정약용의 公私 관념과 정치 공공성의 문제

Abstract

This paper analyzes ideas of publicness and privateness (公私) and the problem of political fairness presented in the thoughts of Jeong Yagyong’s 丁若鏞 (1762-1836; Dasan 茶山). Dasan affirms human’s original desires (願欲) and articulates human nature as preference (嗜好) based on them. He delineates that human beings dislike a deviation from Goodness because of ethical desires and also wish to be more prosperous and more honorable because of political desires. Dasan believed the heart-mind following the Way (道心) bears a public value because there are universal likes and dislikes of the people, that is, the shared public and general desires. The existence of universal desires underlies the concept of publicness (公) Dasan emphasized. Also, the value of political publicness Dasan highlighted depends on actualizing the people’s likes and dislikes, which the majority of people are inclined to, in an appropriate way. In particular, Dasan designed a blueprint for a national administration that involves mutual checks through institutions and a valid form of differential treatment according to roles and ability. The procedure of selecting governors based on bottom-up public opinion and the constraint against kings imposed by officials who conforms to the mandate of the Heavenly Emperor (上帝) were presented as devices to keep the power of the king in the monarchy in check. Also, he sought institutional publicness by introducing strict performance assessments over high-ranked officials, particularly including a prime minister, who were previously not subject to these evaluations. Dasan deliberated on more fundamental ethical publicness that underlies political publicness. For example, he sought to find a way to appropriately actualize the desires of the majority of people rather than unconditionally adopt their preferences. In this process, he underscored ethical sensitivity concerning publicness to discern a valid preference. For Dasan, that the people are stipulated as autonomous agents who are the subject of moral cultivation toward moral achievement should be noted. Dasan argued, the actualization of public values eventually depends on the people who hold the heart-mind following the Way. In other words, he acknowledged the people (民) ’s agency in moral cultivation based on their judgemental ability to discern public values and fairness. For Dasan, as a Confucian, the judgmental ability of heart-mind also serves as a ground to justify political publicness and fairness.