Book Review: Watsuji Tetsuro’s Rinrigaku: Ethics in Japan by Watsuji Tetsuro. Translated by Yamamoto Seisako and Robert E. Carter, with An Introduction and Interpretive Essay by Robert E. Carter. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. PP. xii +

Abstract

This review critically examines Watsuji Tetsurō’s Rinrigaku: Ethics in Japan, focusing on its relational conception of ethics and its critique of modern individualism. Watsuji argues that ethical life cannot be adequately understood through isolated individual consciousness but emerges from aidagara, or the relational “betweenness” that constitutes human existence. The review explores how the concepts of ningen, solidarity, trust, truth, responsibility, and communal existence develop this framework. It highlights the book’s significant contribution in connecting ethical experience with social structures and everyday human relationships while also identifying important philosophical and political tensions. In particular, the emphasis on communal totality raises concerns about individual autonomy, conformity, injustice, and the possibility of ethical criticism of oppressive social orders. The review further considers Watsuji’s treatment of ethical universality within historical contexts and its implications for relativism. Despite these limitations, Rinrigaku remains a significant interdisciplinary contribution to ethical and comparative philosophy.