The second of Inazo Nitobe's seven bushido virtues: courage exercised in a right cause, distinguished throughout Nitobe's account from mere recklessness or physical daring, which he treats as base rather than virtuous once detached from Gi, rectitude. True valor, in this reading, is doing what is right without regard for one's own safety. How far this specific formulation reflects genuine Edo-period or earlier samurai teaching, against how far it reflects Nitobe's own turn of the century synthesis for an international readership, is debated among historians of Japan.
Facts
Origins
Place of OriginJapan; codified in Nitobe's English language text, written while he lived in the United States. 1 Origin of the NameJapanese yu, courage or valor, the second of the seven virtues Inazo Nitobe names and defines in Bushido: The Soul of Japan, written in English in 1900. 1 Attributed Author / CompilerNamed and defined by Inazo Nitobe in Bushido: The Soul of Japan (1900), who distinguishes courage sharply from reckless daring and subordinates it to Gi, rectitude, as the standard of a right cause. 1 Status
Status Within the TraditionStandard teaching, not formally defined 1 Doctrinal Status DetailThe second of Nitobe's seven bushido virtues, alongside Gi, Jin, Rei, Makoto, Meiyo and Chugi; Nitobe holds courage without rectitude is not truly virtue, citing the Confucian teaching that to see what is right and not to do it is want of courage. 1 Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceCourage exercised in a right cause, valor subordinated to and measured by rectitude rather than fearlessness or recklessness alone. 1 Disputed
Origin PeriodNitobe's codified seven-virtue scheme dates to his 1900 book; whether it reflects a continuous samurai ethic reaching back through Edo-period house codes and texts such as the Hagakure, or is substantially Nitobe's own Meiji-era synthesis for a Western readership, is a genuinely contested question among historians of Japan. 2 Connections
Belongs to Tradition
Bushido, of which this virtue is a part, is already recorded as related-to Shinto; recorded here as its belongs-to-tradition anchor, alongside Bushido's own Zen Buddhist and Confucian influences which this single edge does not claim to exhaust.
In Language
Opposes
Originates in Language
Source Bushido: The Soul of JapanInazo Nitobe
Related To
Both named among Inazo Nitobe's seven bushido virtues.
Source Bushido: The Soul of JapanInazo Nitobe
Sources
1. Bushido: The Soul of Japan
Inazo Nitobe, Leeds and Biddle, 1900Originates in Language: Japanese, Stored language property on this entity, cited to this source: japanese
2. Inventing the Way of the Samurai: Nationalism, Internationalism, and Bushido in Modern Japan
Oleg Benesch, Oxford University Press, 2014
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