History as past ethics; an introduction to the history of morals

by P. V. N. Myers

Along with the Chinese classics Confucianism was introduced into Japan about the middle of the sixth century of our era, and being in perfect accord with the native system of Shinto and with the Japanese ways of thinking, this cult of ancestors tended to reënforce native ethical tendencies and thus contributed essentially to make the virtues of filial obedience and reverence for superiors prominent in the growing type of character.

Buddhism

Buddhism was introduced into Japan in the sixth century of our era. Its incoming had deep import for the moral life of the Japanese people. It inculcated the gentler virtues, exerting here in this respect, as elsewhere in the Far East,—save in China, where it too quickly became shockingly degenerate,—an influence like that exerted by Christianity in the Western world. It helped to make gentleness, courtesy, and tenderness distinctive traits of the Japanese character. Through the regard which it instilled for dumb animals it placed the whole lower world of animal life under the protection of the moral sentiment.[194]

Western civilization

A little more than a generation ago the civilization of Japan came into vital contact with the civilization of the West. Almost every element of the old Japanese culture has felt the modifying effect of this contact. The political, the economic, the social, the domestic, and the religious institutions have undergone or are undergoing great changes. These changes in these departments of life and thought have caused, as such changes always do, important modifications in ethical sentiments and convictions. Of all the influences which for more than two thousand years have been at work shaping and molding the moral ideal of the Japanese nation, those now entering from the Occidental world will doubtless leave the deepest impress upon the ethical type.

In a still more direct way is this contact of Japan with Western civilization resulting in important consequences for Japanese morality. Christian ethics, like Buddhist ethics, is making a strong appeal to certain classes of Japanese society. The result is what in an earlier chapter was designated as a “mingling of moralities” and the creation of a new composite conscience.

II. The Ideal

Bushido

The heart of Japanese morality is to be sought in Bushido,[195] the ethics of the samurai. We shall best understand this moral code by thinking of it as the Japanese ideal of chivalry or, perhaps better, as a blending of the Western chivalric, Spartan, and Stoic ideals of goodness and nobility, since in the list of virtues making up the Bushido ideal we find several of the cardinal virtues entering into each of these three distinct types of character.

As we have already intimated, Bushido is an ideal of excellence which grew up out of the root of Japanese feudalism, just as the Western ideal of chivalry developed out of European feudalism. It was essentially an ideal of knighthood, the prime virtue of which was personal loyalty to one’s superior. Fealty to one’s chief was made so dominant a virtue that it overshadowed all other virtues. In the defense or in the service of his lord a samurai might commit, without offense to his sense of moral right, practically any crime, such as blackmailing, lying, treachery, or even murder.