The essays in this volume, while exploring bioethical issues bearing on death and dying, the use of scarce resources, and genetic interventions, also implicitly compare approaches to bioethics in Japan versus Western countries. This volume provides a cross-cultural comparison of Japanese, American and European approaches to bioethics and health care policy. In a world of international bioethics, it explores the similarities and dissimilarities between bioethics in Japan and the Western world. The collection gives both a portrayal of current approaches as well as an analysis of the character and grounds for the similarities and dissimilarities. The similarities reflect attempts to find morally justified bases for collaboration when individuals do not share taken-for-granted understandings of the proper use of health care, the meaning or form of a good death, and the correct ways to collaborate. Similarities also derive from Western bioethical reflections that have been exported to Japan, which, for better or worse, have entered and altered traditional Japanese understandings. Japan and the West have been exposed to the post-traditional character of the age.
Many of the dissimilarities stem from the fact that Japan remains in large measure a traditional society with strong ties to family, culture and community. Japanese share many common understandings of values, while the West has long struggled with moral diversity. These essays explore particular bioethics, which reflect particular moral commitments, as contributions to the emerging international dialogue concerning bioethics and health care policy.