In this paper, the current discussion on life extension is reviewed and analyzed from the viewpoint of philosophy and bioethics. After the publication of Leon Kass's Beyond Therapy (2003), the issue of life extension and age retardation has come to the forefront of current bioethical discussions. I take a closer look at the discussions by such philosophers as Hans Jonas, Leon Kass, David Gems, John Harris, A. D. N. J. de Grey, John Schloendorn and Steven Horrobin, and criticize some of their arguments. My conclusion is as follows. While the conservatives' argument does not provide a suffici...
Japanese bioethics began in the early 1970s by feminists who fought against the government's bill that seeked to limit the freedom of abortion. This means that Japanese bioethics started as feminist bioethics, simultaneous with the formation of American bioethics. Their discourses are classified under three categories : (1) The government should not intervene into private reproductive processes, (2) Women have reproductive rights including abortion, and (3) Society in which women can and want to give birth confidently is needed. We have ignored their bioethical discussions and movements in ...
Meaning of Life and the Metaphysics of Death: the Possibilities of Analytic Existentialism and a Critical Examination of it
Project Year :
2020.04
-
2024.03
A Critical Study of Anti-natalist Philosophy in Terms of Birth-Affirmation
Project Year :
2020.04
-
2023.03
Governance of Renewable Energy Project
Project Year :
2017.04
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2021.03
A Preliminary Research on the Philosophy and Ethics of Life From the Viewpoints of Dignity and Meaning
Project Year :
2017.04
-
2020.03
Analytical Existential Study of Meaning of Life and its Implementation to Applied Ethics
Project Year :
2016.04
-
2019.03
View Summary
In this research project, we examined the analytical philosophical approach of recent works treating the problems of "meaning of/in life". We proceeded with meta-analysis of this issue on the works by T. Metz, which is the exhaustive analysis of the relevant books and papers on this topic and we reviewed critically the conclusions he derived from it. Furthermore, by examining the related ideas, such as ‘the anti-natalism’ of D.Betatar, and ‘metaphysics of death’, we outlined the structure of "analytical existentialism" and clarified what was asked in the related questions. In particular, we found some difficulties in the distinction between the subjectivism and the objectivism, which is frequently used in this argument, and in the structure of this argument which is based on the truth condition
Pluralistic Environmental Justice and Governance of Energy Technology
Project Year :
2014.04
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2018.03
View Summary
We conducted case studies and theoretical considerations on the relationship between energy technology and society. A series of social experiments are also conducted to realize appropriate governance, after clarifying conditions for making energy projects suitable for the wellbeing of diverse stakeholders.As a result, we clarified (1) interaction of the energy technology and society, (2) the legal, ethical and social issues occurring in current- and inter- generations (3) the effectiveness of social experiments to concretize necessary distributional and procedural justice.In this process, we have established a universal analytical framework including indirect effects on the social impact of energy technology. We also proposed deliberative methods applicable to real governance such as zoning with citizen participation, ordinance, and workshops
Philosophical research on "the dignity of human life"
Project Year :
2014.04
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2017.03
View Summary
In this research the following results were obtained: 1) The dignity of human life is constructed by three pillars, namely, "the dignity of one's life," "the dignity of the body," and "the dignity of the connectedness of life." 2) The logic of President's Council on Bioethics's book "Controversy in the Determination of Death" is wrong and should be reconsidered. 3) The "heart of meaning in life" was proposed as a new concept in the philosophy of meaning in life. According to this approach, meaning in life is never to be compared with anything. 4) "The dignity of one's life" is situated in the "solipsisticbeing-ness" of one's life. The heart of meaning in life is also situated there
A Philosophical Research on the Affirmation of Existence in the Philosophy of Life
Project Year :
2011.04
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2014.03
View Summary
In this research the following results were obtained: 1) the affirmation of existence should be interpreted as a form of birth affirmation, and it should also be connected with the concept of giving birth, 2) David Benatar's anti-natalism ought to be severely criticized, 3) the persona argument has two origins, the entity-based one and the relationship-based one, and 4) the affirmation of existence has a fundamental connection with the concept of dignity of human life
Construction of "Agricultural" Philosophy: in the Trans-disciplinary Perspectives
Project Year :
2010.04
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2013.03
View Summary
The radioactive contamination originating in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident brought about agricultural fundamental destruction. It was pressed for reexamination of the relation between a producer and consumers especially for the organic farmer. Agriculture is closely related to ‘life’ in total, and is not limited to mere production of food. A plant factory is a symbol of the agriculture as a production-of-food system in that sense. The agriculture as ethical practice is in the opposite poles. It is important to inhabit or to dwell in the land. Agriculture is also integration of bioethics and environmental ethics. Agricultural subsistence is reconsidered after 3.11. It became clear that the importance of the non-money economy including minor subsistence. It is important to regard agriculture as more extensive perspectives
A basic research on the ethical justice about new reproductive technology -main research on the difference of consciousness due to gender about procreation-
Project Year :
2010.04
-
2013.03
View Summary
Now, we are confronted with an impenetrable difficulty of an ethical decision against artificial procreation. Inthis research, we have investigated into the men’s consciousness about new reproductive technology. We have reached a conclusion that the fulfillment of the desire to have children through IVF (in vitro fertilization and the transfer of embryos), donation of egg or sperm and surrogacy, most of examinee seem in some way to be “unnatural”. They alsounderstood procreation belong to women. Therefore we have discussed about fundamental ethical issue; whether “being born” is ethical or not
Research on the conept of life in Japanese culture and its religious implications
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A holistic research on the relationship between the concept of life and its religious implications in Japanese culture was made in fiscal years 1992-94. First we discovered our images of life and death were deeply influenced by the traditional Shinto concept of the next world, and by the Buddhist concept of, Jodo. 'We can trace these influences in the early Man'yoshu manuscripts, modern novels such as Shiga Naoya's "Anya Koro, " and even in the questionnare responses we conducted as part of this research. Second we analyzed contemoprary debates on brain-death and trasplantation, and discovered the traditional conept of life and the modern, scientific one at the same time in the materials. This signifies our contemparary images of life and death are torn up between the traditional conept and the scientific one. Third we succeeded in grasping a holisitc cultural movement "Taisho life-ism" in the early 19th century. The word "Taisho life-ism (Taisho Seimei Shugi) " was coined by Suzuki Sadami, one of this research investigators, and this word is now being accepted as a key conept when seeing the Taisho era's Japanese culture. We also discussed the continuity between Taisho life-ism and a life-ism movement in the 1980's. We published several books and a number of articles, where we gave detailed analyzes on these topics
A Holistic Research on the view of Life in Japanese History of ideas
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This project started under the lead by professor YAMAORI Tetsuo from 1995 to 1996, finished by professor SUZUKI Sadami in 1997 after YAMAORI's retire from IRCJS, proceeding with two side. The first is to concider a representative problems in comtenporary Japan, for example, the accident of Oumu Shinrikyo and the problem to judge by brain death etc., and the second is to consider them with a historical percepective of a view of "life".YAMAORI approached to contenporary religious consciousness, the problem of "hunger" and view of life and method of folklore by ORIKUZCHI Shinobu. SUZUKI clarified a huge movement of Life-centerism, or Vitalism, in Taisho era, and aproached to early NISHIDA Kitaro's works which establised philosophicaly the movement. And MORIOKA Masahiro, a member of this research, decleared variety of contenporary view of life through his studios on movements of women's history, of the protction of nature and thought of eugenics.Although this project producted many papers and oral reports and showed enough utility of this aproach, we could reached just one conclusion that aproach to view of life give us a very useful moment for symthesising or totalising many studies on thought. Because this was just started from 1995
From Quasi-juridical Ethics to Process-Ethics : Challenge to transform of 'bioethics' into Clinical Philosophy
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In this research project, we tried to transform Bioethics into process-ethics, that we think as a alternative to quasi-juridical ethics. In order to search a possibility of this transformation, we researched as follow :To clarify the Problematic of quasi-juridical Ethics, which we call, we invited researcher of Bioethics and held several symposiums. We invited Professor Kanamori Osamu(Tokyo Uni.) to lecture about liberal new eugenics. Dietmer Mieth(from Germany) talked about policy of bioethics and genetic engineering in EU. Michaela Serbulea(from romania) talked about the relation between cultural background and bioethics. Trough these symposiums, we elucidated that the nature of the problematic of quasi-juridical ethics lie in a court model, which ignore the process to reach a decision.To overcome this problematic, we explored the possibilities of alternative ethics, which focuses on the process to come to a decision. And we conducted following researches.We joined forces to hold philosophical cafe in the Hiroshima meeting of Japan research group of home care hospice. In this cafe participants talked about care under the following theme: Is there a care, which does not invade patient's privacy?Nakaoka took part in the symposium about the education of philosophy in the meeting of the Philosophical Association of Japan as a panelist. From 2003 to this year, we had ten classes of Philosophy per a year in the high school in Kyoto and taught philosophical thinking and trained dialog between students. Through these activities, we assessed social roll of philosophy and sought possibilities of cooperative decision-making.We investigated Narrative based Medicine (EBM), which gets a lot of attention to compensate Evidence based Medicine (EBM). And we held public symposium about the relation between Spirituality and Narrative.We sum up these researches and made a report
Studies on environmental ethics towards the ideas of conservation of biodiversity and nature regeneration
Reexamination of "Naturalism" implicit in Reproduction and the Control of Human Body
View Summary
In the ongoing development of reproductive technology and the remarkable change of general perception concerning "family"," conception","birth" etc., we define our general mode of thinking which usually underlies our conventional opinions as' naturalism". We interpreted, criticized and tried to in some way overcome this mode from various points of view, such as feminist theories, historical studies, narrative studies and ethical consideration
A Philosophical Research on "relationship" and "desire"in Bioethics
View Summary
In this research the following results were obtained : 1) the idea of "persona" should play a more important role in bioethics instead of "person," 2) the brain-dead body ought to be protected from an outside invasion in terms of the principle of wholeness, 3) we might not have the responsibility to produce future generations, and 4) the concept of "narrative responsibility" should be introduced to bioethics
International Association for Japanese Philosophy "Kyoto School, Tokyo School, and Beyond"
(Honolulu)
International Association for Japanese Philosophy
Presentation date:
2019.10
Two Kinds of Impossibility in the Comparison of Meaning in Life
Masahiro Morioka
Second International Conference on Philosophy and Meaning in Life
(Tokyo)
International Conference on Philosophy and Meaning in Life
Presentation date:
2019.10
The Ontological Status of the Deceased Person Who Continues to Appear in this World
Masahiro Morioka
[Invited]
Life, death and meaning - Eastern and Western perspectives
(Birmingham)
University of Birmingham
Presentation date:
2019.09
The Ontological Status of Deceased Persons in Some Contemporary Japanese Philosophical Texts
Masahiro Morioka
[Invited]
Fifth Annual Conference for European Network of Japanese Philosophy
(Nagoya)
European Network of Japanese Philosophy
Presentation date:
2019.08
The Dialectic of Human Technology and Naturalness
Masahiro Morioka
[Invited]
Does Nature Think? (Research Institute for Humanity and Nature)
(Paris)
Research Institute for Humanity and Nature
Presentation date:
2019.06
高校国語教科書に現れた哲学エッセイの研究
森岡正博
[Invited]
応用哲学会第11回年次大会・大会シンポジウム「徹底解剖ポピュラー哲学!」
(京都)
応用哲学会
Presentation date:
2019.04
The Method of Life Studies and Tanabe’s Metanoetics: A Possibility of Post-Religious Spirituality
Masahiro Morioka
Fourth Annual Conference for European Network of Japanese Philosophy
(Hildesheim)
European Network of Japanese Philosophy
Presentation date:
2018.09
A Solipsistic and Affirmative Approach to Meaning in Life
Masahiro Morioka
[Invited]
First International Conference on Philosophy and Meaning in Life
(Sapporo)
International Conference on Philosophy and Meaning in Life
Presentation date:
2018.08
The Ontological Status of the Deceased Person That Continues to Appear in This World
Masahiro Morioka
3rd Biennial Conference, International Association for the Philosophy of Death and Dying
(Uppsala)
International Association for the Philosophy of Death and Dying
Presentation date:
2018.08
Manga and Philosophy
Masahiro Morioka
TUJ Philosophy Lecture Series Vol. 8
(Tokyo)
Temple University Japan
Presentation date:
2018.07
AIとロボットの哲学
森岡正博
[Invited]
日本哲学会第77回大会
(神戸)
日本哲学会
Presentation date:
2018.05
誕生否定と誕生肯定の哲学
森岡正博
[Invited]
学習院大学文学会・学習院大学文学部哲学科共催シンポジウム
(東京)
学習院大学
Presentation date:
2018.04
人称的世界はどのような構造をしているのか
森岡正博
応用哲学会第10回年次大会
(名古屋)
応用哲学会
Presentation date:
2018.04
What is "the Dignity of the Human Body"? : A Japanese Philosopher's Reaction to Brain Death and Organ Transplantation
Masahiro Morioka
[Invited]
Universite Libre de Bruxelles - Waseda's Conference on Bioethics
(Brussels)
Universite Libre de Bruxelles - Waseda's Conference on Bioethics
Presentation date:
2018.03
The Dignity of the Body: A Philosophical Implication of the Japanese Organ Transplant Law Before Amendment
Masahiro Morioka
Third Annual Conference for European Network of Japanese Philosophy
(Paris)
European Network of Japanese Philosophy
Presentation date:
2017.11
Philosophy of Life in Contemporary Society
Masahiro Morioka
日中哲学フォーラム(日本哲学会)
(Kyoto)
日本哲学会
Presentation date:
2017.09
人生の意味への独在論的アプローチ
森岡正博
[Invited]
Presentation date:
2017.07
学生にトラウマを与える危険のある素材を大学の授業でどう扱うべきか
森岡正博
応用哲学会第9回年次大会
(福山)
応用哲学会
Presentation date:
2017.04
The Concept of Persona as Seen from the Perspective of Philosophy: Brain death, No play, and Robots
Masahiro Morioka
[Invited]
DIG Workshop: Humans & Machines in Medical Contexts: Case Studies from Japan
(Tokyo)
German Research and Innovation Forum Tokyo
Presentation date:
2017.03
The Concept of Persona in Watsuji and its Importance in Contemporary Bioethics
Masahiro Morioka
Second Annual Conference for European Network of Japanese Philosophy
(Brussels)
European Network of Japanese Philosophy
Presentation date:
2016.12
「いのち」をものがたるということ
森岡正博
[Invited]
第22回日本臨床死生学会大会
(東京)
日本臨床死生学会
Presentation date:
2016.11
トロッコ問題と原爆投下
森岡正博
応用哲学会第8回年次大会
(東京)
応用哲学会
Presentation date:
2016.05
まんがで哲学を表現する可能性──まんが原画を描いた経験から
森岡正博
応用哲学会第8回年次大会
(東京)
応用哲学会
Presentation date:
2016.05
Why Was the Book “An Introduction to Philosophy in the Form of Manga” Written?
Masahiro Morioka
First Annual Conference for European Network of Japanese Philosophy
(Barcelona)
European Network of Japanese Philosophy
「人生の意味の哲学」に関する研究を遂行した。まず、2019年10月7日~9日に早稲田大学において、第2回「人生の意味の哲学」国際会議を私が大会長として開催し、この分野に関する先端的な討議を行なった。次いで、学術誌Journal of Philosophy of LifeにてPhilosophy and Meaning in Lifeの特集号を刊行した。この特集号には、私の論文"A Solipsistic and Affirmation-Based Approach to Meaning in Life"も掲載された。本論文において、人生の意味の哲学に「独在的存在者」の視点と、「誕生肯定」の視点を導入するという新提案を行なった。さらに、10月12日にハワイ大学で開催された日本哲学国際学会にて、大森荘蔵以降の東京学派について研究発表を行ない、人生の意味の哲学の主体は誰かについての日本哲学における展開を考察した。
This fiscal year I tackled the trolleyproblem from the viewpoint of philosophy of life and concluded that the trolleyproblem has its own unique problem, “the problem of the trolley problem.” I discussedfive aspects of “the problem of the trolley problem;” that is to say, “Rarity,”“Inevitability,” “Safety Zone,” “Possibility of Becoming a Victim,” and “Lackof Perspective of the Dead Victims Who Were Deprived of Freedom of Choice,” indetail. Then, I argued that those who talk about the trolley problem areautomatically placed in the sphere of the expectation of response on thespiritual level. I gave a presentation on this topic at the annual conferenceof Japanese Association on Applied Philosophy. A paper that fully discussesthis topic is currently under review at a journal. Secondly, I wrote a paper onViktor Frankl’s “Copernican Turn” on meaning in life in his book Man’s Searchfor Meaning (...trotzdem Ja sum Leben sagen). In his philosophy, meaning inlife exists in the “responsibleness” of a human being who tries to answerquestions asked by his irreplaceable life itself daily and hourly. It became clearthat responsibleness is the true key to Frankl’s thoughts on meaning.
This fiscal year I studied the concept of human dignity from the perspective of "meaning in life" and concluded that there is the layer of "the heart of meaning in life," which cannot be compared, in principle, with other people's meaning in life. Using Thaddeus Metz's book Meaning in Life as an example, I demonstrated that the objectivist approach to the meaning of life is destined to fail to grasp this layer. I edited the book Reconsidering Meaning in Life, with the help of Metz, and published it as a digital form. With regard to the concept of persona and its relation to Buddhist thoughts, I did research on the concept from the perspective of philosophy of mind and found some interesting themes of discussion, but I have not reached any clear conclusions. I am intending to further continue researching on it.