明清小说中的动物伦理思想——以《醒世姻缘传》为例  

On Animal Ethics in Novels of Ming and Qing Dynasties——A Case Study of Marriage Destinies to Awaken the World

作　　者：冯尕才[1] 周景勇[2] 

机构地区：[1]渭南职业技术学院 [2]北京林业大学人文社会科学学院

出　　处：《南京林业大学学报（人文社会科学版）》2017年第4期55-63,共9页Journal of Nanjing Forestry University(Humanities and Social Sciences Edition)

基　　金：国家科技基础性工作专项项目"中国森林典籍志书资料整编"(2014FY120500)(2)2014913

摘　　要：明清小说中有许多宣扬动物保护思想的故事,传达了中国传统思想中对人与动物关系的思考,蕴含着较为深刻的动物伦理思想。长篇世情小说《醒世姻缘传》尤其如此,关于人与动物关系的内容占有很重要的地位。这部小说是以晁源猎杀以狐狸精为首的大量动物为缘起,讲述了晁源死后托生为狄希陈,在家庭生活中受到狐狸精托生的妻子种种非人的虐待欺凌这样一个因果报应的两世姻缘故事,中间还穿插了不少人对待动物的小故事。在主题思想上,小说将人与动物的关系与夫妻、君臣、父母子女、妻妾、师生、朋友、主仆等社会伦理关系相提并论,说明已经具有了明确的动物伦理观念;阐述了对人开展动物伦理教育,事实上是以此完成道德教育的道理;借助于佛教叙事和因果报应思想劝诫世人戒杀爱生;将是否善待动物作为评价一个人的道德素质高低的标准之一。小说的议论部分,还肯定了万物生灵的生存权,指出人是动物伦理实践的主体。《醒世姻缘传》中蕴含的动物伦理思想,以及利用小说的社会教育功能来宣扬这种思想,具有十分进步的意义,既是传统文化中动物伦理思想在小说中的呈现,也是当时大众对待动物的态度在小说中的反映。这在当时的世界范围内是相当先进的,代表着中华民族文明的水平。Many novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties contain the idea of wild animal protection, expressing the Chinese traditional thoughts about the relationship between human and animals, which includes profound animal ethics. Particularly in Marriage Destinies to Awaken the World, the content about the relationship between human and animals plays a very important role. The novel began from Chao Yuan's killing of a fox spirit and many other animals. Then Chao reincarnated into Di Xichen in his afterlife, and suffered a lot from his wife reincarnated from the fox spirit, which presented karma. There were also many interludes about how human treated animals in the novel. In its theme, the novel equated the relationship between human and animals with that between husbands and wives, monarchs and ministers, parents and children, wives and concubines, teachers and students, masters and servants, and that between friends, indicating clear consciousness of animal ethics, which actually delivered the message of moral education through animal ethics education. The novel instructed readers to value lives and stop killing through the Buddhist narrative of karma, and evaluated a person's morality partly through his attitude to animals. In the part of comment, the novel approved all beings' rights to survival and pointed out that human are the main subject of animal ethics practice. Marriage Destinies to Awaken the World's animal ethics thoughts and its educational function are extremely progressive. It reflected the animal ethics of Chinese traditional culture and common people's attitudes to animals. These thoughts were quite advanced in the world at the time and represented the high level of Chinese civilization.

关 键 词：动物伦理 《醒世姻缘传》 西周生 明清小说 生态文学 

分 类 号：I207.41[文学—中国文学]