Donald L. Baker

 10.18399/acta.2015.18.1.005

Tasan Neo-Confucianism virtue human nature Lord Above

Chŏng Yagyong (1762–1836), better known as Tasan, was one of the most original, and most prolific, writers in Korean history. His philosophical works have attracted much scholarly attention for their challenges to some of the fundamental assumptions of the hegemonic Neo-Confucianism of his day. Yet we cannot forget that he lived, and wrote, within a Confucian world. He shared the Confucian assumption that the most important ability people should cultivate was the ability to interact appropriately with their fellow human beings. And he believed that we should pay attention to the moral messages of the Confucian Classics. However, he rejected many of the assumptions underlying the way the scholars of his time in both China and Korea interpreted those classics. For example, he argued that we were not born with the ability to consistently act appropriately. Instead, we were born only with both a desire to act appropriately along with a desire to enjoy physical pleasures. We cannot be described as ethical virtuosos until we display the ability to push our desires for pleasure aside and consistently pursue moral good instead. Moreover, he argued that the only stimulus that could motivate us to make that effort was the belief that there was a Lord Above who watched our every thought and action. Because of this belief in a Lord Above, Tasan operated on the edge of the boundaries of what can be considered Confucian philosophy.