Idea Ripper // ArchiveCards: 1555 [Live] | Updated: 2026-10-14
Card #c221IR // #c221Synthesis

Shintoists do not deny this feature of their religion, but claim that the absence of a code of ethics is a proof of the superior natural goodness of the Japanese nation. It needs no such artificial aids to virtuous conduct.

— In our words · Source: Shinto: The Ancient Religion of Japan (William George Aston)

[Use when]

When someone defends the absence of a rule as proof of virtue, ask what happens when the virtue is tested — Aston spent the whole chapter showing the gap.

[Why it matters]

The most audacious defense of a missing moral code in the book — the absence of ethics reframed as evidence of natural virtue rather than a gap.

More from Shinto: The Ancient Religion of Japan

#c209It is quite true that there is a large element of ancestor worship in modern Japanese religious practices, but a very little examination…When a belief about a tradition comes mostly from its modern packaging, check the founding layer — the… #c210It is rather, as Schiller called the worship of the gods of Greece, a Wonnedienst, a religion inspired by love and gratitude more than by…When explaining why a religion endures, test the fear hypothesis against the love hypothesis — Shinto's… #c211The Kami are high, swift, good, rich, living, but not infinite, omnipotent, or omniscient.When a system's gods have limits, read the religion as a technology for managing superiors rather than a…