GIRI to one’s name is the duty to keep one’s reputation unspotted. It is a series of virtues—some of which seem to an Occidental to be opposites, but which to the Japanese have a sufficient unity because they are those duties which are not repayments on benefits received; they are ‘outside the circle of on.’ They are those acts which keep one’s reputation bright without reference to a specific previous indebtedness to another person.
