Chapter 10 - Watsuji Tetsurō’s Confucian Bonds: From Totalitarianism to New Confucianism

Summary

Introduction

Watsuji Tetsurō is perhaps best regarded for his ethical theory which has unfortunately been tainted by the charge of totalitarianism. This criticism presumes that he supported a dictatorial government which demands the total subservience of the subject to the sovereign. And although Watsuji states that his theory of betweenness (間柄 aidagara) involves the negation of both individuality and community in the first volume of his Ethics (1939), the concrete application of his ideas in the second volume (1942) culminates in the nation where the individual is subordinated to the state. There are three aims of this chapter. Firstly, it is my intention to argue that this charge of totalitarianism is a consequence of Watsuji’s incorporation of the Confucian Five Human Bonds or Relationships (五倫 Gorin): the relationship between father and son, husband and wife, eldest and youngest sibling, sovereign and subject, and friend and friend. Secondly, it will be claimed that Watsuji overcomes this criticism in his postwar revision of the second volume of Ethics (1946) by resituating his account within a New Confucian framework. Thirdly, it will be illustrated that despite overcoming the charge of totalitarianism, Watsuji’s Confucian-inspired account of the family nevertheless remains open to the charge of conservativism.

In order to achieve these aims, this chapter will be divided into four sections. I will begin by explicating the presence of the five Confucian bonds within Ethics. Here it will be illustrated that Watsuji uses these bonds to explain the core concept of aidagara in the first volume, and that he utilizes these bonds to convey the concrete application of aidagara in the second volume. Next, the criticism of totalitarianism will be discussed. Here particular emphasis will be placed upon critiques of Watsuji in Western scholarship, and it will be argued that these criticisms are a consequence of that scholarship’s interpretations of the Confucian relationship between subject and sovereign. Thirdly, I will consider the emergence of New Confucianism in response to such criticisms. Here it will be shown that New Confucianism is based on the attempt to reconcile Confucianism and democracy, and in this respect it will be suggested that the postwar revision of the second volume of Ethics can be understood to have been developed within a New Confucian framework.