도덕교육과 행복: 교육윤리학의 관점

Abstract

Ethics, to be genuinely meaningful, must thoroughly elucidate the intricate relationship between knowledge, virtue, and happiness. Educational ethics represents the perspective that this relationship can be justly addressed within a life dedicated to the pursuit of schola, or in simpler terms, a life devoted to education. An ethics that assumes virtue can be determined independently of, or prior to, the practice of moral education, a so-called philosophical ethics, leaves room for an understanding of the relationship between practice and virtue as a means―end relationship, and further imposes on life and education the covert but insistent demand that the realization of ends requires heroic effort. In philosophical ethics, happiness is a question that is always left unanswered. On the other hand, modern virtue ethics rejects the foundation assumed by philosophical ethics, thereby diminishing the significance of happiness to the level of ease and comfort that can be enjoyed in a life without that foundation. If so, the topic of happiness can be a good starting point for exploring the possibility of a genuine ethics that contrasts with philosophical ethics but does not deny the metaphysical foundation. According to Thomas Aquinas, the acquisition of virtue is not something that can be guaranteed by heroic efforts against nature. The highest virtue lies not in the human determination to ‘regulate’ nature, but in the divine determination to ‘let’ nature be the master. The life of teaching and learning knowledge is a journey into a life where nature is master.