이노우에 데쓰지로(井上哲次郞)의 유교 및 공자 인식과 국민도덕론 체계에서의 활용

Abstract

Since the Meiji Restoration, the early Meiji government implemented a variety of policies for overall westernization, but after the victory of the Chino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, the backlash against westernization gained momentum among Japanese nationalistic intellectuals. In this social atmosphere, Inoue Tetsujiro(井上哲次郞, 1855~1944), a professor of the Imperial University of Tokyo and nationalist ideologue, thought that Japanese people's morality and patriotism would be ruined by a flood of western thoughts and the global position of Japan had risen since winning the war, so they needed to establish a new national morality to respond to these changes. Inoue particularly took note of the usefulness and value of Confucianism in morality education for Japanese people. Inoue pointed out that Confucian ideas and morality were realistic and secular and they did not conflict with scientific thinking. In that respect, Inoue asserted these characteristics as virtues of Confucianism which could make them useful to modern Japanese moral education. On the other hand, Inoue pointed out that there had been a lack of scientific knowledge, creativity and progressivity and a sense of public duty in Confucianism, which Inoue regarded as weaknesses. And Inoue insisted that they had to establish a new modern morality by modifying Confucianism in accordance with social transition. However, the theory of national morality, set up by Inoue, was a nationalistic morality based not mainly on universal Confucian ideas but on Japanese-centralism. In the theory, Japan formed a structure of nation with a 'combined family system', and in this family system the Emperor's family was the head family for every individual Japanese family, so loyalty and filial piety for the Emperor and the country were unified. Inoue's theory of national morality had a large impact on modern Japanese moral education by being applied to the contents of training for teachers and morality textbooks.