대소 관계의 재정립을 통한 최한기의 새로운 윤리관 = Choe Hangi’s New Point of View of Ethics by Reestablishing Inclusion Relation

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Choe Hangi is usually said to be a Confucian scholar who was eager to accept Western science while following ethics of Confucian tradition. However, he thinks ‘Five relationships’, one of the typical examples of traditional ethics is narrow-minded and therefore considers it less valuable. He also contends that people who can contribute to stable governance are excellent, but not people who are excellent contribute to stable governance. Such claims appear not to be compatible with traditional ethics and can be found in various discourses given by Choe.
Choe Hangi divides ‘Five relationships’ into two dimensions: the universal one and the individual one. He refers the universal dimension to as ‘Great Good’ and the individual dimension to as ‘Little Good’. This assumption implies that ‘Five relationships’ can have differences in quality and therefore is not necessarily good. In this way, Choe actually tries to downgrade traditional ethics to ‘Little Good’ and proposes universal new ethics.
In usual, ethics of Confucian tradition pursues a society in which everybody practices ‘Five relationships’. On the other hand, Choe Hangi requires each individual to practice ‘Five relationships’ based on the understanding of social order. If one practices filial duty without understanding social order well, such filial duty is merely ‘Little Good’. Consequently, for Choe, the sequence of ‘cultivating person → regulating families → ordering well own States’ gets totally reversed into ‘ordering well own States → regulating families → cultivating person’ in the aspect of awareness. By giving meaning to ‘Great Good’ and ‘Little Good’ according to the inclusive relation of great and little, Choe Hangi re-establishes relation between ‘Great’ and ‘Little’, and eventually sets forth his new point of view of ethics.