我们应该相信圣诞老人吗?

Let’s say we agree with Church that Santa belief is a worthwhile state to get ourselves into because it protects the practice of gift-giving against the onslaughts of utilitarian rationality. Is it possible to do so? At first glance it would seem that the only way to do that would be through some sort of self-deception. Some part of me knows that the presents come from a supply chain stretching back to China, so if I want to believe they come from a jolly old elf, I need to lie to myself. I could perhaps use some combination of meditation techniques and psychoactive drugs to induce Santa belief. Maybe I could take psilocybin and have a group of my friends chant, “Santa exists! Santa exists!” while I am tripping my brains out. Socially, we could form a benevolent conspiracy, telling one another that Santa exists even though we know he doesn’t. Parents do that to children.

假如我们同意彻奇的观点：相信圣诞老人存在论对我们而言是很合算的，因为能让赠送礼物的惯例免受功利理性的攻击。但我们如何才能相信他存在呢?乍看之下，只有通过某种形式的自我欺骗才能做到这一点。我隐隐约约地知道圣诞礼物来自一条可以一直延伸到中国的供应链，如果想要相信它们来自一个乐呵呵的老顽童，就得对自己撒谎。在同时使用某些冥想技巧和精神活性药物的情况下，我兴许能相信世界上真有圣诞老人。也许我可以来点儿裸盖菇，然后在神游之际和朋友们一起反复呼喊，“圣诞老人存在，圣诞老人存在!”我们可以在社会上编织一个善意的谎言，告诉彼此圣诞老人真的存在——尽管知道事实并非如此。父母常对孩子这样做。

And yet, how is that possible? Even if it’s desirable to game ourselves to believe in Santa, wouldn’t the part of us that chose to believe have to know it in order to carry out the deception? Wouldn’t the group of us — call them parents — have to lose the benefits of Santa belief in order to trick our kids? And if we succeeded in both lying to ourselves about Santa and covering up the cover-up, wouldn’t we thereby forgo the benefits that Church hoped to obtain? If we lied to ourselves about the existence of Santa and forgot the lie, then the existence of Santa would just be a fact to us, as prosaic as the existence of Chris Christie. We seem condemned to the romantic emotion of longing for what we can never have.

然而，这怎么可能?即使骗自己相信圣诞老人是件好事，我们也必须得先了解底细，才能骗得像模像样，不是吗?我们这些为人父母者，必须放弃圣诞老人信念带给我们的好处，才能骗得了孩子，不是吗?如果我们真的在圣诞老人的事情上对自己撒了谎，而且掩饰得毫无破绽，那我们就放弃了彻奇希望得到的好处，不是吗?如果我们骗自己说圣诞老人真的存在，然后忘记这是个谎言，那么对我们来说，圣诞老人的存在就会像克里斯·克里斯蒂(Chris Christie)的存在一样平淡无奇，是吗?我们似乎被迫要接受一种浪漫情怀，要向往自己永远无法拥有的东西。

I think the situation is jollier than that, because this account of self-manipulation and self-deception is wrong, insofar as its account of the self is wrong. The view that Santa belief is self-deception assumes that we have a clear self with preferences and beliefs, and that this self chooses to believe in Santa in order to get some things it wants, but there is reason to suspect that this is only a Cartesian myth.

我认为情况其实更加欢快一些，因为这种自我操纵和自我欺骗的阐释并不正确，根源在于它对“自我”的阐述是错误的。认为相信圣诞老人是一种自欺之举，这种看法假设我们在偏好和信念上存在清晰的自我意识，然后选择相信圣诞老人，以便获得一些想要东西，但是我们有理由来怀疑，这种看法只是个笛卡尔式的谬说。

As the early 20th century social scientist and philosopher Otto Neurath pointed out in his simile of the boat that must be rebuilt while it is still out at sea, we are always reconstructing our beliefs from a standpoint of continuing action and never have the opportunity to review them all at once. We come to awareness with things we say and do, images that excite us to reverence and disgust, and communities we are a part of. None of this is especially clear to us at the outset. What does it mean that I’m in my family? What does it mean that I want to be happy? What does it mean that I believe in democracy? We are in the family, want the happiness and believe in the democracy without having a clear idea what “family,” “happiness” or “democracy” are.

20世纪初的社会科学家和哲学家奥托·纽拉特(Otto Neurath)指出，我们总是从持续行动的角度来重建我们的信念，永远不会有机会立刻审视它们，对此他做了一个比喻：船只必须在海上的时候重建。对于我们说和做的事情，激发我们崇敬和厌恶的场景，以及我们所在的社会，我们会逐渐产生意识。而在一开始，这一切对我们来说并不怎么清楚。我生活在家庭中，这是什么意思?我想过得快乐，这是什么意思?我相信民主，这是什么意思?我们无需对“家”、“幸福”和“民主”有清楚的概念，就已经生活在家庭中，想要过得快乐，而且相信民主了。

Each belief is the beginning of a voyage of self-discovery and self-transformation. We don’t have a fully realized self that investigates these questions. Rather, our self comes into focus and achieves its shape as we discover or decide what we believe and what is important to us.

每个信念都是一段自我发现和自我改造的旅程的起点。我们并没有一个充分觉醒的自我在研究这些问题。实际上，是我们在发现或决定自己相信什么东西，有什么东西对我们很重要的时候，我们的自我才开始出现明确的轮廓，并塑造成形。

When it comes to Santa, some of us, like Virginia, have inherited him as a set of feelings, or images we love, or songs we sing, and it’s an option for us to move forward with him. In other words, we are not utility-maximizing agents trying to decide whether it’s worth it to believe in Santa. We come to be a self by the things we say, the relationships we form, and the goals we shoot for. If these are Santa-ish things, relationships and goals, then it makes sense to say we are coming to be ourselves as believers in Santa.

就圣诞老人来说，一些人像弗吉尼亚那样，把他作为一系列感情，我们钟爱的场景，或者我们唱的歌来对待，这是一个选项，我们可以和他一起前进。换句话说，我们并不是用效用最大化的理论，来决定是不是值得相信圣诞老人。通过我们说的东西，我们建立的关系，我们追求的目标，我们形成了一个自我。如果这是圣诞老人式的东西、关系和目标，那么就可以说，我们通过相信圣诞老人，成为了我们自己。

You could say that the self is a gift we have received from our language, our history, our biology, our culture and our family, and like a gift it is defined not by what it is but by how we use it and the quality of the relationships it brings. If we receive the gift of our self with gratitude and hand it on to others with generosity, we are not just believing in Santa, we’re being Santa-like.

可以说，这个“自我”是我们从语言、历史、生理、文化和家庭那里获得的礼物，就像其他礼物一样，它的意义不仅在于它具体是什么东西，也在于我们如何使用它，在于它促进的关系的质量。如果我们对“自我”这件礼物心怀感激，并慷慨地用它造福别人，那么我们便不仅是圣诞老人的信徒，而且也成为了圣诞老人式的人。