Shōeki Andō was a physician and critic of feudalism and the conventional systems of morality, he was active during the middle of the Edo period.
Background
Shōeki Andō was born in Japan, but the exact dates oi his lifetime are impossible to determine. His name was Yoshinaka, and he also went by the literary name Kakuryudo. Very little is known about his life, and it was not until 1899, when his works were discovered and introduced to the world by Dr. Kano Kdkichi, that he first began to attract attention for the originality of his thought. It would appear that he was the second son of a samurai named Nakamura, a retainer of the fief of Okudono in the province of Mikawa.
He was adopted into the Toda family, who were physicians in the fief of Hachinohe in Mutsu, present-day Aomori Prefecture. It is possible that the adoption was later cancelled, though the evidence is unclear.
Career
It is certain, however, that around 1744-45 he made his living as a townsman doctor in Hachinohe. From his writings, it would appear that during the Horeki era (1751-63) he lived in “the city of Akita Castle,” as Akita was called at that time, in the province of Dewa, present-day Akita Prefecture. His disciples included Kamiyama Sen’an, a physician of Hachinohe, and other samurai of the same fief, as well as Akashi Ryuei of Kyoto and Shizu Teichu of Osaka.
Views
In his thought, shizen (nature) is treated as an interrelated process in which all creatures participate as they pursue their various activities. He describes this process by the term gosei kasshin, the ‘‘living truth of reciprocal individuality,” and because this process itself constitutes the working of nature, he labels it shizen shineido, or the ‘‘way of natural truth.” Nature, in his view, transcends all conceptual and moral categories. For this reason, he called for the rejection of the moral teachings of both Confucianism and Buddhism, with their emphasis upon goodness alone and their recognition and support of social differences. He likewise attacked the Tokugawa feudal system, which sought justification for its existence in the ideals of Confucianism and Buddhism, rejecting it with a finality that is unmatched among the various thinkers of the Edo period.
He asserted that the ideal of human life should be "productivity,” by which he meant agriculture, denying the right of any group in society to exist without producing its own food. He advocated a complete egalitarianism that refused to recognize any social, economic, or political distinctions, and called for strict monogamy and equal rights for women. In spite of his thoroughly egalitarian approach, however, he failed to envision any kind of cooperative spirit that might serve to integrate society, which has been cited as the principal flaw in his system as a social thinker.