• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.131
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• pp.273-301
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• 2014

This study aims to reconstruct Leibniz's theodicy. Theodicy is to defense of the highest wisdom of the creator against the charge which reason brings against it for whatever is the evil in the world. For this defense, Leibniz created his own new kind of concepts: the principle of sufficient reason, the principle of perfection, the best of all possible worlds, moral necessity. Leibniz's theodicy is developed as following. Most good and wisest God created this world freely by moral necessity. God's will was to choose the goods antecedently. But God's will could not create goods only. For God's final purpose is to create the best. For this reason, it happens that the evils may come about by concomitance, and as a result of other greater goods. Therefore the evils are necessary in the world. And evil consists in imperfection. Man has free will as God. Freedom, according to Leibniz, consists in intelligence, which involves a clear knowledge of the object of deliberation. Man has freedom, but man's freedom is imperfect. Evil is originated in man's imperfect freedom.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.72-78
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• 2012

This paper deals with metaphysical aspects of responsibility focusing on Hans Jonas's Das Prinzip Veranwortung as an attempt to further the discussion on the responsibility of scientists and engineers. After the examination on the necessity of new ethics reflecting the characteristics of contemporary science and technology, the philosophical foundation and major themes of Jonas's future-oriented ethics, i.e. responsibility ethics are analysed. Jonas argued new ethics should consider man and nature simultaneously based on the unification of being and what should be, and presented collectivity, continuity, and future-orientation as a basis of responsibility ethics. In conclusion, this paper suggests implications of Jonas's argument for science and technology ethics such as sustainability, precautionary principle, and responsibility of creator.

• The Journal of Korean Philosophical History
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• no.38
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• pp.303-328
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• 2013

The purpose of the present article is to understand moral instruction through Ethics written by Spinoza and enable the implications drawn from its understanding to give shape to lesson plans. In his representative book titled Ethics, Spinoza speculates ultimate substance from the metaphysical perspective and converges it into ethics. The ultimate substance, which is a cause of itself, refers to immanent cause of all things that have numerous attributes as essence. All things in nature develop the substance and exchange influence among individuals at the same time. A human in the influential relationship perceives things based on one's beneficialness and assigns moral words of good and evil. However, a human, who is a mode of substance, should escape from morals that are superficial, relative, and objective, in order to realize nature. Becoming a more complete human requires going through moral imagination in reality but going beyond the imagination ultimately. Moral instruction premises the moral imagination of a student who exists as a mode; meanwhile, it is a study to escape from the influence of moral imagination. Good and evil arise from the limitation that an existing human has, but if a life is to preserve the necessity of ultimate substance, moral instruction can be defined as the processes of alleviating the influence that hinders a human's nature from being realized. Giving shape to this processes with the basis on the Spinoza's epistemic argument, moral instructional texts can be composed of stages to form more adequate moral ideas about moral subjects gradually and cumulatively. The moral instruction like this expects moral awareness which is relatively perfect than the present moral imagination. Furthermore, with the teaching and learning like this sustained, it is expected that ultimately the limitation arising from sensible perception can be overcome to approach the realization of a human's nature.