Off the State of Nature
从哈佛公开课Justice中摘抄的3段话。分别回答了三个问题：人为什么要离开自然状态？人们如何离开自然状态进入社会？一个合法政府究竟有何限制？
What starts out as a seemingly benign state of nature(where everyone is free and yet where there is a law and the law respects people's rights, and those rights are so powerful that they're unalienable), once you look closer, is pretty fierce and filled with violence, and that's why people want to leave.
The only way to escape from the state of nature is to undertake an act of consent where you agree to give up the enforcement power and to create a government or a community where there will be a legislature to make law and where everyone agrees in advance abide by whatever the majority decides.
Once there is a legitimate government based on consent, the only limits are limits on arbitary takings of life or of liberty or of property, but if the majority decides, if the majority promulgates a generally applicable law, and if it votes duly according to fair procedures, then there is no violation, whether it's a system of taxation or a system of conscription.
一个感想就是arbitary 这个词既指任意的，也是专制的意思。任意的反面就是普适。反专制的意义，就是反对任意施行权力的government，而找出一个大家同意（consent）的普适（generally applicable）的程序来解决一些利益冲突或者伦理困境。这就是程序正义优于结果正义的一个原因。
我一贯的一个观念就是，社会是乱与治的一个混合体，无论社会发展到何种程度，总有自然状态的成分或者区域，也总有法治的成分或者区域。在任何事态的发展过程中，自由力量起作用的成分和约法(convention)起作用的成分是同时起作用的。
What starts out as a seemingly benign state of nature(where everyone is free and yet where there is a law and the law respects people's rights, and those rights are so powerful that they're unalienable), once you look closer, is pretty fierce and filled with violence, and that's why people want to leave.
The only way to escape from the state of nature is to undertake an act of consent where you agree to give up the enforcement power and to create a government or a community where there will be a legislature to make law and where everyone agrees in advance abide by whatever the majority decides.
Once there is a legitimate government based on consent, the only limits are limits on arbitary takings of life or of liberty or of property, but if the majority decides, if the majority promulgates a generally applicable law, and if it votes duly according to fair procedures, then there is no violation, whether it's a system of taxation or a system of conscription.
一个感想就是arbitary 这个词既指任意的，也是专制的意思。任意的反面就是普适。反专制的意义，就是反对任意施行权力的government，而找出一个大家同意（consent）的普适（generally applicable）的程序来解决一些利益冲突或者伦理困境。这就是程序正义优于结果正义的一个原因。
我一贯的一个观念就是，社会是乱与治的一个混合体，无论社会发展到何种程度，总有自然状态的成分或者区域，也总有法治的成分或者区域。在任何事态的发展过程中，自由力量起作用的成分和约法(convention)起作用的成分是同时起作用的。
