정도전(鄭道傳)의 유교적 민주의식

The Confucian Democratic Awareness of Jeong Do-Jeon

In this paper I studied the Confucian democratic awareness of Jeong Do-Jeon. The Confucian democratic awareness of Jeong Do-Jeon is far from modern democratic awareness because of political qualifications and political environment. However, it seems true in that he believed the sovereignty belongs to the public. Jeong Do-Jeon embraces the Mencius thought that sovereignty belongs to the people. Mencius asserts the popular sovereignty that the sovereignty belongs to the people and the sovereign power belongs to the monarch. So, the nation cannot be traded personally because nation is not a private property but a public property. We have considered ‘the war of all against all’ of Hobbes’s nature to be an exclusive property of modern Western thought. But, the nature of Jeong Do- joen is also regarded as disorder that the desires of people crash with others. The monarch should stop this disorder and make a peaceful political environment so that the people can live peacefully. The monarch can’t do this while farming, so he has to raise the tax from the public and rule professionally. Jeong Do-Jeon holds that the people are kindhearted in nature but they could be bad due to environmental conditions. But, he asserts the public are not only the root of the nation but also the master of the monarch. So, if a monarch can’t win the hearts of the people, they don’t support the monarch anymore and insist the rebellion. The public insisted their rights of resistance. Jeong Do-jeon claims the Jin-yu(眞儒) politics. Jin-yu(眞儒) is a political ruler with morality and professionalism. Jin-yu(眞儒) is considered to be a historical role model of current political leaders and can be used as an ideological resource. He plans a politics revolving around the prime minister to check the power of the monarch. If the monarch doesn’t have ability to make a result that the people want, the prime minister can help the monarch and prevent the failure of the nation. I think that the Confucian democratic awareness of Jeong Do-Jeon can be used to optimize the democracy of 21th century. Moreover, it would be meaningful to bring Confucianism back to life in order to find resources of democratic thought and examine the value again.