Abstract
The environmental thoughts and practices of Ninomiya Sontoku 二宮尊德 (1787–1856) or Kinjiro 金次郎 are based on the pre-modern, ecological world view that is characteristic of pre-industrial Japanese society; it consisted mainly of Shintoism mixed with Japanese Confucianism and Buddhism. The main virtues he practiced and recommended for people were diligent labor, frugality, and concession in agriculture and economics, in order to increase natural produce by “assisting the transforming and nourishing process of Heaven and Earth” (贊天地之化育, 大學). He not only saved devastated farms, but also saved people from mental collapse by helping them to be independent financially and morally. Sontoku’s achievements testified to his belief that Confucian moral politics (仁政) rather than modern Western power-politics and self-interested economics, can make people happy and restore nature at the same time. In post-war, modernized and industrialized Japan he was neglected and his school of thought was almost forgotten. However, recently his thoughts and practices have been revived, and looked under fresh light of global environmental crisis.
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Notes
- 1.
The numbers following “Talks” in the parenthesis are sentence numbers of Night Talks of Nimomiya.
- 2.
The original source of this idea is in the Chinese Neo-Confucian essay entitled The Western Inscription 西銘 by Chang Tsai 張載 (1020–1077), a Chinese Neo-Confucian and one of the forerunners of Chu Hsi 朱熹 (1130–1200).
- 3.
“Heaven’s Way 天道,” “Heaven’s-principle 天理,” and “Heaven-Principle-Nature 天理自然,” are used here.
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Yamauchi, T. (2018). The Agricultural Ethics of Ninomiya Sontoku. In: Thompson, P., Thompson, K. (eds) Agricultural Ethics in East Asian Perspective. The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics, vol 27. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92603-2_3
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