맹자와 마키아벨리의 군주론 비교 이해- 『맹자』와 『군주론』를 중심으로 -

Abstract

When comparing Machiavelli to East Asian thought, he has usually been likened to Han Fei Tzu. In this article, however, since a point that comparison between the East and the West is recognized as symbols of premodernity and modernity respectively signifies that the latter recalls Machiavelli and the former reminds Confucian ideology, not School of Law particularly in this case and, if so, Mencius was the very person who systematized 'Confucianism as a political idea,' it intends to compare Mencius' political idea. In addition, it is because this study considers that comparison with Mencius, a universal byword for relationistic coexistence theory, is more significant because there are even research results that approach Machiavelli with the logic of relationistic coexistence recently. The result of comparing discussions of those two with The Prince and Mencius at the center, both show similarities that they stressed importance of 'politics' and its 'use of force' and put emphasis on leadership of a man with political power. They both heavily emphasized 'political ethics' as well. Machiavelli stressed Christian religious ethics and politics should be separated while the political ethics were still emphasized here and there. With the degree of relationistic characteristics, however, there was a huge difference. Mencius' logic of 'relationsitic coexistence' is far more active and explicit than that of Machiavelli. Machiavelli is 'relatively' more 'independent and oppositive' than Mencius. To speak in Machiavelli's manner, they were different in that what Mencius mentioned was a lot about a hereditary monarchy while Machiavelli was basically about establishment and maintenance of a newborn monarchy and he aimed at independence of secular political order from conventional Christian one.