• Journal of Ethics
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• no.78
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• pp.61-88
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• 2010

This study focuses on the problems of traditional ethics in the textbooks of 7th Moral Education Curriculum. As the fact that Traditional Ethics is an advanced elective of high school curriculum shows, 'traditional ethics' is an important part of moral education curriculum. Unfortunately, many have maintained that there are significant problems in the contents of traditional ethics described in moral education curriculum. The problems mentioned are: encyclopedic enumeration of the contents, incorrect information, content repetitions, placing too much one-sided emphasis on confucianism, lack of organic link between Korean and oriental ethics, and unlikeliness of accomplishing subject's objectives. This study raises more fundamental problems. The problems pointed out are as follows. First, the definition of traditional ethics in the textbooks is problematic. Second, there is a lack of examination on 'tradition'. Third, there exists a naive understanding that western ethics or thoughts are the causes of all problems and oriental traditional ethics is the cure-all for them. Fourth, viewpoints of orientalism or occidentalism are widespread in describing traditional ethics.