Happiness and Virtue Beyond East and West: Toward a New Global Responsibility

“This book is a clever project to examine a set of core virtues from the perspective of two cultures: America and Japan. The focus on core virtues itself is important globally as this is a common denominator in most attempts to nurture moral growth. And the contrast of two very different cultural approaches is a unique contribution to deeper understanding of the issue of virtue development in general and the two cultures in particular. I particularly learned from opening and closing sections by Nakayama and Lickona.” —Marvin W. Berkowitz, Ph.D., Sanford N. McDonnell Professor of Character Education, Center for Character and Citizenship

“Scholars from two universities, one in Boston USA and the other Kashiwa Japan, engage in paired reflections on nine virtues: courage, justice, benevolence, gratitude, wisdom, reflection, respect, responsibility and temperance. Characteristic differences of emphasis emerge, but in a spirit of complementarity not conflict. The substance of each virtue is vividly conjured in story–mythological, historical or biographical. The coherence of the end result is the more remarkable given twelve contributors. They explore the grounding of our shared humanity with its respective debt to Graeco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian sources or to Buddhist, Confucian and Shinto ones. There is challenge here for both education and living.” —Dr. Brian Gates, Emeritus Professor of Religious & Moral Education, University of Cumbria

“This book is testament to the scholarship, excellence and collaborative spirit of the authors. I recommend it to those who wish to improve the quality of their lives and are willing to commit to the practice of kindness in their thoughts and courage in their actions. My hope is that this book will become a widely acknowledged, international reference used to educate and influence generations of youth. They need to appreciate that true improvement is the ethical implementation of knowledge, and differs from the misused term of ‘progress’ which is often the installation of technical advances for short term institutional profitability.” —Professor Thomas Martin, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research), Australian Catholic University

Each chapter examines one of nine virtues—Courage, Justice, benevolence, Gratitude, Wisdom, Reflection, Respect, Responsibility and Temperance—and the importance of each in our lives.

With clarity of purpose, the essays demonstrate that the virtues and happiness that living a good life can bring know no national boundaries. it is the sincere hope of the editors and authors that this book will help its readers re-examine the timeless question of what constitutes true happiness and a good life and will therefore play some part in increasing international cooperation and good will.