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The Ethics of Spirit and the Spirit of the People

Without infinite spirit, our own spirit would cease to be. Without our own spirit, we could have no aim, and with no aim, there can be no morality.

—Nakashima Rikizō, On the British Neo-Kantian School, 1892

With the flash of a sword and the roar of a gun, Japan’s army demonstrated the pure and unparalleled posture of Japan’s national moral spirit in a dazzling display before all the nations of the world. . . . Japan’s national moral spirit is nothing other than the universal virtue of the human heart, and such virtue of the heart indeed reflects the purity of Oriental morality.

—Inoue Tetsujirō, The Philosophy of Japan’s Yōmei School, 1900

In the 1890s, moral philosophers in Japan began to reconfig- ure the discipline of ethics. The utilitarianism and evolutionary naturalism that dominated the moral discourse of early Meiji gave way to a moral philosophy of spirit. This shift was part of an effort to resist the civilizational hierarchies imposed by the West and internalized by many Japanese thinkers during the foregoing decades. But this required not merely the critique of assertions of Western superiority in the realms of knowledge and virtue, two key markers of “civilization” upheld since Fukuzawa Yukichi’s Outline of a Theory on Civiliza-

tion.1 _{It required also the destabilization of the epistemology that grounded}

and enabled this discourse on civilization. Referred to in earlier chapters as an “epistemology of representation,” this framework for knowledge linked truth with the observable, the measurable, and the rationally verifiable. “Spirit,” the unobservable and intuitively apprehended, provided a means to contest “civili- zation” (kaika) and its underlying epistemology, and transformed the topogra- phy of moral thought in 1890s Japan.

Moral discourse, both within and outside academia, played a central role in contesting civilization and articulating a desire for moral particularity. More- over, the shift in ethics from an epistemology of representation with its marked opposition between subject and object to one positing an identity between self and other, subject and object, was not merely a reflection of the civilization cri- tique, but was integral in initiating and furthering this critique.

The critique of civilization took various forms. This chapter will focus on two moral philosophers: Nakashima Rikizō and Inoue Tetsujirō. Both resisted civilization, but in different ways and with varying effect—Nakashima through personalism, an ethics that took “spiritual principle” as its animating force, Inoue through efforts to articulate the moral spirit of the Japanese people. In short, in moral discourse of 1890s Japan, resistance to civilizational hierarchies took the form of a new ethics of spirit and an assertion of “the spirit of the people.” National Character and Personality

The idea that each nation possesses its own unique “national character” shaped late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century moral discourse in Japan. Although references to common “Japanese” traits can certainly be found well before the Meiji period,2 _{the discourse on national character did not become a}

part of Japan’s intellectual landscape until the late 1880s.3 _{Unlike prior essential-}

izing efforts to establish Japanese commonality and to differentiate Japan from China and the West, the discourse on national character, asserting that all the people of a nation possess a common set of characteristics shaped by historical and geographical conditions, was closely intertwined with the notion of the “people’s spirit,” a concept with roots in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth- century German Romanticism.

Drawing on already circulating “counter-enlightenment” arguments, J. G. Herder, a historian and leading figure in the articulation of German Roman- ticism, argued that each society must be understood as a Volk (folk, people) with its own Geist (spirit or genius). Each Volk possessed its own unique values, language, customs, and beliefs. These expressions of the Volksgeist (folk spirit), when embodied in the national form, constituted national character. “Every nation,” Herder proclaimed, “is one people, having its own national form, as well as its own language: the climate, it is true, stamps on each its mark, or spreads over it a slight veil, but not sufficient to destroy the original national character.” 4 _{Herder refuted the conception of civilization whereby each soci-}

ety followed a uniform path of development, with some higher, others lower on the hierarchy of civilization. No outward standard, according to Herder,

not even “universal reason,” could be applied to judge and rank a particular

Volk. For Herder, even reason was historically and culturally contingent. Each Volk, therefore, had to be judged “from within.” 5 _{In short, Herder contested}

the putatively universal discourse on civilization in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Europe by arguing for the contingency of its terms, stan- dards, and concepts.

As Japan in the late nineteenth century began to appropriate the discourse on national character, the various epistemological features associated with this discourse, in addition to Herder’s cultural and moral pluralism that he associ- ated with the concept of Volksgeist, entered Japan as well. First among these was a reconfigured view of nature. No longer the “mechanism” of early Meiji enlightenment thinkers, nature was conceived of as a living, organic entity pos- sessing “spirit.” The idea of absolute and eternal spirit emerged in conjunction with the idealism of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel and was further developed during the latter part of the nineteenth century by the idealist philosopher of ethics Thomas Hill Green. The folk spirit (kokumin seishin, or Volksgeist) was understood as a manifestation of infinite spirit. Finite consciousness was not separate from eternal consciousness. Rather, the two formed a unity. Feeling and intuition, rather than conceptual thought, were upheld as the best means to apprehend this unity. Just as these views interacted in complex ways with ide- alism in early nineteenth-century Germany, so too did their variants interact with personalism in nineteenth-century Japan.

In the decades immediately prior to and following the turn of the twentieth century, the notion of national character was used both to reinforce and to sub- vert the moral and civilizational hierarchies associated with this conception of civilization. By the Taishō period (1912–1926), for example, the idea of national character was transformed into the basis from which to subvert such hierar- chies. Following the logic of Herder’s claims, proponents of Japan’s unique spirit of this time argued for the value of each nation’s national character and asserted that each nation contributed in its own way to world civilization. This repre- sented the emergence of a new conception of civilization—one emphasizing cultural struggle (Kulturkampf), or in Japanese bunka tōsō.6 _{In the last decades}

of the nineteenth century, however, national character remained deeply inter- twined with hierarchical civilization, or kaika.

The connection between national character and kaika can be seen quite clearly in The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell, member of the Asiatic Society of Japan and, in this capacity, author of a number of studies on Asia. In this 1888 work, Lowell argued that the peoples of the “Far Orient” occupy an inferior position in the progress of civilization because they lack a sense of self. They lack “personality.” “Individuality, personality, and the sense of self,” Lowell

explained, “are only three different aspects of one and the same thing.” In other words, “personality” implied a self-conscious awareness of one’s own individu- ality, and this in the thought represented here by Lowell became a prerequisite for civilization.

An advanced society, according to Lowell, had a highly developed sense of personality, while primitive societies did not. “Individuality [i.e., personality] bears the same relation to the development of mind that the differentiation of species does to the evolution of organic life: that the degree of individualization of a people is the self-recorded measure of its place in the great march of mind.” Lowell’s main concern in this work was to show the “impersonality” (which he took to be “the soul of the Far East”) of Asian peoples, and thereby to demon- strate their low degree of civilization. “If imagination be the impulse of which increase in individuality is the resulting motion . . . the Far Orientals ought to be a particularly unimaginative set of people. Such is precisely what they are. Their lack of imagination is a well-recognized fact.” By providing the “fact” of a lack of imagination among Oriental peoples as evidence, Lowell concluded that they also lacked the impulse toward individuality or personality. As a result, the development of the Oriental mind remained at a primitive stage.7

Nakashima Rikizō, four years before taking up the chair of ethics at Tokyo Imperial University in 1893, wrote a review of Percival Lowell’s book while studying abroad at Yale University.8 _{Importantly, Nakashima refuted neither}

the idea of a hierarchy of civilizations nor the notion of national character. In his 1889 review, Nakashima criticized Lowell’s work for failing to understand “the spirit of the people” of Japan, “the real animating ethical power which has made Japan what she is today.” Throughout this article, Nakashima demon- strated his familiarity with the idea of national character. He took great offense when Lowell failed to see the difference between the “national traits” of China and Japan. “The difference is familiar to him who knows anything of these two peoples. The one [China] is extremely conservative, while the other [Japan] is progressive. The one is slow and the other impulsive. The one is grave and sober, but the other quick-witted and lively, etc.”

But honor, according to Nakashima, was the defining trait of the Japanese people and the basis of ethical decision making for “every true Japanese.” “It is hardly necessary to say that no one can discuss the characteristic traits of any nationality without fully entering into the spirit of that people.” Unlike Herder in the late eighteenth-century German states and certain Japanese thinkers, such as Inoue Tetsujirō at the turn of the century, Nakashima accepted the asso- ciation of Volksgeist and national character with universal standards of hierar- chical civilization, rather than making them the basis from which to contest such hierarchies.

Indeed, Nakashima remained respectful of “civilization,” but his respect had an edge to it. He acknowledged Japan’s “great debt to the United States” for the “advancement in civilization” that resulted from Japan’s introduction to the society of Western nations. But, with a note of sarcasm, he rebuked the West for the injustices of civilization. Referring to Japan’s unequal treaties with Western countries that allowed for extraterritorial rights for foreigners in Japan and tar- iff limits on goods imported to Japan, Nakashima stated, “May the time soon come when Japan will stand among the community of civilized nations as their equal; and possess the full political powers which are due to her as a sovereign State, but which are now unjustly taken away from her by the Christian nations of the world.” Nakashima’s italicized emphasis on Christianity may of course be interpreted to imply hypocrisy.

But as a lack of personality was Lowell’s main critique of Japan’s national character, and as this impersonality, according to Lowell, indicated a low level of civilizational development, Nakashima took pains to show that the Japanese did indeed have a notion of personality. For Lowell, “impersonality” was the very “soul of the Far East.” The lack of personality among the “Far Orientals” meant they had yet to attain a full consciousness of individuality. Nakashima, again citing Lowell: “In short, ‘they are still in that childish state of develop- ment, before self-consciousness has spoiled the sweet simplicity of nature. An impersonal race seems never to have fully grown up.’ ”

Addressing this claim, Nakashima refuted neither the idea of national character nor hierarchical civilization. Instead, he argued that Lowell misun- derstood Japan’s national character and that if correctly assessed, Japan is not as “primitive” as Lowell claims. Nakashima readily admitted that personality in Japan was less developed than in America. “No candid mind,” he observed, “can deny it.” Nevertheless, he rejected Lowell’s assertion that the Japanese lacked personality altogether. Honor, he pointed out, is not “an entirely imper-

sonal matter!” Moreover, Confucian principles such as a sense of duty implied

personality as well. Thus, “the Extreme Orient,” he reasoned, “is not quite so impersonal as [Lowell] thinks.” By direct implication under the logic of Lowell’s argument, Nakashima maintained that Japan was not as uncivilized either.

National character and its reflection on civilizational hierarchies are here internalized. To demonstrate that each Japanese does indeed possess a self- conscious awareness of his or her own individuality (i.e., personality) is thus a means for asserting that while Japan may not yet be on par with Western civili- zation, it is by no means “primitive.” This close association of “personality” with civilization and national character, I suggest, helps to explain the emergence of the philosophical discourse on personalism in Japan. At the center of this discourse was Nakashima Rikizō, recently returned from his studies abroad.

This exchange between Lowell and Nakashima is illustrative of key fea- tures of academic moral discourse in late nineteenth-century Japan as it began to contest civilizational hierarchies. Notions of “national character” and “the people’s spirit” inform the arguments of each. Lowell’s usage of “national char- acter” (as a means to reinforce civilizational hierarchies) reflects the continuing dominance and authority of kaika discourse. And while Nakashima did not contest this, other thinkers of this time such as Inoue Tetsujirō did. For Inoue, national character shaped by “the people’s spirit” became a basis from which to redefine and elevate Japan’s national particularity. Thus the idea of “national character” had the potential both to sustain and to subvert kaika.

The philosophical concept of “personality” was another central feature of Lowell’s and Nakashima’s exchange. For Lowell, and for Nakashima too, person- ality was a requisite for civilization. Lowell’s argument linking the Orient’s lack of personality with immorality is derived from Hegel. When Hegel suggested that in Oriental societies no truly ethical existence is possible, he predicated the possibility of “ethical existence” on one having a self-conscious aware- ness of one’s own individuality, that is, on “personality.” 9 _{It therefore became}

imperative that Japan demonstrate that its people did indeed have personality. Nakashima himself initiated the movement called personalism, which centered on the moral cultivation of personality. Finally, also evident in this exchange is an emerging conception of “the Orient” (tōyō), a space of particularity con- structed together with “the Occident” (seiyō) in late nineteenth-century Japan. As seen above, Lowell made use of “the Orient” to elevate “the Occident,” and Nakashima, though unable to assert a parity between the two (“no candid mind can deny,” he stated, that personality is less prominent in “the Japanese charac- ter”), sought to elevate Japan’s character over that of China. Thus, Nakashima’s statements, as much as Lowell’s, reflect an Orientalist discourse. “National char- acter,” “spirit,” “personality,” and “the Orient”—these, then, were central terms of academic moral discourse as Japan approached the end of the nineteenth century.

The Ethics of Spirit: Nakashima Rikizō and Personalism

With the introduction of personalism to Japan, the dominant terms and con- cepts of moral discourse among academics shifted. Prior to this time, the dominant theories of the good were guided by utilitarianism and evolutionary naturalism. Now, however, the utilitarianism of 1880s Japan came under attack. While securing the greatest happiness for the greatest number was regarded in the 1870s and 1880s as “the chief objective of mankind” and happiness itself

was “the obvious standard” for distinguishing good from evil,10 _{utilitarianism}

lost sway by the end of the nineteenth century precisely because of its close association with the hierarchical discourse on civilization (kaika).

The utilitarianism circulating in the early Meiji period was largely that of J. S. Mill. Mill’s text Utilitarianism, introduced to Japan through the works of Nishi Amane and translated in 1880 by Shibutani Keizō, had an enormous impact on the moral thought of this time. In this work, Mill’s calculus of the good was not simply a measure of the greatest happiness for the greatest num- ber, nor a question of a quantitative measure of happiness alone; the good, according to Mill, was also a qualitative measure. Mill posited “higher” plea- sures as evaluatively superior to the “lower” pleasures. Roughly, this meant the superiority of intellectual over physical pleasures. Only one who had experi- ence of both sorts of pleasure was in a position to judge the desirability of each. This effectively secured for the “intellectual” and the educated the authority to judge matters related to “the good,” and excluded the uneducated (i.e., the “foolish people” discussed in chapter 1).11 _{Thus, Mill’s style of utilitarian ethics}

mirrored and to some extent helped to produce the early Meiji convictions on Japan’s inferior civilizational status.

Moreover, the “person” in this utilitarian conception of society, though cer- tainly considered a part of society, was never described as synonymous with the social whole. The epistemology that shaped the ethical thought of early Meiji (the ethics of civilization) presupposed a subject-object dichotomy: the observ- ing subject was detached and distinct from the objects perceived. “Nature” was itself an object, a mechanism with discernible and unchanging laws that could serve as a foundation for the good. This objectification of nature was reinforced by a materialist philosophy of perception.

In the early 1890s, however, rinrigaku scholars began to ground their ethi- cal views in a very different epistemology, producing a new vocabulary with which to articulate it. The person, society, and nature, as well as the subject- object dichotomy, all underwent a dramatic reconfiguration. The “person” was no longer an isolated individual in a society of isolated individuals, each with his or her own desires and (oftentimes conflicting) conception of the good. Each person, according to the new view that was emerging, apprehended him or herself in the other. The person, then, was not merely “individual” but also social. The new philosophy that was being introduced was a form of idealism called “personalism” (jinkakushugi).

Nakashima Rikizō was the central figure in the introduction and dissemi- nation of personalism in Japan. His students included such notable philosophers as Takayama Chogyū, Kuwaki Genyoku, Ōnishi Hajime, and Nishida Kitarō. He outlined this new philosophy and its ethical implications in an article titled

“Concerning the British Neo-Kantian school” (Eikoku shin kanto gakuha ni tsuite), serialized in 1892 and 1893.12 _{The focus of this essay, and the inspiration}

in the development in Nakashima’s moral views, was the philosophy of British idealist Thomas Hill Green.

Central to the epistemology of personalism was the idea of “spiritual principle.” Nakashima, following Green, described nature as a system of rela- tions. All phenomena, whether objects or events, are what they are by nature of their relation to something else. This relationality implied consciousness—one object can be related to another only through the productive activity of some consciousness.13 _{But certainly the finite consciousness of a single individual}

cannot apprehend the totality of nature’s relations. Therefore, “there must exist