Abstract
Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801)'s argument on the literature ("Yamatouta" or "Utamonogatari") is two-fold : first, it should be autonomous as distinct from politics and morals : second, it should be of use for good governance. It is not simply that the literature should be independent as an intellectual field, but also that the autonomy of the literature resides in its aestheticism itself, from which he tried to draw a sense of publicity and sympathy, as well as a concept of what can be called autoformation through active imitation. Thus he was led to his own aesthetic/emotional amoralism ("mononoaware"). With such an amoralism-which is a kind of meta-moral-Motoori aimed to replace the Confucianist moralism, and overcome the closure of it. For, as the Confucianist transcendent, universalistic criterion is apathetic with the popular amoral realities, it forces people to be passive and subject to the rationalistic distinction between good and evil. It is true that his amoralism he reached through the reflection on kado has some potentialities of the modern aesthetic ethics. However it actually ended up with forming its own closure, which eventually endorses the Japanese particularism with sanctified imperial nation ("kokokushugi").
