The field called ‘bioethics’ emerged in 1960s as a response to the new ethical problems given rise to by advances in medical technology. Though such medical technology has made us possible to control our life and enlarge our choice, it also has imposed us to question the essence of human existence: What is life, what is death, what are human beings? The mainstream of bioethics as a discipline, however, has been committed to check ethical problems in advance and has functioned as a complementary to the social acceptance of new medical technologies, instead of considering critically and reflectively the system of biomedical manipulation of human life from religious perspective in wider sense.

In this paper I will examine how deeply bioethical problems are involved in the fundamental questions of ‘inochi’ (life and death) through comprehensive analysis of some major topics of bioethics, assisted reproductive technology, prenatal diagnosis and selective abortion, euthanasia or death with dignity, and organ transplantation from brain death donors. It would reveal how the seemingly new problems caused by a huge development in medical science and technology are rooted in the more fundamental questions of ‘inochi’ that has been addressed by religion and philosophy through the ages.

This paper shows 1) the ‘specific etiology’ (as the basic principle of contemporary medicine) divides people’s lives into two categories; ‘normal’/healthy or ‘abnormal’/ill or ‘disabled’; and 2) particularly by the very medicine those who are classified seriously ill or challenged(or ‘disabled’) have been usually stigmatized and treated as ‘carriers’ (with HIV, leprosy, ‘genetic disorders’, ‘psychiatric disorders’, persistent vegetative state or ‘brain dead’ state, or anything).

Healthy people usually see them ‘futile or dangerous deviants’ against the world and discriminate against them. This way of thinking is sociologically called the ‘victim blaming ideology’, or a kind of ‘jiko-sekinin’ (self-responsibility) in Japanese that means any victim has his/her own cause of the state and therefore must be blamed first and only does self-help by him/herself.

3) This paper, finally, presents a ‘thought experiment’ to demonstrate an antithesis beyond the ideology.

It is an ‘altruistic victim theory’ derived from a ‘migawari-jizo’ or a Buddhist saint that acts as a substitute in other’s place in the ancient Buddhist sutra. In short, all victims sacrifice themselves by being ill or challenged in the healthy people’s place: they, thus, paradoxically help the healthy people. This way of victim’s life can be ‘altruism’. This theory of life is worth discussing further as a matter of bioethics: it gives us a hint considering back to its origins of human reciprocity or mutual aid.

Bioethics was established in the U.S. in the late 1960s and 1970s. It has an aspect of a social movement in that it ‘protects lives’ of subjects and patients in a vulnerable position. Organized medical crime, inhuman army medical research, and human experiments during World War II conducted by Nazi Germany were among the important incidents that contributed to the establishment of the core concepts of bioethics, ‘subjects’ and patients’ rights of self-determination’ and ‘informed consent’.

In particular, the Japanese medical community during the alliance with Nazi Germany left a permanent blot on medical history, such as conduction of medical experiments and vivisection for bioweapons development by Unit 731 in Manchuria. Nevertheless, responsibility of the army surgeons of Unit 731 was never investigated due to total destruction of evidence by commanding officer Ishii (who destroyed the experimental laboratory and killed all of the ‘Maruta’ captives), and the secret agreement with the U.S. (instead of providing the U.S. with the experimental data, the war criminals of Unit 731 were discharged). As a result, the ‘medical ethics’ of the surgeons of Unit 731 were never questioned and the suffering and sorrow of the subjects were utterly denied and forgotten.

When looking back on the ‘negative heritage’ of modern medical care, we should pay attention to the fact that the tragedies in Japan and Germany did not happen in a specific area or era. In other words, they were not atypical incidents only during the war, but could also happen in times of peace.

This paper addresses the dignity of subjects and patients that are in a vulnerable position and should be protected by bioethics, what rights they have and what life is, focusing on forgetting, ignoring, and manipulating the sorrow of human experiments.

Ian Wilmut’s Dolly the Cloned Sheep (1977) and Peter Sloterdijk’s Regeln für den Menschenpark (1999) have combined to raise new questions about the essence of the life. The cloning technique that made the birth of Dolly possible has not yet, as far as we know, to be attempted on human beings. It does not seem that the Menschenpark (human park), a society in which our lives are controlled totally by gene technology, lies in our near future, either. Still, the progress made to date the imagination of possible future consequences give us important clues for understanding the meaning of life itself. In the same way that Sloterdijk relates the history of the rise of Anthropotechnik to the decline of the humanistic tradition of the West, we may need to look on gene technology not only as a new kit of scientific-technological tools, but also as symbols of the impending arrival of a new conception of what a human being is and to what end humans are to be educated. This essay examines some of the main points of Sloterdijk’s work with an eye to suggest what adjustments to his discourse about the Menschenpark might be required for the way philosophy and theology have traditionally understood what it is to be human.

Simone Weil was deeply concerned about the change from classical to modern science in the early 1900s. Her concern was that the notion of truth and the mystery supporting it disappeared in this change.

According to her, science involves the mystery, whereby our refusal of the world by regarding it mathematically leads, strangely, to its restitution to us like a windfall. Thus the world is given at the cost of an infinite error. Although this mystery is the source of science, classical science was unable to sustain it and thus sought to banish it from its content.

Modern science arises from this mystery which barely remains in classical science. However, under the influence of quantum theory, modern science considers the world not as necessary but as probabilistic and ambiguous. When the world is probabilistic, the notion of error disappears. Thus, science as Weil understands it also disappears. She alleges that modern science is no longer science, since it places a high value on utility but ignores mystery and truth. This disappearance of mystery implies not so much the overconfidence of scientific technology as the false belief that human beings no longer have to know if there is anything beyond them.

This paper considers on human right according to Spinoza’s theory of individual thing. For that reason, mainly from two sides of Spinoza’s ontology and epistemology, we examine this problem. In the first place, to make clear the meanings of ‘individual thing’ and ‘particular thing’, we validate Spinoza’s argument. Herewith, it is revealed that individual thing expresses individual providence and universal providence that originated in ‘God or Nature’. Based on this logic, Spinoza defines right as follows; “By natural right I understand the very laws or rules of nature, in accordance with which everything takes place, in other words, the power of nature itself”. In the second place, after having confirmed Grotius’s theory of right which Spinoza depended on, we consider the activity that human beings take cognisance of their own rights. The activity called intuition is investigated here. Then finally, with the above-mentioned results, we examine the problem of human right from anthropological aspect. It is basic analysis of possession and emotion. In conclusion, considering human right along Spinoza’s theory of individual thing, the following can be said; the human beings try to affirm their own life with conatus that is their own nature, in company with others who have it as their own nature in the same way.

Die Hermeneutik ist bei Schleiermacher ein Teil seines philosophischen Systems. Hermeneutik steht in dem engen Schleiermacher in engem Verhältniss zur Dialektik, der Kunst des Denkens. „Nur steht das Denken und Reden im unmittelbarsten Verhältniß, und wir können Identität zwischen beiden setzen.“(KGA II 10.2 S. 449) Das Verstehen ist vermittelst der Rede das Vetstehen des Gedachten.

Die Allgemeingültigkeit des Denkens erfordert keine allgemeine Sprache durch die Aufhebung der individuellen Rede. Die Hermeneutik ist auf dem Verstehen der besonderen Sprache eines Einzelnen ausgerichtet. Es gibt keine allgemeine Sprache, denn die Verständigung über eine allgemeine Sprache selbst ist den einzelnen Sprachen unterworfen. Die einzelne sprachliche Äußerung, welche der Gegenstand der Hermeneutik und Dialektik ist, wird nicht auf eine allgemeine Sprache, sondern auf die Gesamtheit des konkreten Lebens, bezogen.

Die Einheit des Allgemeinen und Besonderen in der individuellen Sprache wird nach bestimmten Regeln aus der Struktur, ihnen allgemeinen Gesetzten (die grammatische Interpretation), und aus der Eigenart des Sprechenden, seinem Stil erklärt (die technische Interpretation). In der psychologischen Interpretation wird eine sprachliche Äußerung auf das Denken und Leben des Verfassers bezogen.

Die Hermeneutik ist der Gegenpol zur Dialektik. Das Verstehen ist eine Nachkonstruktion der Rede. Die Hermeneutik betracht die Sprachäußerung unter dem Gesichtspunkt, inwiefern in ihnen das Individuelle sich zur Geltung bringt; Die Dialektik betont umgekehrt den Aspekt, dass die private Äußerung in dem Denken die gemeinschaftliche Idee des Wissens erfordert. Daraus ist es klar, dass die Hermeneutik und die Dialektik sich nur miteinander entwickeln können.

Apologists preached the existence of God using the argument in the Old Testament. Because the complete New Testament was absent in the second century, the Old Testament played a great role in the Christian doctrine. However this was no match for discussion with the philosophers of the day, since it was written for the Jews thousands of years before. Consequently, they must have tried to answer opponent’s questions by interpreting the Old Testament. Of these questions, this essay addresses the concept of location. It has been argued by Plato, Aristotle, and Stoicism, but the apologists (e.g., Justin the martyr, Theophilus of Antioch, and Athenagoras of Athens) could not use it in the same way, because the anthropomorphic God in the Old Testament never corresponded to the abstract philosophical concept of location. This essay analyzes how they addressed this question and in turn attempts to examine its relationship with early Christian thought.

D’après Totalité et Infini, le « visage » est un mode de phénomène par lequel autrui qui commande « tu ne commettras pas de meurtre » apparaît au sujet comme un absolument faible, dépourvu de tout pouvoir. Puisque le visage se définit de cette manière, il faudrait, à la limite, que nous puissions reconnaître ce visage faible même dans un meurtrier. Certes, Levinas n’a pas explicitement développé cette question. Mais une lecture attentive de Totalité et Infini nous permet d’y discerner la description qui montre comment le meurtrier apparaît en tant que « visage ». En faisant face à celui qui veut le tuer, le sujet s’aperçoit, lui aussi, comme un meurtrier. C’est seulement alors qu’il reconnaît un visage dans le tueur même. Or, il me semble envisageable que la figure du « SS » puisse être mise à la place occupée par ce tueur. En introduisant le concept de « justice », le dernier Levinas ouvre la possibilité que le visage soit reconnu « en principe » dans un meurtrier, mais pas « en réalité ». Cependant, compte tenu du fait que Totalité et Infini semble situer le visage du meurtrier antérieurement à la justice, ne pouvons-nous pas en conclure que Levinas allait reconnaître « malgré lui » le visage du SS comme réel dans cet ouvrage ?