The event is free and open to the public. Registration is not required.
Chŏng Yagyong 丁若鏞 (1762-1836, Tasan 茶山) is generally understood as one of the most prominent Korean Confucian scholars during the Chosŏn dynasty (1392-1910) who tried to radically reform the Korean state, firmly grounded in Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism, into one that protects the well-being of the people effectively through various practical reform plans. In highlighting the practical side of Chŏng’s moral and political philosophy, scholars have concentrated on the notable difference between the Neo-Confucian orthodoxy and Chŏng’s interpretation of Confucian classics, but little attention has been paid to the distinctive characteristics of Chŏng’s vision for good government relative to the traditional Confucian ideal of humane government.
In this talk, Sungmoon Kim shows that what is central to Chŏng’s political thought is the institutional system of the government, which is motivated by the ruler’s “tough compassion” for the well-being of the people. Instead of appealing to the ruler’s “heart-mind that cannot bear the sufferings of people,” which Mencius famously declared as the locomotive of humane government, tough compassion is mainly concerned with (re)establishing an enduring governmental system that can promote the overall well-being of the people by making the state rich and strong. Chŏng’s statecraft of tough compassion, in which law figures centrally, may make him look like a Legalist, but Chŏng believed he was rekindling the original spirit of Confucianism, which had long been eclipsed by the dominant version of Korean Confucianism.
Speaker
Sungmoon Kim is Chair Professor of Political Philosophy and Director of the Center for East Asian and Comparative Philosophy at the City University of Hong Kong. His research interests include Confucian democratic and constitutional theory, East Asian political thought, and comparative political theory, and his essays have appeared in journals such as American Political Science Review, British Journal of Political Science, Contemporary Political Theory, European Journal of Political Theory, History of Political Thought, Journal of the History of Ideas, Journal of Politics, Law & Social Inquiry, Philosophy East and West, and The Review of Politics among others. Kim is the author of six books — Confucian Democracy in East Asia: Theory and Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2014), Public Reason Confucianism: Democratic Perfectionism and Constitutionalism in East Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2016), Democracy after Virtue: Toward Pragmatic Confucian Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2018), Theorizing Confucian Virtue Politics: The Political Philosophy of Mencius and Xunzi (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Im Yunjidang (Cambridge University Press, 2022), and Confucian Constitutionalism: Dignity, Rights, and Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2023). In 2016-2017, Kim was a Berggruen Fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics.