还指出实用主义者或会为人类谋求更多的幸福，可他们本身却并不快乐。

　　That does not make utilitarianism wrong. Crafting legislation—one of the main things that Bentham and Mill wanted to improve—inevitably involves riding roughshod over someone’s interests. Utilitarianism provides a plausible¹³ framework for deciding who should get trampled¹⁴. The results obtained by Dr Bartels and Dr Pizarro do, though, raise questions about the type of people who you want making the laws. Psychopathic, Machiavellian misanthropes¹⁵? Apparently¹⁶, yes.

　　这并不说明实用主义就是错的。法律的精确完善不可避免的要伤害一些人的利益，这也是边沁和穆勒想要去提高完善的主要社会问题之一。而实用主义为人们提供了一个算是合理的思维框架来决定谁应该被被踩在脚下不管不顾。但是，Bartels和 Pizarro两位博士的实验结果却提出了一个问题，人们希望哪一类人做法律的制定者呢？精神变态不择手段的反人类者？显然正是他们在做。

1 utilitarian   

adj.实用的，功利的

参考例句：

• On the utilitarian side American education has outstridden the rest of the world.在实用方面美国教育已超越世界各国。
• A good cloth coat is more utilitarian than a fur one.一件优质的布外衣要比一件毛皮外衣更有用。

2 utilitarians   

功利主义者，实用主义者( utilitarian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• But even fervent utilitarians should pay attention, for two reasons. 但是，即使狂热的功利主义者现在都该留神，这里有两个原因。

3 ethical   

adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的

参考例句：

• It is necessary to get the youth to have a high ethical concept.必须使青年具有高度的道德观念。
• It was a debate which aroused fervent ethical arguments.那是一场引发强烈的伦理道德争论的辩论。

4 aphorism   

n.格言，警语

参考例句：

• It is the aphorism of the Asian Games. 这是亚运会的格言。
• Probably the aphorism that there is no easy answer to what is very complex is true. 常言道,复杂的问题无简易的答案,这话大概是真的。

5 trolley   

n.手推车，台车；无轨电车；有轨电车

参考例句：

• The waiter had brought the sweet trolley.侍者已经推来了甜食推车。
• In a library,books are moved on a trolley.在图书馆，书籍是放在台车上搬动的。

6 runaway   

n.逃走的人，逃亡，亡命者；adj.逃亡的，逃走的

参考例句：

• The police have not found the runaway to date.警察迄今没抓到逃犯。
• He was praised for bringing up the runaway horse.他勒住了脱缰之马受到了表扬。

7 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

8 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

9 psychologies   

n.心理学( psychology的名词复数 )；心理特点；心理影响

参考例句：

• So the two branch of social psychologies will exist and develop eternally. 两种取向的社会心理学将永远存在和发展下去。 来自互联网
• What interests me most are psychologies, backgrounds and spotting winners. 最让我感兴趣的是心理特点、背景经历以及如何预判出佼佼者。 来自互联网

10 machiavellian   

adj.权谋的，狡诈的

参考例句：

• A Machiavellian plot was suspected.人们怀疑背后有不可告人的阴谋。
• In this layer,Obama implied American policies that are cautious and Machiavellian.在这个层面，奥巴马含蓄地表达了美国的谨慎、权谋的（新）政策。

11 dilemmas   

n.左右为难( dilemma的名词复数 )；窘境，困境

参考例句：

• They dealt with their dilemmas by mixing perhaps unintentionally an explosive brew. 他们――也许是无意地――把爆炸性的佐料混合在一起，以此来应付困难处境。 来自辞典例句
• Ten years later we encountered the same dilemmas in Vietnam. 十年后，我们又在越南遇到了同样进退两难的局面。 来自辞典例句

12 personalities   

n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There seemed to be a degree of personalities in her remarks.她话里有些人身攻击的成分。
• Personalities are not in good taste in general conversation.在一般的谈话中诽谤他人是不高尚的。

13 plausible   

adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的

参考例句：

• His story sounded plausible.他说的那番话似乎是真实的。
• Her story sounded perfectly plausible.她的说辞听起来言之有理。

14 trampled   

踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯

参考例句：

• He gripped his brother's arm lest he be trampled by the mob. 他紧抓着他兄弟的胳膊，怕他让暴民踩着。
• People were trampled underfoot in the rush for the exit. 有人在拼命涌向出口时被踩在脚下。

15 misanthropes   

n.厌恶人类者( misanthrope的名词复数 )

参考例句：

16 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。