Watsuji Tetsurô’s Global Ethics of Emptiness

Table of Contents

1. Frontmatter

2. Chapter 1. The Ethical System of Watsuji Tetsurô

   Anton Luis Sevilla

   Abstract

   This chapter is a summary of the main contours of Watsuji Tetsurô’s systematic ethical project and an analysis of its main contributions. Sevilla examines the key works in Watsuji’s systematic period, beginning with two preparatory works, Milieu: Anthropological Considerations (1935) and Ethics as the Study of Ningen (1934). This chapter then carefully analyzes the three volumes of Watsuji’s masterpiece, Ethics (1937, 1942/46, 1949). Finally, Sevilla examines what he sees to be Watsuji’s main contributions, and the unity and contradictions contained within these ideas.

3. Chapter 2. Relationality vs. Singularity: Between Care Ethics and Poststructuralism

   Anton Luis Sevilla

   Abstract

   In this chapter, Sevilla discusses a key problem that emerges in the very core of Watsuji Tetsurô’s ideas: Is the moral agent rightly understood as singular—a unique, free individual—or as relational? This chapter begin with a close examination of Watsuji’s idea of relationality, and how this view might connect and contribute to Erin McCarthy’s care ethics in the critique of moral individualism. But, against this positive reading, Sevilla examines Watsuji’s uneasy relationship with the postmodern/poststructural idea of alterity (or difference) as is found in Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Luc Nancy. Finally, this chapter returns to Watsuji and explores the possibility of maintaining a sense of the singularity of the individual despite the fundamentality of relation, and sees if there is a way beyond this seeming opposition.

4. Chapter 3. Individuality vs. Community: Confronting the Liberal-Communitarian Debates

   Anton Luis Sevilla

   Abstract

   This chapter develops the critique of moral individualism on the sociopolitical level, examining the ethical relationship between individual citizens and communities. The chapter begins by exploring Watsuji Tetsurô’s approach to the functions of and dynamics between individuality and community, paying close attention to how these ideas shift and turn over the prewar, wartime, and postwar volumes of Ethics. Sevilla argues that Watsuji has no less than four different models of the relationship of the individual and the community. But despite this inconsistency, he argues that Watsuji can contribute to the liberalism vs. communitarianism debates (John Rawls vs. Michael Sandel, etc.), not only as a communitarian, but as an attempt to overcome that dichotomy altogether.

5. Chapter 4. Universality vs. Particularity: Local Ethics in a Global World

   Anton Luis Sevilla

   Abstract

   In this chapter, Sevilla engages the following questions: Is global ethics a matter of universal norms independent of historical and cultural specificity? Or is ethics a matter of local moralities? First, this chapter examines of the localizing aspect of Watsuji Tetsurô’s Ethics. It then proceeds to his view of the debate between universal morality and national morals in his earlier essays. Through this, Sevilla clarifies Watsuji’s own unique approach to how universality and particularity might be unified, and how this is applied in global ethics. Finally, Sevilla analyzes the contemporary debates on global ethics (or global justice), focusing on the issue of moral relativism and universalism, and suggesting how Watsuji might contribute to a new way of approaching these discourses.

6. Chapter 5. Ethics of Emptiness: The Road from Buddhism to Aidagara

   Anton Luis Sevilla

   Abstract

   In this chapter, Sevilla examines where the idea of “emptiness” in Watsuji Tetsurô’s ethics comes from, by first returning to Watsuji’s early works on Buddhist ethics, where he began using this term alongside his discussions of “no-self” and “dependent arising.” Sevilla then examines the continuity and discontinuity of this earlier Buddhist ethics with Watsuji’s later interpersonal/hermeneutic ethics. Finally, Sevilla develops his own creative interpretation of Watsuji, which focuses on the overlaps of these two projects, in what is called an “Interpersonal Buddhist Ethics.” Using this model, Sevilla confronts the following dilemma: Do we approach ethics from transcendent ideals or from that which is immanent in everyday life? By addressing this question, Watsuji’s ethics can be situated alongside and contributing to other “selfless” approaches to ethics, such as those found in Engaged Buddhism (Thich Nhat Hanh, etc.) and its predecessors.

7. Backmatter