Studying Japanese moral consciousness by the method of critical comparison of ideas -Taking Watsuji's ethics as a model example of it-

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Watsuji's ethics gives us a helpful lead in studying Japanese moral consciousness. In comparison with Heidegger's philosophy, which Watsuji receives critically, we try to ascertain the particularity and the universality of his ethics, which is not shut in Japanese particularity even though it keeps up a ethical tradition of Japan.Watsuji opens up a new vista of ethics by rearranging Heidegger's hermeneutics from an original viewpoint. By this hermeneutical method Watsuji can show the new concept of human being, i.e., "aidagara", which takes the place of the individualistic one, and the new concept of climate and culture, i.e., "fudo", criticizing the premises of the Western philosophy.Watsuji's ethics rooted in special Japanese sensitivity is somewhat ambiguous. It takes on the Japanese particularity in receiving direct things as they are, without structurizing them. At the same time Watsuji's ethics and his theory of climate and culture overcome Japanese particularity and lead to the universality. But it is in this ambiguity that we find the greatest difficulty in evaluating Watsuji's ethics and his theory of climate and culture and in studying Japanese moral consciousness.