荀子의 義利論과 경제윤리

Abstract

Market economy and commodity society, the foundations of capitalist system, have settled down as parts of universal lifestyle today, when people can lead an economically stable life to some degree, while mammonism overwhelms the society due to people’s excessive admirer of material. The oppositions and conflicts among the members of society have manifested themselves in a marked fashion and social justice and ethics are ignored in the process of pursuing material gains. We can say that as people’s desire for profits grows stronger, practice of morality is more required. Issues about morality and profit concern “justice” and “utility”, which have consistently been discussed in the history of ancient ethical thought, ask questions about how to perceive and deal with relations between moral principles and material gains. Xunzi’s Theory of Justice and Utility intensively addresses diverse opinions on “justice” and “utility”. It will be very significant in establishing new ethics to guide the current economic activities if efforts are made to explore the elements of economic ethics fit for the contemporary times by making investigations into the theoretical nature of “justice” and “utility”,correlations between them, and their social actuality inherent in Xunzi’s Theory of Justice and Utility. While “justice” and “utility” are the two inevitable value categories of real life, there are discernment of fundamental and terminal or before and after or important and frivolous or first and second between them. Xunzi argued that “justice” claims the first significance, being fundamental, before, and important and that “utility” claims the second significance, being terminal, after, and frivolous. He, at the same time, saw “utility” as one of the basic elements of human life and emphasized the complementary relations between “justice” and “utility”, maintaining that humans should get “utility” based on “justice”. Xunzi’s Theory of Justice and Utility can still contribute to establishing guiding ideology and moral principles for today’s economic activities and building ethics of credit economy and serve as a moral standards for the nation’s roles regarding the subjects of economy and their economic activities. In particular, Xunzi believed that the maintenance of the complementary relations between “justice” and “utility” depended on the roles of the government and maintained that the leading class of society could help morality defeat personal profit by respecting morality and personal profit defeat morality by respecting personal profit. In that sense, research on Xunzi’s Theory of Justice and Utility is still valid in building new economic ethics, promoting the moral spirit of social members, and renovating the social morale today.