有關於道德的英語美文

　　道德與法律的關係 ,在人類歷史上經歷了一個由高度融合到相對獨立 ,再到重新融合的過程。下面是小編帶來的，歡迎閱讀!

　　篇一

　　身處浮躁的社會如何培養品德

　　Yesterday, in the House of Commons, Charles Kennedy’s parliamentary colleagues gave movingtributes to his life. There is never a rush, of course, to speak ill of the dead, but these tributeshad the clear ring of sincerity. David Cameron said his “character and courage inspired us all”,and Nick Clegg that he always put people before politics. Outside the commons, colleagues andfriends have spoken repeatedly of Kennedy’s compassion, decency, and principled nature aswell as of his ongoing battle with human frailty in the form of alcoholism.

　　It seems Charles Kennedy displayed what the New York Times Columnist David Brooks wouldcall “eulogy virtues”. In his most recent book “The Road to Character”, Brooks contrastseulogy virtues like kindness, faithfulness and humility with what he calls resume virtues -the kind of things we put on our CV. He’s convinced that both eulogy virtues and resumevirtues take work to develop, and is worried that western society pushes us to put our effortsinto the ones that will help improve our careers, not our characters.

　　It's the age old question- what makes a good life? How do we go deeper amongst the clamourof a culture that monetises status anxiety and defines us by what earn, own or look like?

　　David Brook’s call for us to do the hard work of developing character, to cultivate self-restraint and self-suspicion in the age of the selfie stick, isn't really controversial. It'sobvious, when we stop to think about it, that the real legacies of our lives aren’t job titles,twitter followers or cellulite free thighs. But how do we develop the eulogy virtues, when thegravitational pull of the self is so strong?

　　Christians would be the first to acknowledge that these virtues don't come naturally. Thechurch’s hunch is that change happens through vulnerable, committed relationships. Toovercome the tyrant self we must confess our frailty and darkest tendencies - first to God,and then to others.

　　Behavioural science is beginning to add evidence to what religions have long understood -virtue develops best in relational communities. Not short term communities of self interestmade up of “people like us”, but awkward, diverse, grace filled communities, established forthe long term. The New Testament encourages Christians to be part of communities like these,to encourage one another, bear with each other and create space for the hard conversations.To keep reminding each other of the virtues that matter and the things that last. These kind ofcommunities aren't of course unique to Christianity, and they are often far from perfect, but ifwe want to be remembered not for our fleeting achievements but our depth of character, theymight be the best hope we have.

　　昨天，在下議院，查爾斯·肯尼迪的同事為他的一生髮表了催人淚下的悼詞。當然，死者為大，沒有人會在死者屍骨未寒時說別人的不是。但是這些悼詞很明顯是真誠的。大衛·卡梅倫說他的“品格和勇氣鼓舞了我們所有人”，尼克·克萊格說他總是把民眾放在政治前面。在下議院外，他的同事和朋友多次提到他的同情心，政治和原則性，並不斷與人類酗酒的劣根性做鬥爭。

　　查爾斯·肯尼迪似乎體現了《紐約時報》專欄作家David Brooks所說的“悼詞美德”。在他最近的書《通往品格的道路》中，Brooks將善良，忠誠等悼詞美德與他所說的簡歷美德做了對比——也就是我們寫在簡歷上的品德。他相信，悼詞美德和簡歷美德都需要發揚。他擔心西方世界導致我們努力塑造幫助我們職業發展的品德，而不是幫助性格成長的品德。

　　我們又要說一個老生常談的問題——怎樣才是好的生活?在宣揚金錢至上，追求社會地位，根據收入，財產和外表來定義我們的浮躁社會，我們怎樣才能深入剖析自己的內心世界?

　　David Brook呼籲我們努力塑造品格，在自我吹噓的環境中培養自制和自審的品格，這並無爭議。很明顯，當我們停下來認真思考的時候，我們真正寶貴的財產並不是我們的職位，推特粉絲或沒有脂肪的大腿。但是在自我的萬有引力如此強大的情況下，我們怎樣培養悼詞美德?

　　基督徒們將最先站出來承認這些美德並不是與生俱來的。基督教教義認為，改變是在脆弱忠誠的關係中發生的。要克服殘暴的自我，我們必須承認我們的脆弱和最黑暗的本性——首先是對上帝，然後是對自己。

　　行為科學不斷有證據表明各宗教很久以前就已經理解的問題——道德在關係社會中發展得最快。不是由“跟我一樣的人”組成的短暫的利益團體，而是長期的，尷尬的，多樣化的人組成的團體。<<新約聖經>>鼓勵基督徒成為這樣的團體的一部分，鼓勵大家相互容忍，為艱難的對話打造空間。互相提醒非常重要的道德和永恆持久的事情。當然，這些團體並不是對基督教來說獨一無二的，而通常並不完美，但是，如果我們不是想要人們記住卓越的成就，而是希望人們記住我們的品德，這或許是我們最大的希望。

　　篇二

　　Moral philosophy.

　　道德哲學。

　　Goodness has nothing to do with it.

　　無關善惡。

　　Utilitarians are not nice people.

　　功利主義者並不是好人。

　　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 ethical theory known as utilitarianism. The goal of this theory is encapsulated in Bentham's aphorism that "the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation."

　　從歷史洪流的角度來看，傑里米·貝薩姆和約翰·斯圖阿特·密爾通常都被認為是好人。他們一起合作建立了現在被稱為功利主義的道德理論。該理論的核心目的可以被貝薩姆的一句格言很好地概括"道德和立法的基礎在於讓最多的人最大程度的幸福"

　　Which all sounds fine and dandy until you start applying it to particular cases. A utilitarian, 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.

　　聽上去很不錯，但當你開始把這套理論應用在具體事件上時問題就出來了。比方說，功利主義者可能贊成對恐怖主義疑犯用刑。大家都明白，這是為了其它所有人好。哥倫比亞大學的丹尼爾·巴特爾斯和康奈爾大學的大衛·皮扎羅受到類似這樣的觀察啟發，提出了哪一型別的人對生活的看法最接近功利主義這一有趣問題。他們的論文最近在認知科學上發表，其中得到的結論讓人不安。

　　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 runaway railway trolley 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.

　　測量一個人有多大的意願以功利主義方式行事的一個傳統方法是電車實驗。參加者進行一個想象實驗，實驗裡有一節失控的有軌電車或火車車廂。該實驗有很多版本，不管哪一個都要求參加者進行選擇，而且不管怎麼選都會有人死亡。例如：有五個工人在失控車廂前方的軌道上。如果實驗參加者作為故事中的一個旁觀者不進行干涉這五個人就死定了。參加者被告知他在鐵道上方的一座橋上，身邊有一個身材肥胖的陌生人，同時參加者知道自己的體重太輕，無法停止火車，但如果把那個陌生人推下去，他的巨大身軀將會停止火車，讓五個工人得救。不幸的是這麼做會殺死該陌生人。

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

　　巴特爾斯博士和皮扎羅博士從之前的研究中得知大約90%的參加者會拒絕殺死一個陌生人救出五個人的功利主義行為。但是之前的研究沒人提出過剩下的10%人的性格這一問題。

　　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 psychologies. 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.

　　為了找出結果，這兩個研究者對208個大學生進行了一系列電車實驗，並以一到四分的機制來給他們的答案中的功利主義成分打分。參加者也要進行一系列分析個人心理的測試。測試包括這些問題，"我喜歡看人打架"，"應付別人最好的辦法就是說他們想聽的話"，以及"認真想想的話，生活沒什麼意思，每天起來真不值"。參加者要在一個連續的尺度上標出他們對每一個問題的看法，從"完全同意"到"完全不同意"。這三個問題按次序分別是為了測量一個人的冷血程度，厚黑程度以及他覺得生活是否有意義的程度，其它問題也是圍繞著測量這三個方面而設計的。

　　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 dilemmas ***push the fat guy off the bridge*** and personalities that were psychopathic, Machiavellian 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.

　　巴特爾斯博士和皮扎羅博士然後開始尋找人格測試和電車實驗結果的相關性。他們發現在面對道德兩難***將胖子推下去***時回答體現功利主義的參加者和冷血變態心理，厚黑主義以及覺得生活沒意義的想法有很強的關聯。這表示雖然功利主義者能夠增加人類整體的幸福值，但他們自己並不是什麼快樂的人。

　　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 plausible framework for deciding who should get trampled. 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 misanthropes? Apparently, yes.

　　這並不意味著功利主義是錯誤的。任何法律的制定-當年貝薩姆和密爾希望借其理論能夠有所助益的主要行為之一-不可避免的需要犧牲一部分人的利益。功利主義提供了一個比較合理的框架來決定應該犧牲誰的利益。不過巴特爾斯博士和皮扎羅博士的研究提出了應該讓哪種人來制定法律的質疑。冷血，厚黑的厭惡人類者?從表面上來看，是的。

　　篇三

　　怎樣更好地理解責任感

　　In one of the oldest examples of political evasion, instead of answering the question that incriminated him Cain countered God with another. How should I know where my brother is? Am I his keeper?

　　Is it wrong to pay cash to the teenager who mows our lawn? Of course not. Unless I happen to know he isn’t telling the Benefits Office, in which case of course it is. But suppose I merely suspect? Or don’t think to ask? Or consider it none of my business, want to encourage him with a taste for work and would very much prefer not to take the moral high ground with someone else’s conscience?

　　The morality of responsibility can be far more complex than merely the law.

　　Friends of mine have started to wonder whether and when they should stop a parent driving. They know it’s vital for seeing people, visiting offspring, staying interested in life. Yet the parent may never even have taken a driving test and certainly wouldn’t pass one now. The state allows it: should the son or daughter prevent it – balancing the safety of strangers against the needs of the loved one?

　　Or the abstract principle against the immediate family. I was told I shouldn’t work for someone who had made his money in a way some considered unethical: a friend had left his employment and wouldn’t talk to me unless I did too. I scoured the scriptures, finding several passages exhorting me to work hard and support my family, and one or two telling me how to submit to an immoral boss. None suggesting I was responsible for my employer’s conduct, past or present.

　　Someone I was very fond of at university turned his back on Christianity because he couldn’t accept rich Christians in a world of hunger: he believed they should take responsibility for those on the other side of the world. To his credit, he went on to establish two very well-known movements combating world poverty.

　　Responsibility can be brutal. Kevin Carter won the world’s attention for famine with his photograph of a toddler being stalked by a vulture, as well as vociferous criticism for being a vulture himself. And indeed the Pulitzer prize. The following year his suicide note read, “I am haunted by... memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain... of starving children.”

　　Cain knew the answer full well. His brother Abel’s blood cried out to him from the ground. Of course he should have cared for him.

　　But how do we pit one responsibility against another?

　　They tried to trap the Rabbi with questions. Should we support an oppressive regime? or refuse to pay taxes and break the law? He didn’t evade the question. He took it further. Show me a coin. Whose image is it made in? Then give the coin to him.

　　Now look at yourself. Whose image are you made in? Give responsibility where responsibility is due. To Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.

　　And to God the things that are God’s.

　　We all have complicated duties to disentangle day by day. We start by knowing where our ultimate responsibility lies.