도덕의 ‘근원’으로서의 정서: 맹자 사단설의 한 해석

Abstract

Mencius’ theory of ‘Four Beginnings’(四端) provides the main and central ideas to theory of mind and cultivation of confucianism. He clearly argued the ‘Four Beginnings’, especially among them, ‘feeling of commiseration’(惻隱之心) is the first and innermost foundation of moral achievements and virtues. Today, ‘feeling of commiseration’ is usually translated into ‘compassion’ or ‘sympathy’, and regarded at best one of the so-called ‘moral emotions’, but it is to be the foundation of morality as Mencius argued, it should have a special status that is distincted from ordinary emotion or feeling. 
 The idea of ‘foundational emotion(mood)’, in Heidgger’s thoughts, can provides the analytical understanding on the status of Mencius’ ‘feeling of commiseration’. This emotion is not the one of ordinary emotions which are aroused by outer thing’s affectation, but the deeply rooted in mind in itself, or rather, by itself, the essential component of mind. In this perspective, ‘feeling of commiseration’ is the one and the same thing of Mencius’ ‘mind of benevolence and rightness’(仁義之心), ‘mind of goodness’(良心). As the ‘foundational emotion’, Mencius’ ‘feeling of commiseration’ presents the ideal type of human mind that self-cultivation(moral education) should pursue.