Kobayashi Masaya
Graduate School of Social Sciences, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan.
Front Psychol. 2021 Dec 13;12:727818. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.727818. eCollection 2021.
This manuscript explores the relationship between positive psychology and political philosophy, revealing an inter-disciplinary approach that speaks to the concerns of the common good. Since positive psychology has been expanding its reach into social and political spheres, its relationship to philosophical arguments has been worthy of exploration. Positive psychology is associated with utilitarianism, and aspects of hedonic psychology. However, an alternative concept of eudaimonic well-being has enabled this psychology to have links to other political philosophies. Therefore, this manuscript provides an overview of contemporary political philosophies: first, it discusses the debate between liberalism and communitarianism, and secondly, it summarizes the subsequent developments of liberal perfectionism, capability approach, and deliberative democracy. Then, the configuration of these political philosophies is indicated by the figure of two axes of "individual/collective" and "ethical/non-ethical." The following section compiles the inter-relationships between the conceptions of citizenship, justice, and well-being, regarding the main political philosophies: egoism, utilitarianism, libertarianism, liberalism, communitarianism, and conservatism. Utilitarianism is associated with happiness, while liberalism and libertarianism rely on the concept of rights, which is almost equal to the idea of justice. Accordingly, utilitarianism is a philosophy of well-being, while liberalism and libertarianism are philosophies of justice. However, there is little connection between well-being and justice in these philosophies because the two kinds of philosophies are incompatible. The latter kind criticizes the former because the maximization of happiness can infringe on people's rights. Moreover, these philosophies do not particularly value citizenship. In contrast, communitarianism is intrinsically the political philosophy of citizenship most attuned to increasing well-being, and it can connect an idea of justice with well-being. The final part offers a framework to develop an inter-disciplinary collaboration. Positive psychology can provide the empirical basis of the two axes above concerning political philosophies. On the other hand, the correspondence makes the character of political philosophies clearer. While libertarianism and liberalism correspond to psychology as usual, utilitarianism and communitarianism correspond to positive psychology, and the latter can be regarded as positive political philosophies. This recognition leads to the interdisciplinary framework, enabling multi-disciplinary collaboration, including work with the social sciences, which could benefit the common good.
本手稿探讨了积极心理学与政治哲学之间的关系，揭示了一种涉及共同利益问题的跨学科方法。由于积极心理学的影响力已扩展到社会和政治领域，其与哲学论点的关系值得探讨。积极心理学与功利主义以及享乐主义心理学的某些方面相关联。然而，一种关于幸福主义福祉的替代概念使这种心理学能够与其他政治哲学建立联系。因此，本手稿概述了当代政治哲学：首先，它讨论了自由主义与社群主义之间的辩论，其次，它总结了自由主义完善论、能力方法和审议民主的后续发展。然后，通过“个人/集体”和“伦理/非伦理”这两个轴的图示来表明这些政治哲学的结构。接下来的部分梳理了关于主要政治哲学（利己主义、功利主义、自由主义、社群主义和保守主义）的公民身份、正义和福祉概念之间的相互关系。功利主义与幸福相关，而自由主义和自由主义至上主义依赖于权利概念，这几乎等同于正义的理念。因此，功利主义是一种关于福祉的哲学，而自由主义和自由主义至上主义是关于正义的哲学。然而，在这些哲学中，福祉与正义之间几乎没有联系，因为这两种哲学是不相容的。后一种哲学批评前一种哲学，因为幸福的最大化可能侵犯人们的权利。此外，这些哲学并不特别重视公民身份。相比之下，社群主义本质上是最适合增进福祉的公民政治哲学，并且它可以将正义观念与福祉联系起来。最后一部分提供了一个开展跨学科合作的框架。积极心理学可以为上述关于政治哲学的两个轴提供实证基础。另一方面，这种对应关系使政治哲学的特征更加清晰。虽然自由主义至上主义和自由主义与通常的心理学相对应，但功利主义和社群主义与积极心理学相对应，后者可被视为积极的政治哲学。这种认识引出了跨学科框架，促成包括与社会科学合作在内的多学科合作，这可能有利于共同利益。
