Enlightenment and Government in Traditional Korea

The Wind and the Engines of Moral Transformations

Soojin Hyun

Lecturer in History, Sungkyunkwan University

 

Minchul Kim

Associate Professor of History, Sungkyunkwan University

Research Fellow, Voltaire Foundation

 

Choe Rubaek Eats the Tiger that Ate His Father

In the mid-twelfth century Choe Rubaek (?–1205), a scholar-official of the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392), became renowned for his filial piety. A story about him has been handed down which might seem rather grotesque from today’s perspective. When he was fifteen his father was devoured by a tiger. Determined to avenge his father, Choe shouldered an axe and set out in search of the beast that had eaten his father. At last he found the tiger lying down, its stomach full. He struck it with his axe, split open its belly, and gathered his father’s bones and flesh. He then held a funeral with the remains and practiced Simyosari—living by the grave in mourning—which was regarded at the time as the act of a dutiful son. In Choe’s dream his father appeared and praised his devotion. When the mourning period was over, Choe completed his vengeance by taking the tiger’s meat and eating it all.

This story is included in the Illustrated Conduct of the Three Bonds (三綱行實圖, K.Samganghaengsildo, 1434), a book compiled and distributed during the Joseon dynasty (1392–1897). The rulers of Joseon sought to inculcate among the people Confucian ethics, the core ideology of governance, through this work. The Illustrated Conduct of the Three Bonds was commissioned by King Sejong (the fourth monarch of Joseon, r. 1418–1450), who is also renowned for laying the institutional and cultural foundations of Joseon and for creating the Korean alphabet-script, Hangeul. The book illustrates exemplary conduct related to the samgang (三綱, three bonds)—namely ruler and subject, father and son, and husband and wife—using historical figures from China and Korea as models.

 

 

Particularly interesting here is the fact that the story of the filial son Choe Rubaek was presented alongside the illustration in two different languages. One was classical Chinese (漢文; K.hanmun), the shared written language of rulers and intellectuals that had come from China. The other was Hangeul, the script created by King Sejong for the common people who could not read, and which has since become the writing system of the Korean language. Why, then, did King Sejong convey the tale of Choe Rubaek’s filial devotion through both images and Hangeul? The intention was clear: he wished the people—the subjects of rule—to internalize filial piety (孝; K.hyo), a central ethic of Confucian political thought. He believed that governance was to be achieved by moral transformation (敎化; K.gyohwa)—that is, by teaching (敎; K.gyo) and morally transforming (化; K.hwa) the people. This theory of moral transformation was a core concept of Confucian thought, established by Confucius (551–479 BCE) of the state of Lu in the late Spring and Autumn period in China, and it had since exerted a profound influence on the history of the Korean peninsula as part of the East Asian cultural sphere.

The core content of the Confucian theory of moral transformation (gyohwa) concerns the monarchical system of rule, the sovereign and his officials as the agents of governance, the people as its subjects, and, as the governing principle, views of human nature and the operation of the state and society. From this perspective, even though the historical contexts are entirely different, it is nonetheless intriguing to examine it in dialogue with the Enlightenment that drove political, social, cultural, and intellectual upheavals in Europe following the seventeenth century. Moreover, although Confucian thought originated in China during the sixth and fifth centuries BCE, it was received, reinterpreted, and deployed through multiple processes in Korea as the central political philosophy of its dynasties. From the nineteenth century onwards, when it came into direct contact with Western civilization—or indirectly through Japan and China—one can observe points at which it intersected, blended, and transformed in relation to the European ‘Enlightenment’.

 

To stir the wind so that it moves. To teach so that they transform.

Confucius lived during the Spring and Autumn period (770–403 BCE), when the Zhou dynasty—which had created the classical pattern of Chinese civilization—was divided into Western Zhou and Eastern Zhou and the Eastern Zhou weakened, giving rise to powerful regional lords. As various feudal states competed for hegemony in the Central Plains in this era, thinkers advocating different political philosophies travelled from court to court, seeking rulers who would adopt their theories of governance. Confucius was one of these itinerant persuaders, and he became the founder of Confucianism. It was at the time merely one among the “Hundred Schools of Thought” (諸子百家; K.Jejabaekga, C.zhuzibaijia). Yet in later centuries, when the Han dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE)—which became the political model for East Asian civilization—formally recognized it as a state doctrine of governance, Confucianism attained firm authority over rival philosophies as the preeminent political theory.

Confucianism posited that rulers and their officials were agents of governance and that the people were their object. The logic that structured the relationship between rulers and the people was precisely gyohwa (moral transformation). One of Confucianism’s core classics, the Classic of Poetry (詩; K.Si, C.Shi), contains noteworthy passages about this idea. The Classic of Poetry is said to have been compiled into 300 poems by Confucius out of more than 3,000 songs that had circulated in various regions up until the Spring and Autumn period (though whether Confucius himself edited the work remains uncertain). Because the feelings of the people toward governance were thought to be directly expressed in song, these songs were regarded as being intimately connected to the governance of the people.

 

‘Wind (風; K.pung, C.feng) means to stir up the wind and to teach; it is to set things in motion by stirring the wind and to bring about transformation by instruction. … In times of good governance the sounds (of music and song) are peaceful and joyful, for government is harmonious. In times of disorder the sounds are resentful and angry, for government is estranged. In a country on the brink of ruin, the sounds are mournful and longing for good rule, for the people are in distress. … The former kings used poetry to dignify the relationship between husband and wife, to fulfill filial piety and reverence, to strengthen human relations, to lead the people to follow moral transformation (Gyohwa), and to reform customs. … Superiors could transform inferiors through moral instruction, while inferiors could satirize their superiors through song. By harmonizing words with music, they could offer gentle remonstrance—so that those who spoke would not be punished, and those who listened could take ample warning. For this reason it was called wind (pung).’

Corrected meaning of the Mao Commentary on the Book of Poetry (毛詩正義; K.Mosijeongui, C.Maoshizhengyi), ‘Junam’ (周南; C.Zhounan), Gwanjeo (關雎; C.Guanju), Preface (詩序).

 

The ruler was to stir the wind so as to transform the people naturally, while the people, in turn, satirized their superiors through songs. As a result, peaceful and harmonious music prevailed in times of good governance, whereas resentful and angry music spread in troubled times marked by war and disaster. This was the Confucian ideal of the moral transformation (gyohwa) in governance. The ruler’s instruction of the people was to take place as naturally as the blowing of the wind. According to the Analects (論語), chapter ‘Anyeon’ (顏淵; C.Yanyuan, one of Confucius’s disciples), Confucius said that the virtue of the gunja (君子; C.junzi, the morally cultivated ruler) was like the wind, while the virtue of the common people was like the grass: when the wind blew over the grass, the grass inevitably bent. Gunja would therefore be obliged to govern with a benevolent heart; allowing the moral transformation (gyohwa) through virtue to occur as naturally as grass bending before the wind, and governance to be well ordered. Poetry thus served as a criterion by which a ruler could discern whether the realm was enjoying good governance or falling into disorder.

At this point the question of human nature came to the fore. Mencius (372–289 BCE), the intellectual heir to Confucius, argued that all human beings were inherently endowed with four virtues: benevolence (仁; K.yin), justice (義; K.ui ), propriety (禮; K.ye), and wisdom (智, K.ji). The ruler therefore had to be a gunja who had refined these virtues through constant learning (學; K.hak). A Gunja who had achieved true learning was thereby qualified to morally transform (gyohwa) the people. Moral transformation (gyohwa) emerged directly from relationships. Among the most fundamental human relations were those between father and son, and between ruler and subject, with filial piety (孝; K.hyo) and loyalty (忠; K.chung) as the corresponding ethics (although the basic set of relationships and their required virtues varied depending on the thinker and the period). If the people practiced these relational ethics in accordance with their innate moral nature, the social order would naturally become well-ordered and governance would be properly carried out. In other words, if the ruler cultivated the virtues and embodied the ethics required by these relationships through learning, the Moral Transformation would occur as naturally as the wind, resulting in an era of peace.

 

The Wind of Moral Transformation Reaches the Korean Peninsula

In 756 Emperor Xuanzong of Tang praised King Gyeongdeok of the Silla dynasty for his tribute and composed the following poem.

 

The envoys return to transmit the teachings of moral transformation.

The people come to study the canonical norms.

Those properly attired know how to uphold ritual propriety.

Those loyal and trustworthy know how to honour Confucian learning.

History of the Three Kingdoms (三國史記; K.Samguksagi), scroll 9, Silla annals 9, February, 15th year of King Gyeongdeok (756).

 

Since the Tang dynasty was regarded as the center of civilization in the East Asian world, Silla (57 BCE–935 CE), a kingdom situated in the Korean peninsula, devoted great effort to ‘learning’ from Tang. Numerous envoys and students were dispatched to China in order to bring back its ‘advanced institutions and culture’. Among these, what Silla most eagerly sought to learn was punggyo (風敎), the Confucian theory of moral transformation symbolized as the ‘teaching of the wind’. In 682, modeling itself on Tang institutions, Silla established the National Academy (國學; K.Gukak) to educate aristocratic youth in the Confucian classics. Then, in 788, it introduced an examination system that tested proficiency in the Confucian texts to recruit government officials (讀書三品科; K.Dokseosampumgwa).

 

With the fall of the Silla kingdom and the founding of the Goryeo dynasty, the idea that both the king and the officials—the agents of rule—must be Confucian scholars became further entrenched. The kings of Goryeo not only studied the Five Classics, the core texts of Han and Tang Confucianism, but also issued royal edicts declaring their intent to extend moral transformation (gyohwa) in accordance with Confucian teachings. To cultivate and recruit Confucian scholar-officials, the dynasty adopted schools and examination systems. In the capital, they established a national university called Gukjagam (國子監, later renamed ‘Sungkyunkwan’), where the sons of officials were educated in the Confucian classics. Beginning in 958, the dynasty instituted the civil service examinations (科擧; K.Gwageo) as means of selecting officials, by which candidates were tested on their mastery of the Confucian texts. These measures amounted to a declaration that Goryeo would cultivate Confucian scholars and appoint them as administrators in order to govern the state. For the purpose of transforming the people morally, it was considered most important to produce rulers endowed with virtue. To recruit talent not only in the capital Gaegyeong (currently the city of Kaesong in North Korea) but also in the provinces, the dynasty dispatched Professors of Confucian Classics (經學博士; K.Gyeonghakbaksa) to major regions across the country, where they would educate local elites and establish schools throughout the realm to provide instruction in the Confucian texts.

 

 

The Confucian scholar-officials selected through the civil service examinations were dispatched throughout the lands of Goryeo to serve as local administrators. Since these officials directly governed the people, they bore the crucial responsibility of exercising government by morally transforming (gyohwa) the population. According to the biography of Kim Simeon in the History of Goryeo (高麗史; K.Goryeosa), the roles required of local administrators were sixfold:

1) To observe whether the people were afflicted by illness or hardship, or whether they had lost their means of livelihood.

2) To oversee the administrative work of local officials.

3) To monitor thieves and those of great cunning who might harm the people.

4) To keep watch over those who violated laws concerning land or who disobeyed seasonal prohibitions.

5) To identify among the people those who were filial and respectful, honest and upright, of good conduct, and possessed of exceptional talent.

6) To prevent officials from deliberately discarding or failing to record money and grain in official registers.

The intellectual rulers of Goryeo believed in the end that they themselves had to cultivate virtue through learning, but also that they had to teach Confucian ethics to the people in order to reform customs and thereby achieve governance. Traces remain of efforts to provide even the common people, who were not part of the educated elite, with instruction in the basic Confucian classics. According to the History of Goryeo (高麗史; K.Goryeosa), annals of King Injong, on 22 March 1134 copies of the Analects and the Classic of Filial Piety (孝經) were distributed to children among the people. As noted above, the Analects was a record of dialogues between Confucius and his disciples. The Classic of Filial Piety explained the Confucian ethic of filial piety (孝; K.hyo)—that a child must devote himself wholeheartedly and reverently to his parents. Since this was before the invention of Hangeul, the writing system of Chinese characters remained the preserve of the educated officials, and it is unlikely that ordinary people could have actually read and comprehended these Confucian texts. It nevertheless demonstrates that there was an intention in place to instruct the common people in Confucian ethics.

 

Guiding the Wind to the Edge of the World

 

Villages, Women, and Children in the Face of the Wind of Gyohwa

Let us return to the story from the Illustrated Conduct of the Three Bonds of introduced in the previous essay. The Illustrated Conduct of the Three Bonds was a book compiled by the Joseon court to educate the people in Confucian ethics. It employed illustrations and vernacular Korean to convey historical exempla associated with Confucian moral precepts. Yet the modes of understanding Confucian ethics in this period had undergone a significant transformation. The Joseon dynasty adopted Neo-Confucianism—a school of thought systematized by Zhu Xi (朱熹; K.Juhui) in the Southern Song dynasty, which had been introduced to late Goryeo in the mid-thirteenth century through contact with the Yuan Mongol Empire—as its governing ideology. Unlike the Han and Tang Confucianism that emphasized methods of governance, Neo-Confucianism distinguished between Yi (理; principle) and Ki (氣; vital force) as the constituents of human nature, and developed theories of mind and nature (心性論; K.simseongnon) to explain this distinction. What was crucial in Neo-Confucianism was the conviction that every human being was innately endowed with moral virtue. Although individuals were thought to lose their virtue due to temperament or environment, they could overcome this through learning and self-cultivation. Within this logic, Neo-Confucianism established the ideological foundation for the idea that even commoners were capable of actively studying and cultivating Confucian ethics. Compared to earlier times, when the people were merely regarded as the passive objects of ‘instruction’, a qualitative shift had now occurred.

Change became most evident at the peripheries. In spatial terms, the wind of the moral transformation (敎化; K.gyohwa) spread beyond the capital and into the villages. The diffusion of the local community pact (鄕約; K.hyangyak) is one clear example. Originating from Zhu Xi’s Lu’s local community pact (呂氏鄕約; K.Yeossi hangyak, C.Lushixiangyue), the local community pact set forth communal rules for village society based on Confucian ethics. Its core precepts were: encouraging one another to perform virtuous deeds (德業相勸; K.deogeopsanggwon), restraining one another to prevent wrongdoing (過失相規; K.gwasilsanggyu), maintaining propriety in social interactions (禮俗相交; K.yesoksanggyo), and aiding one another in times of hardship (患難相恤; K.hwannansanghyul). From the mid-sixteenth century onward, Joseon intellectuals sought to disseminate Neo-Confucian ethics in village society and thereby morally transform the people. The renowned Neo-Confucian thinker Yi Hwang (이황/李滉, 1501–1570) created the local community pact of Ye-an province (禮安鄕約; K.Ye-an hyangyak) in 1556, while his contemporary rival Yi Yi (이이/李珥, 1536–1584) composed the local community pact of Seowon province (西原鄕約; K.Seowon hyangyak) in 1571. Such pacts were disseminated throughout the provinces with the primary purpose of morally transforming the people.

Moral transformation through ethics alone was not sufficient to deal with the realities of politics. Local administrators dispatched by the central court had to employ not only moral instruction but also punishments in exercising rule over the people. Yet in popular governance, it was always believed that the Moral Transformation should take priority. This idea is well illustrated in the Admonitions for the People (警民編; K.Gyeongminpyeon), a book compiled, published, and disseminated in 1519 by Kim Jeongguk (김정국/金正國, 1485–1541).

The Admonitions for the People literally meant ‘to admonish the people’. It served as a manual instructing local administrators on how to respond when local residents committed crimes or engaged in social deviance. The text argued that through educating and enlightening the populace, local officials should bring about changes in popular customs. At its core, the Admonitions for the People took as its guiding principle the Analects of Confucius’ discussion of moral transformation (gyohwa) and punishment. Confucius had taught that if the people were led by government policy and controlled by punishment, they would merely seek to avoid punishment without knowing shame. Conversely, if they were led by virtue and governed through ritual propriety (禮; K.ye), they would learn to feel shame and advance towards the good. The Admonitions for the People fully embraced this view that moral transformation should take precedence over punishment. It thus insisted that before local residents committed crimes or acts of social deviance, they should first be educated to recognize such behaviours and avoid them. The book was written when Kim Jeongguk was serving as a local administrator in Hwanghae Province, which means that the contemporary perception of the importance of governance through moral transformation had tangible influence well into the provinces outside the capital.

The wind of moral transformation did not blow only upon men. In principle it was to extend as far as possible to women and children, indeed to all members of society. For although virtue could be obscured by temperament or environment, it was believed to be inherently present in every human being. To realize this ideal in practice, instructional texts for women were compiled and disseminated. In the early Joseon period Korea imported from China the Biographies of Exemplary Women (列女傳; K.Yeollyeojeon, C.Lienuzhuan), which depicted the Confucian ideal of womanhood. From the fifteenth century onwards Joseon itself produced a variety of women’s instructional books (女訓書; K.yeohunseo) to teach proper conduct and feminine virtues. Their content emphasized Confucian ideals such as filial devotion to parents, the duties between husband and wife, harmonious and gentle character, and integrity and frugality. Such texts were primarily intended for royal and aristocratic women, and many of those published in Joseon were written not in Literary Sinitic but in Hangeul.

There was also great concern for the education of children. From the mid-sixteenth to the seventeenth century onwards, numerous elementary institutions for children were established in local communities. Enacted in June 1546, the Regulations for Schools Outside the Capital (京外學校節目; K.Gyeong-oe-hak-gyo jeol-mok) laid out in detail the aims of children’s education, the intended student body, and the curriculum. For Joseon’s rulers it was self-evident that schools were the very source of popular customs and of moral transformation (gyohwa). The Ministry of Rites (K.Yejo, which oversaw ritual, music, ancestral rites, banquets, diplomacy, schools, and the civil service examinations) submitted the following memorial:

‘The task of educating the common people (小民; K.somin) must be arranged immediately. In the regulations (節目; K.jeolmok) that were explained repeatedly to the provincial schools last April, the intent to instruct the common people was already included. We therefore request that the provincial governors (監司; K.gamsa), the chief administrators of each province, be ordered to promote this.’ The directives of the Ministry of Rites were as follows: ‘As for those suitable to teach children, regardless of whether they are of families of scholar-officials (士族; K.sajok) or of illegitimate descendant (庶孼; K.seo-eol), appoint more teachers in addition to the current six. Gather the boys from the scholar class as well as from the common people (凡民; K.beonmin), from age eight or nine up to fifteen or sixteen. Begin by teaching the Elementary Learning (小學; K.Sohak, C.Xiaoxue). Once the boys are proficient in reading and parsing sentences and have grasped some literary understanding, then proceed to teach them, in order, the Great Learning (大學; K.Daehak, C.Daxue), the Analects (論語; K.Noneo, C.Lunyu), the Mencius (孟子; K.Maengja, C.Mengzi), and the Doctrine of the Mean (中庸; K.Jungyong, C.Zhongyong), so that they may advance to the state schools.’

Veritable Records of King Myeongjong (明宗實錄; K.Myeongjong sillok), day Sinchuk (辛丑), June, 1st year of King Myeongjong (1546).

 

The significant point here is that, already in the mid-sixteenth century, at the national level it was mandated that local elementary schools should teach basic Confucian classics such as the Elementary Learning to children regardless of whether they were from families of scholar-officials or of commoners. The opportunities for education were to be extended not only to the yangban (兩班, the stratum of literati-officials) but also to the sons of ordinary cultivators whenever they appeared capable. This policy stemmed, as we have thus far discussed, from an intellectual orientation that the work of moral transformation had to reach the common people as well. The institutions that carried out this education were primarily the private elementary school (書堂; K.seodang), operated by Confucian scholars residing in the villages. The term seodang, which originally meant ‘hall of reading’, appears to have derived from the practice of local literati educating neighbourhood children in their own private libraries.

The level of instruction in those private elementary schools (seodang) varied widely: some focused on simple literacy or writing practice, while others taught elementary understandings of Neo-Confucianism and the study of ritual. In any case, the main textbooks were the Confucian classics, and the chief content was Confucian ethics. Particular emphasis was placed on the ‘five bonds’ (五倫; K.oryun)—the basic ethics governing human relations: affection between father and son (父子有親; K.buja yuchin), righteousness between ruler and subject (君臣有義; K.gunsin yuui), differentiation between husband and wife (夫婦有別; K.bubu yubyeol), order between elder and younger (長幼有序; K.jang-yu yuseo), and trust between friends (朋友有信; bung-u yusin)—together with the behavioural norms that followed therefrom. Surviving into the twentieth century, the private elementary schools operated through close cooperation between local magistrates and rural elites, thereby playing a role at the very front lines of governance in morally transforming the people in accordance with Confucian ethics.

 

 

‘Barbarian Learning’ and Catholicism Encounter the Confucian Idea of Moral Transformation

In 1636, with the outbreak of the Qing invasion of Joseon—known as the Second Manchu Invasion of Korea (丙子胡亂; K.Byeongja Horan)—the orientation of moral transformation began to shift. The ruling elite of Joseon revered the civilization of the Ming dynasty, founded by the Hanjok (漢族; Han Chinese), and regarded Neo-Confucianism as its emblematic expression. For them it was inconceivable to acknowledge the Qing dynasty, established by the Yeo Jin-jok (女眞族; Jurchens), whom they regarded as ‘barbarians’. Yet Joseon, having enjoyed long decades of peace, had no choice but to surrender when confronted by Qing forces who marched south with an army of tens of thousands of soldiers. As Joseon’s literati engaged in exchanges with Qing thereafter, they gradually came to realize that a variety of forms of knowledge and material culture existed beyond the Neo-Confucian learning they had long upheld. Through its encounters with the West, the Qing empire was constructing new systems of thought. By the late eighteenth century, a current emerged—centred on those scholars who had travelled to Beijing—that advocated for the selective reception of Qing innovations. This movement came to be known as Northern Learning (北學; K.Bukak).

Northern Learning distinguished itself from Neo-Confucianism—whose discourse centred on metaphysical moral principles—by emphasizing the concrete domains of daily life and the economy, including clothing, food, and housing. A representative figure of the Northern Learning movement was Hong Daeyong (홍대용/洪大容, 1731–1783), who remarked that ‘even seongni (性理), the so-called principles of human nature, are nothing special; they are dispersed across the myriad necessities of everyday life (日用)’. Another leading proponent, Bak Jiwon (박지원/朴趾源, 1737–1805), travelled to Beijing and marvelled at the bustling scale and splendour of Qing’s imperial metropolis. According to The Yeolha (Jehol) Diary (熱河日記; K. Yeolha ilgi), Bak’s travel account written after serving as an envoy to Beijing, few people in Joseon managed even two meals a day, and it was difficult for most to obtain even a single cotton garment a year. By contrast, he observed, the residents of Beijing stored ample grain in their homes, and that those passing along the streets were uniformly dressed in clothing and shoes made of silk. On such experiences he argued that the distinction in learning lay simply in whether or not one’s studies were put to practical use. Joseon, he believed, needed to move beyond abstract discourse on principles and turn its attention to the economy and practical utility. However, for the majority of Joseon literati devoted to Neo-Confucianism, Northern Learning still remained nothing more than ‘barbarian learning’, and they regarded it as a challenge to the intellectual framework they had fostered and preserved for centuries.

 

 

In the same period Joseon experienced another form of intellectual shock. Led by the Geungi Namin (近畿南人) faction—a scholarly and political group based in the Gyeonggi region—Catholicism was introduced to Joseon through Qing. Because it was received through the West, this body of learning came to be called Western Learning (西學; K.Seohak). ‘Western Learning’, however, did not refer solely to the religious doctrines of Catholicism; it encompassed the European sciences represented in the eyes of Joseon intellectuals by Catholic scholarship including astronomy, calendrical calculation, and geography. But this did not mean that the literati who embraced Western Learning rejected Confucianism. Rather, they accorded greater weight to interpretations of the Six Classics (六經; K.Yukgyeong), understood as the foundations of ‘primitive Confucianism’, than to Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucian exegesis. Yi Ik (이익/李瀷, 1681–1763), a leading figure of Western Learning, acknowledged the existence of the Catholic ‘Lord of Heaven’ (天主; K.Cheonju) on his reading of these early Confucian texts. In sum, at the point where Confucianism, Northern Learning, and Western Learning intersected, a profound transformation of intellectual life was under way.

Amid the intellectual turmoil of the late eighteenth century, the people (民; K.min), long regarded by the state as objects of government and moral cultivation, came to be considered as ethical subjects in their own right. This shift was evident in the theory of moral transformation articulated by Jeong Yakyong (정약용/丁若鏞, 1762–1836), a prominent thinker who produced more than five hundred works dealing with the social problems of late Joseon and outlining reform proposals across political, social, and economic domains. Jeong Yakyong delved seriously into the Confucian classics, publishing extensive commentaries on the Six Classics, while also inheriting Yi Ik’s scholarly orientation and studying Western Learning in considerable depth. His elder brother Jeong Yakjong (정약종/丁若鍾, 1760–1801)—baptized ‘Augustinus’—served as the first leader of the Joseon Catholic community and authored catechisms in vernacular Korean. A devout Catholic, he was martyred during the state persecution of 1801. Jeong Yakyong survived the purge by denying any personal adherence to Western Learning, but he was implicated in the incident and consequently had to spend eighteen years in exile.

With this multi-layered intellectual background, Jeong Yakyong produced numerous political manuals grounded in Confucian theories of moral transformation during his years in exile. The most renowned among them is Admonitions on Governing the People (牧民心書; K.Mokminsimseo), completed in 1818. According to this work the ultimate purpose of local magistrates dispatched from the central government was to guide the people towards proper moral cultivation. To cultivate the people meant in essence to lead them to grasp the principles of hyoje (孝悌). Hyoje consisted of hyo (孝; filial piety), the disposition of reverence towards one’s parents, and je (悌; fraternal virtues), the affection and harmony expected among brothers.

Jeong Yakyong held that all human beings were born with an ethical inclination towards hyoje and that anyone thereby had the capacity to become a truly moral agent. He believed that the goal of politics was to ensure that the people would voluntarily embody the principles of hyoje and care for their parents, siblings, kin, and neighbours. In practical terms the king and local magistrates could not coerce such virtues upon the people; moral transformation had to arise from the people themselves. However, the rulers could encourage the practice of hyangnye (鄕禮; local rites), the communal rituals of village life designed to support this moral cultivation. Whether Catholicism exerted a direct influence on Jeong Yakyong’s thought in this regard remains uncertain. But from the perspective of gyohwa—the ideological apparatus of Confucian moral governance—the people, once regarded merely as recipients of moral instruction, were now increasingly understood as ethical subjects who could internalize Confucian virtues on their own initiative. This shift aligned closely with the earlier spread of Confucian education to village populations.

 

Fractures in the Confucian Theory of Moral Transformation and the Rise of European Enlightenment in Korea

Yu Giljun (유길준/兪吉濬, 1856–1914), hailing from a distinguished Confucian scholarly lineage and having studied Confucianism from an early age, reached a turning point in 1873 at the age of seventeen. Through a leading member of the Enlightenment Party advocating reform of the traditional order through the reception of Western knowledge, Pak Gyusu (박규수/朴珪壽, 1807–1877), Yu encountered Haegukdoji (海國圖志), a Chinese compendium on the geography and history of the wider world. This encounter made him realize how ‘narrow’ the world of Joseon was and led him to abandon the traditional road to office through the civil service examinations. At that very moment Joseon had capitulated to the arrival of Japanese gunboats and, with the Treaty of Ganghwa Island (Korea-Japan Treaty of 1876), agreed to its first modern opening of ports. It had become clear that the encroaching modern civilization from the West could no longer be resisted with inherited orders and traditional knowledge.

Determined to acquire new forms of knowledge from the West, Yu Giljun resolved to travel abroad. In 1881, at the age of twenty-five he joined a Korean diplomatic mission to Japan and undertook formal study there. He enrolled at Keiō Gijuku (慶應義塾, today’s Keiō University) where he studied under Fukuzawa Yukichi (福澤諭吉, 1835–1901), one of Japan’s foremost Enlightenment thinkers. Fukuzawa had provided the intellectual leadership for Japan’s successful modernization movement, the Meiji Restoration, and after his tours in Europe and North America he urged the modernization of old Japanese institutions in works such as Seiyō jijō (西洋事情, 1870) and Bunmeiron no Gairyaku (文明論之概略, 1875), which articulated a ‘theory of civilization and enlightenment’. During his studies Yu encountered Rousseau’s Du contrat social and appears to have attended lectures on Herbert Spencer, Montesquieu, and Tocqueville. In 1883 he accompanied another diplomatic mission—this time to the United States—and pursued further studies under Edward S. Morse (1838–1925) and absorbed the theory of social evolution.

In December 1884, while Yu Giljun was in the United States, his fellow members of the Enlightenment Party in Seoul attempted a premature coup motivated by the desire to seize power to implement their reformist ideas in reality. The attempt collapsed in three days. Now confronted with rapidly shifting domestic and international circumstances, Yu began to seriously reflect on the path that Joseon should take. The outcome of this reflection was Observations on a Journey to the West (西遊見聞; K.Seoyugyeonmun) (1895), a work into which he poured all the learning and experiences he had accumulated abroad. In this text Yu articulated in his own language the European theories of political systems and the doctrine of ‘civilization and enlightenment’, seeking to adapt them to the social conditions of Joseon. The monarchical polity that had long seemed self-evident to the scholar-official elite now stood on the verge of dissolution as the winds of rapid modernization and the complexities of global politics swept across the peninsula. Likewise, Confucian gyohwa—the ideal of governing the people through the moral cultivation exercised by those in authority—could no longer sustain its inherited normative power. Traditional Confucian theories of moral transformation presupposed the unquestioned existence of the ruler–subject relationship; yet once fissures appeared in this political order, the more urgent question became what form of government ought to be constructed in its place.

Yu Giljun thus argued that Joseon needed to move towards a constitutional monarchy by dismantling the absolute one. The new monarchy had to establish a representative assembly composed of popular delegates. In Yu’s view the traditional theory of government—according to which morally cultivated officials, having refined themselves through learning, ruled the people by guiding them through Confucian ethics—was beginning to collapse. At the same time he continued to recognize the value of Confucian ethical principles such as the ‘five bonds’ (K.oryun), treating them as instruments for achieving the ‘enlightenment of conduct’ and affirming their role in maintaining social order. He also reinterpreted jayu (自由; liberty), a core concept of Western political and legal thought, through the Neo-Confucian notion of human nature (性; K.seong). It is precisely at this juncture that traditional Confucian gyohwa and European Enlightenment ideas, introduced as new forms of knowledge, intersected. And the question now was: in which direction should the winds of moral transformation blow? For Korean intellectuals situated at the crossroads of an old order and an emerging one, an open question lay before them, one on which the fate of the nation and society depended.