Japanese and Western Bioethics

The editors of the Philosophy and Medicine series recognize with grat itude the foresight, understanding, hard labor, and patience of Prof. Kazumasa Hoshino. It is his perseverance that has made this volume a reality. It was his faith in ideas that brought together a cluster of scholars in Tokyo on September 2-4, 1994, at Sophia University for a U. S. -J apan Bioethics Congress. With the support of the Foundation for Advance ment of International Science, the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership, the Foundation of Thanatology, the Japanese Center for Quality of Life Studies, and Sophia University, scholars from Canada, Germany, Japan, and the United States were able to explore the differ ences and similarities in their approaches to bioethics and health care policy. That conference first produced a volume through Shibunkaku Publishers of Kyoto that appeared in 1995 in J apanese: The Dignity of Death, edited by Kazumasa Hoshino. Selections from those materials have been reworked for an English audience and now appear, along with new essays, in this volume. The field of comparative bioethics is only in its infancy. We are deeply grateful to Prof. Kazumasa Hoshino, one of the fathers of J apanese bioethics, for having made this volume possible. H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. Stuart F. Spicker Vll ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This volume's editors and Kluwer Academic Publishers wish to thank Shibunkaku Press, Kyoto, Japan, for permission to publish, without charge, essays derived from the U. S.

Klappentext

The editors of the Philosophy and Medicine series recognize with grat itude the foresight, understanding, hard labor, and patience of Prof. Kazumasa Hoshino. It is his perseverance that has made this volume a reality. It was his faith in ideas that brought together a cluster of scholars in Tokyo on September 2-4, 1994, at Sophia University for a U. S. -J apan Bioethics Congress. With the support of the Foundation for Advance ment of International Science, the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership, the Foundation of Thanatology, the Japanese Center for Quality of Life Studies, and Sophia University, scholars from Canada, Germany, Japan, and the United States were able to explore the differ ences and similarities in their approaches to bioethics and health care policy. That conference first produced a volume through Shibunkaku Publishers of Kyoto that appeared in 1995 in J apanese: The Dignity of Death, edited by Kazumasa Hoshino. Selections from those materials have been reworked for an English audience and now appear, along with new essays, in this volume. The field of comparative bioethics is only in its infancy. We are deeply grateful to Prof. Kazumasa Hoshino, one of the fathers of J apanese bioethics, for having made this volume possible. H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. Stuart F. Spicker Vll ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This volume's editors and Kluwer Academic Publishers wish to thank Shibunkaku Press, Kyoto, Japan, for permission to publish, without charge, essays derived from the U. S.

Zusammenfassung
The essays in this volume, while exploring bioethical issues bearing on death and dying, the use of scarce resources, and genetic interventions, also compare approaches to bioethics in Japan versus Western countries.

Inhalt
Japanese and Western Bioethics: Studies in Moral Diversity.- I Ethical Universality and Cultural Particularity.- Bioethics in the Light of Japanese Sentiments.- Comparative Studies: Japan and America.- Nursing Perspectives in Bioethics.- The Characteristics of Japanese Concepts and Attitudes with Regard to Human Remains.- II Traditions, Authorities and Ambiguities.- Technology, Authority and the Loss of Tradition: The Roots of American Bioethics in Comparison with Japanese Bioethics.- Sanctity of Life: A Study in Ambiguity and Confusion.- Quality of Life Decisions and the Hopelessly Ill Patient: The Physician as Moral Agent and Truth Teller.- III Death, Life, and Well-Being.- Autonomy and Communitarianism: The Ethics of Terminal Care in Cross-Cultural Perspective.- A Thought on Terminal Care in Japan.- Medical Futility: Philosophical Reflections on Death.- Facing Death the Japanese Way Customs and Ethos.- Ethos and its Changes: A Commentary on Facing Death the Japanese Way Customs and Ethos.- The Concept of Happiness in Oriental Thought and its Significance in Clinical Medicine.- IV The Human Genome: Taboos and Moral Intuitions.- The Normative Status of the Human Genome: A European Perspective.- Moral Puzzles Concerning the Human Genome: Western Taboos, Intuitions, and Beliefs at the End of the Christian Era.- V Cross Cultural Diversity and Post-Traditional Morality.- Three Levels of Problems in Cross-Cultural Explorations of Bioethics: A Methodological Approach.- Moral Strangers: A Humanity that Does Not Bind.- Notes on Contributors.