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A Study on ‘Trust(信義)’ depicted in Lee Haejo’s Sinsoseol

Lee Kyungrim 1

1서울대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Lee Haejo has been well recognized as a writer devoted to Sinsoseol along with Lee Injik and Choi Chansik. Recently, several studies have developed a remarkable research on his translation Yullihak, which can be considered as a major reference to understand his early thoughts and intentions to write Sinsoseol. This text can be expected to make a shift in existing interpretation paradigm which regards Lee Haejo’s works as accepters of premodern ethics orientations. The most interesting point in this text is that it explains Ethics as recognition and practice at the same time. The purpose of Ethics as a modern academic discipline is regarded as to recognize the standards which divide good from evil, which make human a human. One of Lee Haejo’s major themes is to capture this standards in his works and present it to his readers. However, Yullihak requires not just to recognize the pre-existing standards but to understand that these standards can be changed as society changes rapidly. Consequently, to create new standards which can be fitted to the changed society rises as a major project. Yullihak defines that society is a collective of individuals. And it recognizes various social relations between individuals as a contract. The concept of contract creates an image of subject who can be regarded as equal to the others, who have a free will to agree to the contract. This kind of subject appears beyond the pre-modern social or moral system. They can be regulated by their own contracts, not by premodern ethical regimes. Lee Haejo tried to plant this idea into marriage which can be represented as a synecdoche of other social relations. He has depicted an ideal contract in Hongdohwa, and also revealed its crucial nature in HwaoeiHyul. If a contract cannot achieve its ideal form, it can only be depicted as a legal contract. However, Lee Haejo tended to carry contracts beyond its own legal nature. His concern was to impose a moral nuance on these relations. He crystallized it as a Trust. In this context, trust is social morality required among the society. It requires to suppress selfishness when circumstances around the contract change, and to keep their promises as they made. From this perspective, we can reconsider some behaviors of female characters in Lee Haejo’s works. Because trust can be achieved by actual performance of keeping promises, the contents of promise can be regarded as minor factors. Female characters who kept trust can achieve their human quality by their own.

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