Virtues

Makoto (Sincerity)

Bushido Virtues

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "Makoto (Sincerity)." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/virtues/makoto-sincerity.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). Makoto (Sincerity). Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/virtues/makoto-sincerity

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-makoto-sincerity,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {Makoto (Sincerity)},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/virtues/makoto-sincerity},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The fifth of Inazo Nitobe's seven bushido virtues: sincerity and truthfulness, the plain correspondence between a samurai's word and his action, such that Nitobe holds a formal promise or a written contract beneath a samurai's honor, since his spoken word alone was to carry the full weight of a bond. Distinct from Xin, trustworthiness, the Confucian Five Constants entry already held on this axis: makoto is written with a different character, cheng, with its own deep roots in Neo-Confucian ethical writing on sincerity as the ground of the other virtues, rather than the Five Constants scheme's own term.

Facts

Origins

Place of Origin

Japan; codified in Nitobe's English language text, written while he lived in the United States. 1

Origin of the Name

Japanese makoto, sincerity or truthfulness, the fifth of the seven virtues Inazo Nitobe names in Bushido: The Soul of Japan (1900); written with a character, cheng, distinct from the Confucian Five Constants' own xin. 1

Attributed Author / Compiler

Named and defined by Inazo Nitobe in Bushido: The Soul of Japan (1900), who holds a samurai's spoken word needed no written contract to bind it. 1

Language

Japanese 1

Disputed

Origin Period

Nitobe'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

Status

Status Within the Tradition

Standard teaching, not formally defined 1

Doctrinal Status Detail

The fifth of Nitobe's seven bushido virtues; Nitobe holds that bushi no ichi-gon, a warrior's single word, needed no written bond or oath behind it, since a lie or a subterfuge was accounted equally cowardly and dishonorable. 1

Attestation

Meaning in the Attesting Source

Sincerity and truthfulness, such that a samurai's spoken word alone was held to bind as securely as a written contract. 1

Cross-Tradition Connections

Part Of

Bushido

Source Bushido: The Soul of JapanInazo Nitobe

Related To

Meiyo (Honor)

Both named among Inazo Nitobe's seven bushido virtues.

Source Bushido: The Soul of JapanInazo Nitobe

Xin (Trustworthiness)

Both named Sincerity or Trustworthiness in English translation, but written with different characters: makoto is cheng, xin's own character is distinct; a related but not identical Confucian-adjacent virtue rather than the same entry under a second reading.

Source Bushido: The Soul of JapanInazo Nitobe

Yu (Courage)

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, 1900

2. Inventing the Way of the Samurai: Nationalism, Internationalism, and Bushido in Modern Japan

Oleg Benesch, Oxford University Press, 2014

Comments (0)

No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.

Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)