So I think the key point is that warriors definitely did care about their reputation (na 名 in Japanese), but the best thing for your reputation was to win, and it didn't matter that much *how* you did it.
A pretty good index of whether someone knows what they're talking about on this topic is to ask them to give the specific word used in Japanese for the concept of 'honor' under discussion.
Yep. A soldier's job is and reputation depends on accomplishing the mission. Maybe that means counting coup according to specific rules. Or "while following doctrine", "whatever it takes", or "while pumping the ἀρετή". But in the end, if you lose the fight your reputation ain't great. I had always understood honor in this context to be what others thought of your prowess, but I could be way off base.
I think a large part of the problem is that English-speaking pop historians tend to throw around the word "honor" as if it's self-evident what it means, which is questionable even in English. My own sense - as you will realize - is that if we define "honor" as reputation, and by extension ability to lead and attract other warriors in medieval Japan, then that had very little to do with the precise tactics you used on the battlefield.
As an example, the two famous warlords Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin are portrayed in war chronicles as equal opponents, and some of the things they apparently did to one another certainly seem "honorable" in the general sense - Kenshin reportedly supplied Shingen with salt after other warlords cut off trade routes into land-locked Kai Province, and Kenshin wept when Shingen died, for the world had lost a great warrior.
Thing is, though, if you read the actual accounts of their battles, both of them used all kinds of ruses, deceptions, ambushes, false retreats, etc etc against one another. They may have signaled personal respect to each other, but their actual battles suggest that they used supposedly "unfair" tactics as standard.
"If you fight fair you ain't fighting."
So I think the key point is that warriors definitely did care about their reputation (na 名 in Japanese), but the best thing for your reputation was to win, and it didn't matter that much *how* you did it.
A pretty good index of whether someone knows what they're talking about on this topic is to ask them to give the specific word used in Japanese for the concept of 'honor' under discussion.
Yep. A soldier's job is and reputation depends on accomplishing the mission. Maybe that means counting coup according to specific rules. Or "while following doctrine", "whatever it takes", or "while pumping the ἀρετή". But in the end, if you lose the fight your reputation ain't great. I had always understood honor in this context to be what others thought of your prowess, but I could be way off base.
I think a large part of the problem is that English-speaking pop historians tend to throw around the word "honor" as if it's self-evident what it means, which is questionable even in English. My own sense - as you will realize - is that if we define "honor" as reputation, and by extension ability to lead and attract other warriors in medieval Japan, then that had very little to do with the precise tactics you used on the battlefield.
As an example, the two famous warlords Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin are portrayed in war chronicles as equal opponents, and some of the things they apparently did to one another certainly seem "honorable" in the general sense - Kenshin reportedly supplied Shingen with salt after other warlords cut off trade routes into land-locked Kai Province, and Kenshin wept when Shingen died, for the world had lost a great warrior.
Thing is, though, if you read the actual accounts of their battles, both of them used all kinds of ruses, deceptions, ambushes, false retreats, etc etc against one another. They may have signaled personal respect to each other, but their actual battles suggest that they used supposedly "unfair" tactics as standard.