Jeung-san Kang, Il-Soon’s Human-rights Thoughts

ABSTRACT

Human rights means the rights that all human being can and should have if they are human being. There is no better reason to have human rights than the fact that they only belong to human race. It is not so long since the issue of human rights in South Korea(our country, the Republic of Korea) was seriously discussed. Some aspects and activities in Joseon Dynasty were taken for granted without any concern whlie they would be regarded as the violation of human rights in these days. However, this atmosphere had been radically changed with the new religious movements of Korea in the late of Joseon Dynasty. ‘Jeung-san’ never used the word, ‘Human rights’, but ‘Jeung-san’ presented lots of various thoughts that can be considered as ‘Human rights’ in modern usage. His thoughts of human rights can be found out in his attitude toward the weak in social positions as well as can be clearly interpretable in his claim that the discrimination should be abolished. The thoughts of human rights in ‘Jeung-san’ presents that human rights can be the message of the respect for human dignity as well as the mutual respect for each other, motivating the underprivileged to live and act as human being in their lives. ‘Jeung-san’ was willing to show that every human being must have the right for their dignity equally. ‘Jeung-san’ strongly suggested that people should take these ideas seriously in their mind and turn them into the real practice. ‘Jeung-san’ asserted the idea of ‘Hea-won(解冤)’ as the basic foundation in order to establish human rights firmly. ‘Jeung-san’ intended to guarantee people’s natural privilege through ‘Hea-won’ because their right should be innately given to them whoever they are, in particular to who are neglected and exploited from the ruling class. The idea of ‘Hea-won’ not only involves people as the subjective figure of ‘Hea-won’ but also the awakness of ‘Jeung-san’ about the dignity and great value in life.