earticle

영어

Choi Han-Ki is a progressive, scientific, and original philosopher of ‘Ki-monism’, considered to have been a pioneer in modernizing the traditional Confucianism. This study is focused primarily upon his ethical thoughts. Specifically, it intends to investigate the humanistic value-orientation manifested in the characteristics and structure of his ethical thoughts, thereby laying bare its possible bearings on the modern world. His views on the man and the world are based on the Ki-monism. His version of Ki is named ‘spirit-ki’(神氣), the ceaseless operations of which manifest the world. And man is thought of as a being having abilities of ‘chu-cheug’(推測：reasoning and inferring) and ‘byun-tong’(變通：being changed and opened into enlightment) through the experiences. He lays emphasis on the existential-experiential character of the human subject, insisting that the human personality responsible for the ethical judgments is changeable through ‘chu-cheug’ and ‘byun-tong’. Moreover, he takes the position of stressing the primacy of pragmatics, saying that the good and the evil are based upon the public interests and benefits. He maintains the practical-experiential position, which insists that the morality can be materialized through properly doing what should be done. The moral norms that he talks about are the traditional ones, such as filial piety, The Five Moral Rules(五倫), The Four Virtues(仁義禮智), and philanthropy. But he is of the view that these norms and rules are to be actualized only in the relative human relations. The ways to practically follow moral rules can vary, individually by means of ‘chu-cheug’ and ‘byun-tong’, socially through education and politics, depending on the scope and character of the practicality. He emphasises the existential-experiential character of the moral conducts. Morality is not transcendentally given, but incessantly constituted through the individual self-realizations and social experiences. He stresses the social character of ethics. Ethics and morality are to be actualized on the social dimension, through the translation of the personal ethics into the social-political horizons. Choi Han-ki shows the determination of renewing and revitalizing the traditional ethics, by way of rationally re-interprete and re-evaluate the traditional Confucian ethics from the light of modernity. His attitude could be a milestone for our own ethical pursuits in the midst of the uncritical importation of Western thoughts.