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ix Introduction Ethics and the Universal in Meiji Japan For each new class which puts itself in the place of one ruling before it, is compelled, merely in order to carry through its aim, to represent its interest as the common interest of all the members of society, that is, expressed in ideal form: it has to give its ideas the form of universality, and represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones. —Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology Moral universalism is a contentious idea. The theory of “moral universals”—the idea that all humanity or all those of a particular national or cultural community share certain common moral sensibilities, or that one’s own moral perspective is in fact a timeless moral truth—has in some form long been a central feature of moral discourse. Those who accept this theory may disagree over what “our values” are, or what foundation verifies the truthfulness of these values, but that such values exist is widely presupposed. But can any moral claim ever transcend its own historicity? Given that any morality asserting its validity across time and space can make such an assertion only through the specific language and cultural resources of a particular time and place, moral universals do not appear to be universal at all. Rather than timeless truths that have been revealed to us—whether through an examination of the natural world, society, or our innermost “human nature”—moral universals appear from this historicizing standpoint to be contingent products of the epistemological and normative context out of which they emerge.1 It matters, for example, whether a moral claim is put forward by a Shin Buddhist monk in nineteenth-century Japan or by a philosopher in twentieth-century France; knowledge and value for each will be understood differently. If moral truth is produced rather than revealed—and this project will show that in some cases x Introduction it most certainly is—then the question of how it is produced becomes crucially important. This is a study of the process by which the good as a contingent perspective is recast as a timeless truth or universal principle. It sets aside the question “What is the good?” (a question basic to the way the discipline of ethics is conceptualized) and asks instead, “How is the good produced?” To address this question, I inquire into the shifting epistemological conditions for moral truthfulness in Meiji Japan (1868–1912) and call attention to the role of the universal in legitimizing the moral claims of this time. That is, I examine the underlying presuppositions about nature, humanity, society, the nation-state, and culture that shaped what was possible to think and say about how one ought to think and act. Can nature tell us what is moral, or should we ground our moral claims in what we know of humanity? Should our focus be social relations in general or something more specific: the culture, traditions, and character of a given nation or “people”? Different answers to these questions held sway at different times in modern Japanese history. Moreover, those espousing moral perspectives sought legitimacy for their views by grounding them in a supposedly universal foundation: the laws of nature, natural law, the human personality, or the timeless Way of the Japanese people. Thus, universal values conveyed, in some cases, moral sensibilities common to all humanity; in others, the values of Japan’s particular national or cultural community. Morality was at the forefront of intellectual debates in late nineteenth century Japan. In the Social Darwinist “survival of the fittest” atmosphere of this time, the Japanese state sought to quell uprisings and rebellions and to overcome all manner of divisive social disruptions so as to produce national unity and defend its sovereignty against Western encroachment. Morality became a crucial means to attain these aims. Moral prescriptions for reordering the population came from all segments of society. Buddhist, Christian, and Confucian apologists, literary figures and artists, advocates of natural rights, anarchists, women defending nontraditional gender roles, and others put forward moral views designed to unify society. Each envisioned a unity grounded in its own moral perspective. It was in this tumultuous atmosphere that the academic discipline of ethics (rinrigaku) emerged. The first departmental chair for ethics at a Japanese university was established at Tokyo Imperial University in 1893, thus conferring official recognition upon this newly formed discipline. But preliminary studies of morality associated with this discipline began more than a decade earlier. A New Theory...

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