Ethics. Used in a Western sense to mean morality and behavioural norms, in Shinto the term refers particularly to the prewar ethics courses and textbooks used in Japanese schools to underpin the emperor system. The best-known is Kokutai no Hongi. Shinto writers such as Motoori, Norinaga tended to reproduce the moral presuppositions of Confucianism or Buddhism while asserting that a reliable moral sense is inherent in the Japanese soul by virtue of the divine descent of the land and its people.
A Popular Dictionary of Shinto. Brian Bocking.