2013 Volume 80 Issue 4 Pages 491-502
The purpose of this paper is to clarify the characteristic of moral education during Mori Arinori's tenure as Minister of Education, especially its structural differences from the Imperial Rescript on Education, by examining the contents of the Ministry of Education ethics textbook entitled "Rinrisho". Although previous research has pointed out the possibility of multiple ideas of modern education in Mori's Educational Legislation, how the ideas concretely emerged in terms of moral education has not yet been properly examined. This paper will fill this void by considering Mori's expectations of moral education through an analysis of "Rinrisho", a textbook that was created for the newly established subject of "rinri" (ethics). As an important project by the Ministry of Education, the compilation of "Rinrisho" was carried out at the initiative of Mori and involved quite a few eminent scholars. But what was its aim? Current scholarship of "Rinrisho", which mostly focused on its description of social relationships, and as such, has regarded either the lack of emphasis on the sovereign-subject relationship ("Kun-shin no jo"), or the value placed on emotion in social relationships as the essential message of this work. This paper, however, offers a different conclusion by examining the distinction made between "rinri" (ethics) and "dotoku" (morality) in the explanatory notes from the final edition of "Rinrisho". "Dotoku" referred to both earlier "shushin" (morals) education in secondary schools by the mid 1880's, and the "gimu" (duty) education offered by a textbook chosen by Mori entitled "Fushi Dotokugaku" (A Japanese translation of "Sittenlehre für konfessionslose Schulen"). "Rinri", however, in response to the criticism of "Rinrisho" s pilot edition by scholars like Fukuzawa Yukichi, was contrasted with this "dotoku" as a more fundamental and theoretical conception of morality. Moreover, even though "Rinrisho" appears to prioritize emotion ("jo") in the various social relationships such as one's parents, country, and sovereign, in fact, this emotion was considered as subject to the control of the intellect ("shiso"). The logical structure of "Rinrisho" therefore was premised on the ability of individuals to act on their own ethical discretion, a stance that differs radically from that of the Imperial Rescript on Education that had placed ultimate ethical discretion with the Emperor.
