Thinking the Possibility of Aesthetic Morality: Focusing on Schiller’s Concept of ‘Aesthetica’

The purpose of this article is to reveal the true meaning of conventional morality and rational morality by suggesting the possibility of aesthetic morality through the study of Schiller’s concept of ‘aesthetica’. ‘Aesthetica’ means beauty, and beauty is the source of harmony, the principle of harmony, and a harmonious state. When aesthetica mediates and synthesizes conventional morality and rational morality, then the morality becomes aesthetic morality. Aesthetic morality is the ‘first morality’ before being divided into two moralities, the ‘process of morality’ that enables the transition from conventional morality to rational morality, and the ‘final morality’ that synthesizes the two moralities. In other words, aesthetic morality is not a new kind of morality, but a ‘morality of harmony’ that connects the two moralities by discovering the morality that is latent as a possibility in the two moralities—that is, complete humanity. Ultimately, aesthetic morality means the ‘self-realization of possibility’ or the ‘self-realization of morality’ in which the first possibility and the first morality realize themselves. Moral education should be conducted in a way that allows students to develop their potential based on the understanding that conventional morality and rational morality are expressions of the same morality.