기호학파 낙론계 심본선(心本善)의 이론적 구조와 도덕 실천적 의의

Abstract

The aim of Neo-Confucianism is to enable all human beings to become sages with morally perfect characters. To attain this perfect character, human beings need constant moral self-cultivation; namely, they must make efforts to eliminate the causes of evil things. Thus, the moral conduct of human beings is dependent on the degree of their will and effort. Neo-Confucianism emphasizes each individual’s moral practice because they aim to create a morally ideal society. The Nak School (洛學), which ran from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, also developed various approaches to create a morally ideal society. Historically speaking, this was the period when scholars had active discussions on concepts closely related to the mind (心), including jigak (知覺, cognition), myeongdeok (明德, bright virtue) and mibal (未發, the unaroused state of the emotions or thoughts). The Nak School aimed to establish a foundation for human beings to put morality into practice by having in-depth discussions on the mind. As a result, they suggested a somewhat distinctive idea, “simbonseon” (心本善). Simbonseon means that the original state of the mind is good because it is made up of the pure element of gi (氣), though the mind is itself gi. As noted by the general teachings of Neo-Confucianism, human nature enables human beings to morally behave. However, while the Nak School was certain about the reality of human nature, they did not think that it alone was enough to create a morally ideal society. It is because nature can only be manifested by the mind since nature is non-active. To be more specific, without the mind, nature by itself is insufficient to actualize morality. Thus, the scholars of the Nak School were deeply interested not only in human nature but also in moral characteristics of the mind. They believed that the mind has a special capacity to spiritually perceive objects. They, therefore, aimed to come up with the argument that human beings can morally behave through the mind. However, as followers of Yi I (李珥), they believed that the mind is linked with gi. Therefore, securing a pure and good state of the mind was not an easy achievement. To overcome this problem, they analyzed the mind from various perspectives. In particular, they secured the pure and good realm of the mind based on the roots and branches in gi. As a result, they suggested “simbonseon”, which means “innate goodness of the mind”. Simbonseon is a pure and good state of the mind, where morality could be put into practice. They presented a structure of the mind that enables human beings to put morality into practice. Accordingly, the theory of simbonseon of the Nak School can be evaluated as overcoming the limitations of the mind linked with gi and providing a moral foundation for human beings in respect of the mind. There has been a wide range of discussions on the Horak (湖洛) debate. Moreover, there were new discussions on Nakron (洛論), motivated by the work on the main figures of the Nak School. However, according to most of the work, Nakron has been understood through the theory of Oeam Yi Kan (巍巖 李柬). What should be noted is that Yi Kan’s Neo-Confucian theory is similar to Nakron, but he is a scholar of the Ho School (湖學), not the Nak School. Therefore, understanding academic characteristics of the Nak School based on the theory of Yi Kan may cause misunderstandings. For example, the ideas of the Nak School can be mistakenly considered to be the same as Oeam’s Neo-Confucian theory. In addition, simbonseon was mentioned several times in the secondary literature on Nakron. However, the structure, the background or the moral meanings of simbonseon has not been fully discussed. Accordingly, the main purpose of this article is to answer questions as follows: Why do Neo-Confucian scholars of the Nak School advocate that the mind is innately good?