Ethical Thoughts in Modern Japan: Tetsurō Watsuji and Keiichirō Hirano

1. May 12. 2016 in Göttingen University Ethical Thoughts in modern Japan influenced by the West In the case of Tetsurō Watsuji and KeiichirōHirano Yukio Irie http://www.let.osaka-u.ac.jp/~irie/ Osaka University

2. Introduction • Tetsurō Watuji was the most influential philosopher of morality in Japan after the Meiji Restoration. • The Edo period was characterized by a feudalistic society. People were governed by Confucianism. • The Tokugawa government isolated the country from the outside world, later known as ‘the closure of the country’. • The Tokugawa government ended its isolation andreturned the ruling power to the Mikado (or Tennō) in 1868. It is called the Meiji Restoration. • The most important reason for this shift was to avoid becoming a Western colony by becoming a modern state itself.

3. “What should our attitude toward modern Western society be?” • The answers can be divided into the following three categories: 　　①Modernism 　②Reactionism (After the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-5) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5) ） 　③Marxism (After WWI 1914-1918) • After the Meiji Restoration it was still important to maintain Japanese independence. • 　→　Nationalism • →　Concept of the ‘whole’

4. Chapter 1 Watsuji’s Ethics

5. 1 Introduction of Tetsurō Watsuji • Tetsuro Watsuji (1889-1960) was born in Himeji City in Hyogo Prefecture. After entering the First Higher School in Tokyo he decided to study philosophy. He graduated after completing his thesis on Schopenhauer in 1912. After graduation he published the following books: • 1913: Studies on Nietsche • 1915: Søren Aabye Kierkegaard • 1919: Pilgrimages to the Ancient Temples • 1920: Japanese Ancient Culture

6. 1925Professor of Ethics at Kyoto University • 1926: Studies on Japanese Spiritual History • 1934: Ethics as a Science of Human Being • 1934 Professor of Tokyo University • 1935: Fūdo. (Climate and Culture) • 1937: Ethics, Bd.2 1942, Bd. 3 1949 • 1954: History of Japanese Ethical Thought • 1960 He died. • 1961–1963: Watsuji Tetsurō Zenshū (Complete Works of Tetsuro Watsuji) 20 volumes (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten)

8. 2 Etymology of ‘人間 (Ningen, human being)’ • The Chinese characters ‘人間’ are ‘human’ (人) and ‘between’ (間). • ‘人間‘（ningen) = ‘a sphere of humans’ ‘a sphere of humans’ →　‘a human being’ only in Japan • Human existence is fundamentally relational, or human beings are actually comprised of human relationships.

9. 3 Etymology of 倫理（rinri, ethics) • The Western word ‘ethics’ is translated by the characters ‘倫理(rinri)’. This expression was used in a ancient Confucian text and imported into Japan. • “倫(rin)is defined as a body or a system of relations, which a definite group of persons have with respect to each other”and, at the same time, • “倫(rin) signifies individual persons determined by the system” (REJ. 10). • Such fundamental human relations in ancient China are relations between parent and child, lord and vassal, husband and wife, young and old brothers, friend and friend , and so forth. (Cf. REJ p. 11).)

10. 理(ri) = “reason” 理(ri)is added to the term rin for the purpose of emphatically expressing the manner or action of the relational pattern” (REJ. 11). • 倫理（rinri), ethics = the order or the pattern through which the communal existence of human beings is made possible. = the law of social existence” (REJ. 11).

11. ‘Human being’ (人間) ＝　a collection of interactive human relationships or interactions, • ‘Ethics’ (倫理) = the rules imposed on human relations = the study of human beings. The title of his book Ethics as a Science of Human Beingexpresses his perspective quite clearly. • “Ethics is not only the study of the subject; it is also the study of the subject as the practical interconnection of acts” (REJ. 33). • The fundamental laws of human beings = the basic principles of ethics

12. 4 The Individual and the Whole • <Specific relationship ‘betweeness’> • Human beings are always playing a role in a relationship; ・ a father and a child, • a student and a teacher, • a landlord and a resident, • an employer and an employee • etc. • We have two approaches to human relations

13. (1)The individuals exist prior to the human relationship or the community. = liberalism. (2) The human relations or the communityexist prior to the individuals. = collectivism or communitarianism. • Watsuji tried to resolve the inherent contradictions in human relations by using the concept of ‘betweeness’ as a ‘unity of contradictories’, or ‘emptiness’(Cf. REJ. 58).

14. <Individual moments> • Individuals exist by playing some role within a group as a whole. a family, a community, a company, a cultural organization, a nation state, etc. ・ An individual can exist after leaving a particular group, but he or she cannot exist after leaving all groups, or wholes, at once. Thus, an individual must belong to some group in order to exist. • Individuality presupposes communality.

15. “Hence, individuality itself does not have an independent existence. Its essence is negation, that is, emptiness” (REJ. 80). • “The essence of individuality lies in the negation of communal characteristics” (REJ. 80). • As a result, individuals do not exist in and of themselves, but exist only in their negative relation to the whole.

16. <Moments of the whole> • For example, a family does not exist as a kind of substantive being by itself. If all family members leave their family, the entity will disappear • In order to exist, a family needs to restrict the behaviors of its individuals. In other words, a family can exist by negating its individuals.

17. The community maintains its status as a community by coercing or negating individuals. • “[T] he ultimate feature of every kind of wholeness in human beings is “emptiness”and, hence, the whole does not subsist in itself but appears only in the form of the restriction or negation of the individual” (REJ. 99).

18. <The negative structure of a human being> • Watsuji describes mutual relations between individuals and the whole: • “[B]oth individuals and the whole subsist not in themselves, but only in the relationship of each with the other” (REJ. 101). • This relationship can be perceived as having bothpositive and negative aspects. • The positive relationships between an individual and the community as a whole →　an organism. • Watsuji criticized such a view and emphasized the mutual negative relation between an individual and the whole.

19.  Watsuji emphasizes the negative aspects. • “[A]ssociation is ‘the discarding of individuality that appears in the form of the discarding of community.’ This is double negation” (p. 115). • This duality of negationswould be the same as emptiness. Watsuji claims that emptiness is the basis of both an individual and the whole. • This principle of emptinessis a concept of the Mahayana BuddhistNāgārjuna (ca 150–250 AD).

20. Buddhism ←　Siddhartha Gautama （6 th -4th centuries B.C.E.) • Gautama preached that human suffering came from craving or ignorance. People think that their individual selves (ātman) exist, but Gautama claimed that neither self nor substance actually exists. • Nargarjuna supported Gautama’s claim by employing the concept of emptiness. • Watsuji shares his fundamental relational understanding of Human Beings with Buddhism.

21. 5 Ethical Organizations (‘The chap. 3 the Ethical Organizations’ of Ethics) • Section 1 - Private being as a lack of publicness (6 pages) • Section 2 - Family (99 pages) • 1 Husband and wife • 2 Parents and children • 3 Brothers and sisters. • Section 3 - Kinship (11 pages) • Section 4 - Local community (25 pages) • Section 5 - Economic organizations (company) (50 pages) • Section 6 - Cultural community (73 pages) • Section 7 - State (34 pages)

22. Confucianismsets out five fundamental human relationships called the Five Constants(五常）. The relationships between • father and son • lord and vassal • husband and wife • brothers • friends

23. How are the ethical norms justified in these ethical organizations? The five fundamental ethical norms (五倫） • Jin (仁, benevolence, humaneness) • Gi (義 righteousness or justice)　 • Rei (礼, proper rite)　 • Chi (智, wisdom)　 • Shin (信, integrity)　 • According to Confucianism these norms are intrinsic to human relationships, because human relations cannot stay intact without such ethical norms. • How about Watsuji?

24. 6 Howdid Watsujijustify the fundamental law of human beingsas ethical norms? • Watsuji tried to justify ethical norms from the mutual negative relation between an individual and a whole. • “If society exists through coercion […], then society and individuals are unified just at the place where they stand opposed to and separately revolt against each other. Unless individuals are able to revolt against society, there is no possibility of coercion. On the other hand, coercion cannot arise without individuals who have to be pressured to obey society” (p. 112).

25. <Definitions of badness> • “In revolting against one community , one revolts against one’s own foundation. As an act, the movement of this rebellion is toward the destruction of the community as well as being a revolt against one’s own foundation. […] This movement is calledbadness” (p. 133).

26. <Definitions of goodness> • “A person […]may then try to return to his own foundation by negating this revolt once more. ［…］The acts ［…］ signify the sublimation of individuality, the realization of socio-ethical unity, or the return to one’s own foundation. […] This is ‘goodness’” (p. 134). • These definitions show us that moral duties he claims is not duties to other individuals, but duties to the whole. This characteristic of his ethics came from the emphasis of the concept ‘whole’. ≒objection of individualism

27. 7 Objections to Modern Individualism • Watsuji explained the criticism of individualism voiced by Aristotle, Hegel, Marx, etc. in his Ethics as a Science of Human Being • Aristotlethought of a human being as a member of a polis as a whole. Hegel also thought of an individual as a member of a nation as a whole. They both regarded a whole as ontologically prior to its parts. • Marx thought of a human as “the ensemble of social relations” (Theses On Feuerbach, 6).

28. “He [Marx] made it clear that the isolated individual is nothing more than an imagined product, but also that it was worked out in accordance with a definite historical and social situation in mind” (REJ. 84). • “Individuals are dissolved into a community” (REJ. 87). • But Watsuji criticized Marx for putting too much emphasis on economic relations, pointing out that economic relations presuppose an ethical human relation. • Watsuji evaluated Hegel’s philosophy and tried to give it a foundation by using Kitarō Nishida’s concept of nothingness and Buddhist concept of emptiness.

29. 8 Objections to Reactionism • Watsuji criticized Western individualism while simultaneously evaluating it. • “[The] awakening of individuals and emancipation of individuals in a nation state were the greatest advantages of modern Europe” (WCW, Bd. 11, 341) • But moral reactionism in Japan undervalued individual subjectivity. Moral reactionism was hailed as the ‘Theory of National Morality’ by Hiroyuki Katō (1836-1916) and Tetsujirō Inoue (1856-1944), etc. Therefore Watsuji criticized it.

31. The Theory of National Morality praised Confucianism. • In the Edo period, Confucianism was used as an ideology to justify feudalism. In this regard, the two Confucian norms, Chū (忠, loyalty) and Kou (孝, filial piety), were very important. • Loyalty =the norm between a lord and a vassal, • Filial piety =the norm between a father and a son. • In China and Korea, Loyalty and filial piety are distinguished. Filial piety superseded loyalty • In Japan, Loyalty and filial piety are continuous. Loyaltysuperseded filial piety

32. The ‘Theory of National Morality’ expanded the scope of the loyalty to lord to the loyalty to the Mikado and to the State. • Watsuji criticized the ‘Theory of National Morality’on its misunderstanding of the history of Confucian thought in Japan and its confusion of the feudalistic relationship between a lord and a vassal and the relationship between a nation and the modern state.

33. 9 Characteristics of Watsuji’sEthics (1)Synthetic character of the concept of ‘ethics’ He tried to understand ethics as a science of human being, which was a synthesis of Western philosophical anthropology, the Confucian understanding of the concept of ‘ethics’, and the Japanese understanding of the concept of ‘human being’. (2) Synthetic character of the contents of ethics It was a synthesis of Buddhism, Confucianism, Western Individualism, and Western criticism of individualism (Aristotle, Hegel, Marx)

34. 10 Criticism ofWatsuji • Criticism 1: Conservativism • Watsuji did not focus on relationships among individuals, but on the relationship between an individual and the whole. This emphasis may have been inevitable in the age of nationalism, but he seems to put weight on the whole rather than on the individual, because he criticized individualism.

35. Criticism 2: Statism • According to Watsuji, a state unifies the various ethical organizations or communities: a family name of an individual expresses him or herself as a member of a family; his or her address is attributed to a member of the local community; and an occupation connects one as a member of an organization. A state acknowledges the right of property to the person restricted by those various communities. Watsuji thought that these communities are all combined together to form a state. • But today the state itself cannot actually unify the various ethical communities. This criticism of statism is similar to Marx’s criticism of Hegel. Hegel thought that the state was a unified subject, while Marx claimed that the state was not a unified subject. Watsuji criticized Marx and claimed that there is a deeper layer to human beings than that concerned with economic factors. But the economic layer was deeper at least than the state.

36. Chapter 2 Keiichiro Hirano’s ‘Dividualism’

37. 1 Transition to Post-Modernism • As previously mentioned, there were three main streams of thought in Japanese philosophy before WWII: • ① Modernism • ② Reactionism • ③ Marxism • This situation remained largely in place after WWII, even though Reactionism lost ground and Marxism gained huge momentum. At the same time, Japan’s defeat in WWII meant that intellectuals’ attempts of ‘Overcoming Modernity’ during WWII, including the Kyoto School, had failed. Watsuji’s ethics is regarded as an approach for ‘Overcoming Modernity.’ • Both Modernists and Marxists believed that they could not stop Militarism because of a lack of ‘Subjectivity’ among Japanese people; therefore, many people encouraged the further study of Western individualism and democracy.

38. After 1990 • The climate around philosophical thought changed significantly around 1990, by the end of the Cold War in 1989, and the Japanese economic crisis in 1991. • Before 1990, many were ‘company-first persons’ during the economic development from the end of WWII to around 1990. A Japanese company or organization was something like a family and employees were like family members. But because of economic globalization companies changed. Companies canno longer take care of their employees. People lost the identity provided by a company or organization. • After the economic downturn in 1991 the ‘Searching for the Self’ phenomenon became popular among the younger generation and has continued up to the present. • Many books about ‘the self’ have been and are published.

39. 2 Introduction of Keiichiro Hirano • Keiichiro Hirano was born in Aichi prefecture in 1975. He is a graduate of Kyoto University, and was awarded the Akutagawa Prize, the most famous prize for literature in Japan, as a student in 1999 for his first novel, ‘Eclipse’. He has written many novels, some of which feature his ‘dividualism’ concept, such as Washout (2008), Dawn (2009), The Only Form of Love (2010), and Fill in the Space (2012).

41. 3 The myth of a ‘unique genuine self.’ • Hirano proposed his concept of ‘dividualism’ in his book What am I(Kodansha, 2012). • “Presently, communication media are highly developed and human relations have become more and more complex. ‘Communication ability’ is required in a way we have never seen before. So, many people are thinking about their identity. What am I?” (WI, 9). • The fundamental mistake of young people who are ‘Searching for Self’ is “the myth of a ‘unique genuine self.’ In fact, there is no such unique ‘genuine self’” (WI, 7).

42. An answer of many writers to young people is that there is no such genuine self. Because this answer would be a most plausible answer from Buddhism. • But younger people cannot be satisfied with such answer. • Hirano’s answer was different in the following point. • “The many faces which a person shows during many relationships are one’s ‘genuine selves’” (WI, 7). • He call the ‘many faces ‘dividuals’. There is no unique genuine self but each dividual itself is a one’s genuine self.

43. 4From Individualism to Dividualism The word ‘Individualism’ In the West, ‘individuum’ (individual) was used to express a person from ancient time. However, the word ‘individualism’ was first used in 1821 (cf. OED). Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) wrote in American Democracy, (1841), • “Individualism is a novel expression, to which a novel idea has given birth. Our fathers were only acquainted with egotism” (Vol. 2, Book 2, Chap. 3. ) Therefore, ‘individualism’, as such, is not a very old concept in Western society.

44. The Japanese translation of ‘individualism’ and ‘individuals’ • In Japanese ‘個人’ (kojin) was coined for the translation of ‘individual’ and was first used in 1894 (Cf. Shogakukan Kokugo Daijiten). • ‘個人主義’ (Kojinshugi) is the translation of ‘individualism’ and was first coined in 1891 (Cf. Shogakukan Kokugo Daijiten).

45. Hirano’s understanding of ‘individual’ and ‘dividual’ • The word ‘individual’ means originally an entity that cannot be divided into parts. • A person as an individual has an inseparable unity and keeps the same personality within various human relations. • According to Hirano, however, a person plays different personalities or characters during different human relations. A person can be divided into many dividuals, and each dividual has a particular personality. We live as different dividuals in each human relation or group. Hirano called such way of living or thinking ‘dividualism’.

46. 5Comparison of Dividualism and The Theory of Roles • Dividualism is different to what is known as the Theory of Roles. • According to the Theory of Roles, the self is a set of different social roles. A set of such diverse social roles constitutes one person. In this respect, a society also could be explained as an organization of such social roles. Social roles can be visualized as the blocks that construct a society, although such roles are abstract, formal, and impersonal. • In contrast, a set of dividuals constitutes a person like a set of social roles but each dividual has its own personality or character. When one works as a teacher, he or she plays a social role but, at the same time, he or she behaves as a dividual with a particular personality in relation to particular students.

47. 4 Comparison of Hirano’s ‘dividualism’ and Watsuji’s Ethics or ‘betweeness’ • (1) Similarities • An ‘Individual’ is inseparable from itself but separated from other individuals. In contrast a dividual is separated from other dividuals a person possesses. A dividual is involved in relations with other people through their dividuals. Therefore a dividulal is inseparable from the dividuals of other persons in any given human relationship. “Each dividual is closely connected to other dividuals of the other people present in different social spheres, creating a mesh of deeply involved relations with different people, on different bases.” (cf. WI. 164). • On this point, Hirano’s understanding of the dividual is similar to Watsuji’s concept of ‘betweeness’. Watsuji believed that the individual is fundamentally connected to some community. Hirano’s dividual is also fundamentally connected to other dividuals of other persons in a community.

48. This similarity relates to a Japanese traditional way of thinking. • The Japanese philosophical tradition started with the ‘Seventeen-Article Constitution’ by the legendary Prince Regent Shōtoku (574?-622?) in AD 604. Its first article reads: “Take harmony to be of the highest value and take cooperation to be what is most honored”. • This has been the most fundamental ethical norm for Japanese since ancient times. Therefore, there is a lot of pressure for Japanese to conform either to each other or to the whole. If one tries to fit oneself to others or to the group, he or she will experience difficulty in unifying his or her different characters in different relationships.

49. About conformity of a society. • When conflict emerges in a society which exerts weak pressure to conform, such conflict appears among individuals or between individuals and the society as a whole. • However, when such conflict emerges within the individual in a society that exerts strong pressure to conform, people or individuals internalize the conflict to keep harmony in a society, so it doesn’t manifest outwardly.

50. (2) Differences between Watsuji and Hirano • Watsuji thought that the various human relations within a society are unified or integrated into the state. All communities in the state can, or should be, integrated into the state. • But in the post-modern age, our society has become diverse, and cannot be unified into a single national identity. This means that various communities have no similarity with each other and cannot be combined with one another to sustain the state as a single entity. Hirano’s concept of dividuals reflects such diversity of our society