“New eugenics” in the 21st century

Thirdly, they were trying to protect “the fundamental sense of security.” They did not use these words, but what they really had in mind was this. They thought that technology of selective abortion was dangerous because it systematically deprives us of the sense that our existence is being accepted unconditionally. It is a kind of trust in the world and society, and this trust provides us with the foundation upon which we can survive in our society. This is a sense of security with which I can strongly believe that even if I had been less intelligent, ugly, or disabled, at least my existence would have been accepted equally to the world, and if I should succeed, fail, or become a doddering old man, my existence will continue to be accepted equally to the world. This is the basis of our life upon which we keep sane in this society. I want to call it “the fundamental sense of security.” Selective abortion and some new reproductive technologies are problematic because they systematically erode “the fundamental sense of security” we have to keep protecting. Here lies the most important problem of “new eugenics” in the 21st century.

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Disability Movement and Inner Eugenic Thought
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“Economic reasons”

In 1974, the Eugenic Protection Law Revision Bill finally failed to pass the Diet. The clause for selective abortion did not added to the law. A group of physicians in abortion clinics have continuously demanded a clause for selective abortion, but every time they insisted it women and disabled people acted against them. Hence, the Japanese law has not had such a clause up to the present. However, we should understand that when a woman has a disabled fetus she is allowed to abort it if she claims “economic reasons.” The debated issue was whether the clause should be added to the law; in other words, it was a debate over the symbolic meaning of the clause when added to the law. (Eugenic Protection Law was revised in 1996, and its name was changed to Maternal Protection Law.)

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“Inner consciousness of discrimination”

In the late 1960s, some disabled people with Cerebral Palsy joined “Blue Grass Group (Aoi Shiba no Kai),” a friendship society for people with CP, and started “independent living” in Kanagawa Prefecture. Among them were Koichi Yokotsuka and Hiroshi Yokota, both were the philosophical leaders of the independent living activities at that time. As soon as they joined the group, they began protesting against our society full of discrimination toward disabled people. In 1970, a mother killed her CP child, but the general public sympathized with the mother, not with the killed child. Blue Grass Group accused our way of thinking, and stated that non-disabled people had a strong egoism, that is, our “inner consciousness of discrimination.” They believed that this egoism held by non-disabled people was the main source of discrimination. However, interestingly, they thought that not only non-disabled people, but also disabled people themselves shared this consciousness; hence, all of us have to fight against our “inner consciousness of discrimination.” Of course, their main focus was a discriminative society created by non-disabled people, but they did not turn their eyes away from their own consciousness of discrimination.

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Japanese bioethics at its beginning

Japanese bioethics began in the early 1970s. Most Japanese scholars still think that Japanese bioethics began in 1980s, but it is questionable. My recent book, Life Studies Approaches to Bioethics: A New Perspective on Brain Death, Feminism, and Disability, 2001, demonstrated that.

Women’s liberation groups and a disability group brought a new type of thinking into our philosophy and ethics. It should be noted that “minorities” in our society, that is, women and disabled people, founded Japanese bioethics. In this sense, it started as “feminist bioethics” and “disabled people bioethics.” This made Japanese bioethics somewhat different from “American” bioethics. Feminists and disabled people were mainly grass-root activists; they did not write academic papers or books. Instead they wrote a great deal of leaflets and handwritten documents. We can read them today because their publication finally began in recent years. Japanese “academic” bioethics began in 1988 when Japanese Association for Bioethics was founded. I wrote about Japanese feminist bioethics elsewhere, hence, I want to concentrate myself on the Japanese disability movement and its impact on bioethics.

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The word "life" has various meanings

I first used the words "life studies" in my book An Invitation to the Study of Life (1988). Strictly speaking, this book was written in Japanese, hence, corresponding words were "Seimeigaku." I started using the English words "life studies" probably in the early 1990s. "Seimeigaku" is now becoming popular now in Japan, but "life studies" are still unfamiliar to an English audience.

The word "life" has various meanings. We might be bewildered because we come up with so many implications. Let us take a look at some examples on the web.

The words seem to have at least five meanings.

1. The study of one's personal history. See The Aphra Behn Society.

2. The study of issues of everyday life, for example, food, health, leisure, gender, race, discrimination, etc. See College of Applied Life Studies at University of Illinois.

3. The study of religious, spiritual and ethical aspects of human life. See Center for Life Studies, Sunbridge College, NY.

4. The education about wildlife and ecology, for example, Sea Life Studies,Inc., Life Studies' Homepage.

5. Curriculum of high school courses. See Buffalo Grove High School, and Stockport Grammar School. This categorizing at high schools is very interesting to me.

6. Robert Lowell, well known poet, published the book "Life Studies" in 1959, which received the National Book Award.

I propose to add new meaning to the English words "life studies," and give the words new life.

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What is Life Studies
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Philosophy of Life & Death

4. Relationship and irreplaceability
All beings in the universe, especially all living things on the earth, are incorporated into the fundamental “relationships.” They can not exist without these relationships. At the same time, every being in these relationships is fundamentally “irreplaceable” to each other. In life studies we view everything from the perspective of correlation between "relationship" and "irreplaceability."Environmental issues and philosophy of life & death should be considered from this perspective.


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Elimination of Pain and Suffering

Life studies urges us to rethink the whole system of contemporary civilization because it doesn't seem to provide us with sufficient opportunity to live a life without regret both in developed countries and developing countries. The critique of contemporary civilization should be included in life studies.

In the book, Painless Civilization: A Philosophical Critique of Desire (2003), I fundamentally criticized the negative aspects of contemporary civilization in terms of life studies, especially that of the USA and Japan. The endless tendency in our civilization to eliminate pain and suffering makes us totally lose sight of the meaning of life that is indispensable to human beings. I examined our desire, and divided it into two categories, "the desire of the body" and "the desire of life." I will translate this book into English and upload to this site. Many bookreviews and commentary have appeared since publication in Japan. I would like to know your response to the concept of "painless civilization."

>> For more details please visit a special page of Painless Civilization.

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Wisdom and Mutual Support

What is the aim of life studies?

Our ultimate aim is to live in this society without regret. In order to do that, we have to reconsider the meaning of our own life and death seriously. In this materialistic, capitalistic society deeply influenced by scientific technology, we are apt to forget the meaning of life and the value of our existence. We have to fundamentally criticize the negative aspects of contemporary civilization, scientific technology, and capitalism. Gender, sexuality, violence, war, and ecology are also important topics of life studies. We need wisdom and mutual support on the intelectual level. This is why life studies is needed.

But, we have already had bioethics and environmental ethics.

At first I studied bioethics and environmental ethics, but soon I realized that they had a fatal flaw. 1) Bio-medical ethics was separated from environmental ethics. 2) Bioethics did not pose questions about "the meaning of life" and "the nature of contemporary civilization." 3) They concentrated on "ethics," and seemed to make light of other approaches. Hence, I concluded that we need another approach to this topic. I am not satisfied with applied ethics.

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"Spirituality" and "Meaning of Life" outside Religion

2) Research on images of life among ordinary people.
The results were found in the paper "The Concept of Inochi(life)" (1991). Many Japanese (and probably people around the world) grasp the idea of "human life" in relationship with that of "nature." The images of "life," "spirit," and "nature" are overlapping with one another in their worldview. The keyword is "interrelatedness and irreplaceability." I discussed cultural differences in ethics of life in the paper "Bioethics and Japanese Bulture" (1995) and "Cross-cultural Approaches to the Philosophy of Life in the Contemporary World" (2003).

3) The third way between religion and science.
In the book How to Live in a Post-religious Age (1996) ,written as a reaction against the 1995 Sarin nerve gas attack by the Aum Shinrikyo cult on the Tokyo subways, I examined ways to seek "spirituality" and "meaning of life" outside religion.

4) Three natures of human life. See guiding concepts 7.

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Researcher's own life

10) Connection of academic research to researcher's own life
The most important thing for life studies is that a researcher hem/herself can live his/her own life without regret. In this sense,academic research that will not help transform the researcher's own life should not be called "life studies." Life studies encourages a researcher to rethink his/her actual life and transform it, and after that, express that painful process in some form in order share it among us. Morioka expressed the process in the book Painless Civilization (2003). This process should lead to the transformation of the social system and our intellect.

* I plan to foster research network for life studies to communicate with each other and learn from each others' experiences. If you are interested in our project, and if you are frustrated with an existing discipline, please do not hesitate to contact us. We would like to know your ideas or plans.

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Between "relationship" and "irreplaceability"

6) Relationship and irreplaceability
All beings in the universe, especially all living things on the earth, are incorporated into the web of “relationships.” They can not exist without these relationships. At the same time, every being in these relationships is fundamentally “irreplaceable” to each other. Life studies urges us to view everything from the perspective of correlation between "relationship" and "irreplaceability." (see Concept of Inochi(life).)

7) Three natures of human life
In the series of essays Life Torn Apart, I insisted that three natures are deeply engraved on humans, namely, "the nature of connectedness (with all living things)," "the nature of self-interest," and "the nature of mutual support." These natures sometimes keep in harmony, but sometimes come into conflict with each other. I believe that it is important to see the relationship between humans and the world of living creatures from this perspective.

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“Therapeutic cloning”

With regard to the “safety problem,” the report concluded that present cloning techniques cannot guarantee the safe production of a human clone individual.

In the light of these problems, the report concluded that the production of a human clone individual must be legally prohibited. Concerning research on human somatic clone embryos, the report stated that this should be permissible within certain limitations if a justifiable ground is to be found, because it may bring great benefit to humans in the field of medicine. But at the same time, the report stressed that a human somatic clone embryo has significance as the “sprout of human life” (hito no seimei no hōga), like a human embryo, and should therefore be handled with the utmost care. [2/3]

Based on this report, the Bioethics Committee of the Council for Science and Technology announced that the production of a clone individual, together with chimeric/hybrid human individuals, must be legally penalised, and that research on human somatic clone embryos should be regulated in some way (December 21, 1999). This announcement signalised the government’s decision to legally regulate the production of a clone human individual and other chimeric/hybrid human individuals but not “therapeutic cloning” and other research. In other words, the government had abandoned the idea of establishing a comprehensive law dealing with assisted reproductive technology and research on human germline cells.

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The Ethics of Human Cloning and the Sprout of Human Life (2004)
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The concept “the sprout of human life.”

The birth of Dolly, the first mammal cloned from a somatic sell, attracted wide public attention in Japan, and the words “cloned human being” became a popular notion. However, the “public debate” on the ethics of human cloning was considerably less heated than that relating to brain death and organ transplantation. Scientists and commentators repeatedly stated that while the cloning of a sheep was acceptable, human cloning should be prohibited. A well-known female scientist said that she could not imagine a scientist who would try to clone a human being.

In 1998, the Council for Science and Technology established the Bioethics Committee and asked its members to examine the ethical and legal aspects of human cloning. The Committee concluded, in 1999, that human cloning should be prohibited, and, based on the report, the government presented a bill for the regulation of human cloning in 2000. After a debate in the Diet, the original bill was slightly modified and issued on December 6, 2000. [1/2]

In the following chapters, I take a closer look at this process and discuss some of the ethical problems that were debated. Also, I make a brief analysis of the concept “the sprout of human life.”

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The Ethics of Human Cloning and the Sprout of Human Life (2004)
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Criticism of modern civilization

Third, it took “modern civilization based on scientific technology and capitalism” for granted, and sought the methods of regulating the conflicts of interest among us. However, difficult bioethical dilemma are created by the “advancement” of scientific technology, and sometimes they are worsened by the mechanism of capitalism. In contemporary society, our desires are created by technologies and mass media and as a result, we lose the happiness that we enjoyed before. Of course it is impossible to totally abolish [188/189] today’s science and technology, but it is necessary to examine the essence of modern civilization based on scientific technology and capitalism, and think about how to create an alternative civilization and society. I believe criticism of modern civilization should be one of the foundations of bioethical thinking.

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Cross-cultural Approaches to the Philosophy of Life in the Contemporary World
(2004)
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Each tradition contains a number of valuable lessons

The idea of life studies can be discovered in all periods or areas. What I am doing is to mould the idea to suit contemporary society. Unfortunately, “American” academic bioethics in the 1980s seemed to lack the insights of life studies; I had to find them in other traditions, that is, feminism and the disability movement in Japan in the early 1970s. But this does not mean that some traditions are superior to other traditions in terms of life studies. Each tradition contains a number of valuable lessons that we should learn with a humble attitude.

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Human relationships with the environment

Life studies also deals with human relationships with the environment. I wrote a series of essays from 1995-1998, and published them as a digital book, Life Torn Apart, in 2001 (Morioka 2001b). In these writings, I insisted that humans are imprinted with three natures, “the nature of connectedness (to all living things),” “the nature of self-interest,” and “the nature of mutual support,” These natures are sometimes in harmony, but at other times they conflict with each other. In the latter case, mediation is impossible. In this sense, human life is torn apart and moves in two opposite directions, the direction of isolation and the direction of connectedness. Under this scheme, the problem of “preservation” and “conservation” in environmental ethics is clearly analyzed, but we cannot expect simple answers to this heavy question. Contribution of life studies to environmental ethics and environmental philosophy will be enormous. This is a future challenge for us.

In the same year, I published another book, Life Studies Approaches to Bioethics: A New Perspective on Brain Death, Feminism, and Disability (Morioka 2001c). In this book, I demonstrated that incorporating feminist and disability studies would change bioethics into a more attractive field; like life studies, it would be filled with diverse ideas and focus on the process of empowerment. As I mentioned before, Japanese bioethics started in the early 1970s as “feminist bioethics” and “disabled people bioethics.” Their approach was closer to our “life studies” in that [191/192] they were seeking the “meaning of life” and “self-affirmation” in our discriminative society, and in that they severely criticized contemporary civilization, scientific technology, and capitalism (Morioka 2002). I examined “men’s sexuality,” which sometimes indirectly forces women to abort a fetus when men are not willing to have a baby. This kind of “symbolic violence,” which is lurking in our society, should be emphasized in the field of life studies. I discussed the idea of “the fundamental sense of security” as a key term for thinking about the negative psychological impact of new eugenics. I am currently writing a fundamental criticism of modern civilization, which will be published as a book in the next year.

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Cross-cultural Approaches to the Philosophy of Life in the Contemporary World
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Seeking “spirituality” and the “meaning of life” outside of religion

In 1995, an unbelievable event occurred. Members of the Japanese cult, Aum Shinrikyo, launched a sarin gas attack in crowded subways in Tokyo, killing 12 people and injuring more than 5,000 people. At first, they were members of a small religious group seriously seeking the “meaning of life.” However, they began to consider our society to be evil place, and planned to destroy the whole world in order to reconstruct a clean one. I was shocked by their action because I felt I shared many of their aims. This event made think again the relationship between life studies and religion, and I published the book How to Live in a Post-religious Age in 1996. In this book, I confessed that I am a man who cannot believe in any religions, nor believe in scientific materialism. I want to seek “spirituality” and the “meaning of life” outside of religion. I called this “the third way between religion and science.”

Does this attitude lead to the denial of religion? No. My position is an agnostic one. I do not affirm or deny religions. I have had discussions with various religious people, and I found that we can talk about spirituality and the meaning of life without using religious language. If we respect each other’s worldview and do not force one’s own presuppositions on the others, we are able to have a deep discussion with each other concerning the issues of life, death and nature. [190/191]

Life studies should be a project where people of faith and people without religion get together to communicate with and learn from each other. I conceive of life studies as a project where people with religion seek to think about life without using dogmatic words, and people without religion seek to think about spirituality and the meaning of life using ordinary language. I think this should be the basis of life studies.

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Cross-cultural Approaches to the Philosophy of Life in the Contemporary World
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The term “life studies” instead of “bioethics”

For these reasons, I coined the term “life studies” instead of “bioethics” in 1988. The idea of life studies has gradually developed since then. In 1989, I published Brain Dead Person in which I discussed the topic from the viewpoint of life studies. I distinguished three concepts, namely, “my brain death,” “brain death of intimate others,” and “brain death of strangers.” I made clear the differences of the meaning of death in these threecases, and demonstrated that these differences might be the cause of ordinary people’s inconsistent attitudes towards brain dead persons in various settings. I also criticized the essence of modern medicine and scientific technology, and developed key ideas like “partism of modern medicine” and “efficiency and irreplaceability.” This book was the real first product of life studies.

Through research on brain death, I realized that there have been no empirical studies on the idea of life among ordinary people. Scholars sometimes talked about the Japanese idea of life and death, but their arguments were based on traditional Buddhist or Confucian literatures. It is not certain that today’s ordinary people share these traditional ideas. I performed research using open questionnaires and gathered nearly thousand responses from ordinary people. I published part of the results in the paper “The Concept of Inochi,” in 1991 (Morioka 1991) and made various interesting discoveries. Many Japanese grasp the idea of “human life” in relationship with that of “nature.” The images of “life,” “spirit,” and “nature” overlap with one another in their worldview. For many of them, environmental issues are conceived as problems of life. And here, too, their images of life vary. There is no such [189/190] thing as “the” Japanese idea of life. Interestingly, however, several patterns of grasping images of life were discovered. For example, there were many responses that suggested that life is interrelated on the one hand, and irreplaceable on the other. People seem to feel some dynamism between interrelatedness and irresplaceability. This research is still continuing and is one of the most important contributions to the field of life studies.

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Criticism of modern civilization should be one of the foundations of bioethical thinking

Third, it took “modern civilization based on scientific technology and capitalism” for granted, and sought the methods of regulating the conflicts of interest among us. However, difficult bioethical dilemma are created by the “advancement” of scientific technology, and sometimes they are worsened by the mechanism of capitalism. In contemporary society, our desires are created by technologies and mass media and as a result, we lose the happiness that we enjoyed before. Of course it is impossible to totally abolish [188/189] today’s science and technology, but it is necessary to examine the essence of modern civilization based on scientific technology and capitalism, and think about how to create an alternative civilization and society. I believe criticism of modern civilization should be one of the foundations of bioethical thinking.

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Cross-cultural Approaches to the Philosophy of Life in the Contemporary World
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To discuss bioethics in an interdisciplinary forum

Second, “American” bioethics did not ask questions such as “What is the meaning of life?,” “How can we live in this society without regret?,” and “What is human?” Whenever we think deeply about difficult bioethical problems like selective abortion, euthanasia, manipulation of human genes, and organ transplantation, we come to the above philosophical questions in the end. In addition, psychological and sociological approaches should be introduced to research on these issues, but the word bio-“ethics” seemed to exclude these disciplines. I thought it would be more fruitful to discuss bioethics in an interdisciplinary forum.

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Medical ethics should not be separated from environmental ethics

As I mentioned before, when I first studied “American” bioethics in the 1980s, I was very frustrated because it seemed to me a somewhat narrow and shallow approach to the issues of life. Some of my friends had similar impressions. First, it discussed only medical issues. It did not deal with environmental issues. It is ironical that V.R. Potter who coined the word “bioethics” in 1970 regarded this word as a kind of “environmental ethics” rather than a medical ethics. For me, separating medical ethics from environmental ethics seems senseless because humans live on this planet surrounded by nature and our health and happiness cannot be separated from the environment. My first impression was that medical ethics should not be separated from environmental ethics.


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Various bioethical ideas and actions in each region

Daniel Fu-Chang Tsai writes in his recent paper that Confucius’ concept of person has two dimensions, namely, “the vertical dimension,” which is the autonomous, self-cultivating one, and “the horizontal dimension,” which is the relational, altruistic one (11). He says that “some may argue that there is no vertical dimension at all in the Confucian personhood. This is incorrect.” He concludes as follows:

When a person exercises autonomy, he is no choosing in a context-free, conceptual vacuum but considers himself a person-in-relation, with many roles to play and responsibilities to take, in accordance with different relationships (…). The tension might be difficult to resolve, but the traditional tendency of social orientation should surely be balanced by, and reconciled with, respecting the individual’s rights and autonomy (Tsai 2001: 48,49).

Here we can see a well-balanced perspective on “autonomy” and “relationships.” This kind of mature thinking can be found everywhere on this planet and is not the patent of Confucius or East Asia.

We sometimes use the words “Japanese bioethics,” “American bioethics,” and “Asian bioethics,” but these wordings are apt to make us think that there is “the” Japanese bioethics, “the” American bioethics, and so on. This is not true. There are various bioethical ideas and actions in each region. Of course there are clear cultural differences between distant countries, but if we take a closer look at one area, we can find considerable gender differences, religious differences, economic differences, etc., and at the same time it is also true that we actually share many things across borders. Hence, we should say “bioethics in Japan” instead of “Japanese bioethics,” “Genomics in Asia” instead of “Asian Genomics,” and so on. Anyway, we have to abandon the East/West dichotomy and its variations. [187/188]


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Between “individual freedom” and “the value of community and relationships.”

Even in the USA, so-called “communitarian bioethics” has been discussed by Ezekiel J. Emanuel (1991) and Daniel Callahan (1996) in the 1990s. American feminist bioethics has put a special emphasis on caring and relationships. It seems that current bioethics throughout the world seeks balanced development between “individual freedom” and “the value of community and relationships.”

Scholars at the City College of New York conducted a comparative study of US/Japan values in 1988. In their research, students in both countries responded to “the values that they believed best characterize people in their country.” The results were interesting. The top 3 for the USA were “Family,” “Education,” and “Friendship,” and the top 3 for Japanese were “Friendship,” “Peace/Getting Along,” and “Respect.” Both sets of responses look similar and sound communitarian (CCNY 1998). [186/187]


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voices for “freedom” and “human rights”

After opening the country to the world in 1868, the Japanese were very eager to absorb European ideas, such as “human rights,” “freedom,” and “democracy.” Japanese history of the last 100 years could be illustrated as that of a harsh struggle between people who wanted to maintain hierarchical and paternalistic systems, on the one hand, and people who wanted to replace them with more individualistic ones based on human rights and freedom, on the other. In 1874, Taisuke Itagaki began a nation-wide political movement, “the Freedom and People’s Rights Movement (Jiyuu Minken Undo).” Many thinkers and activists joined Itagaki and were put in jail and killed, but this movement prepared the basis for Japanese democracy. (When Itagaki was stabbed, he is said to have shouted, “Even if itagaki dies, freedom never dies!”) When a group of severely discriminated people (Hisabetsu Buraku Min) demanded their civil rights in 1922, the words they uttered were “freedom,” “liberation,” and “equality.”

The contemporary Japanese bioethics movement began in the early 1970s when disabled people claimed their “right to live” and “disabled children’s right not to be killed by their parents,” and when feminists claimed that their “right” and “freedom” to abortion must be maintained. It is striking that contemporary Japanese bioethics began with voices of minority groups demanding “rights” [185/186] and “freedom.” Since I examined this topic elsewhere (Morioka, 2002), I will not write about it further here.

My point is that voices for “freedom” and “human rights” have already been integral parts of Japanese history and culture. They are part of the Japanese tradition. Here, Sakamoto’s argument that in Asia “the sense of ‘human rights’ is very weak and foreign, and that they have no traditional background for the concept of human rights” cannot be applied to Japan. His claim that “Eventually, there is no room for the idea of fundamental human rights” is unfounded. Most of the younger Japanese philosophers and sociologists who are interested in bioethics take “fundamental human rights” for granted, and then they are trying to fit bioethical ideas into contemporary Japanese culture and relate them to Japanese people’s emotions. They stress the importance of “human relationships” together with “human rights.”


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Here lies the most important problem of “new eugenics” in the 21st century

Thirdly, they were trying to protect “the fundamental sense of security.” They did not use these words, but what they really had in mind was this. They thought that technology of selective abortion was dangerous because it systematically deprives us of the sense that our existence is being accepted unconditionally. It is a kind of trust in the world and society, and this trust provides us with the foundation upon which we can survive in our society. This is a sense of security with which I can strongly believe that even if I had been less intelligent, ugly, or disabled, at least my existence would have been accepted equally to the world, and if I should succeed, fail, or become a doddering old man, my existence will continue to be accepted equally to the world. This is the basis of our life upon which we keep sane in this society. I want to call it “the fundamental sense of security.” Selective abortion and some new reproductive technologies are problematic because they systematically erode “the fundamental sense of security” we have to keep protecting. Here lies the most important problem of “new eugenics” in the 21st century.

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Disability Movement and Inner Eugenic Thought
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How to acquire “self-affirmation”

Secondly, what they were persisting in was a transformation from the state of “self-negation” to the state of “self-affirmation.” Disabled people were denying themselves because they had been led to believe that they were valueless in this society. Women, too, believed that they were less valuable than men. Hence, their fight against the Eugenic Protection Law Revision Bill was an irreplaceable process of acquiring a sense of “self-affirmation” that they are valuable as they are, and they do not have to deny themselves anymore. And once people get “self-affirmation,” most of their inner problems must have been solved. The main theme of their bioethical thoughts in that period was how to acquire “self-affirmation,” and the aim of their bioethical actions was to create society where various people can live with “self-affirmation.” Hence, their bioethics included a therapeutic dimension at its core; this is one of the reasons I want to call their activities “life studies.”

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The basic characteristic of their bioethics was “fighting”

The problem of “inner eugenic thought” has not been solved because all of us share it inside us and we cannot escape completely even if we wish to. However, it is worse to take our “inner eugenic thought” for granted, and never try to change our attitude. Hence, they thought what is needed was a fight both against the Establishment and against our own inner eugenic thought. The basic characteristic of their bioethics was “fighting.” In this sense, their thoughts and actions were a little different from “bioethics” we are familiar with today, that is, bioethics as a rule-making process by physicians, politicians, and ethicists, or bioethics as a series of analytical discussions for professional scholars. Their thoughts and actions are closer to “life studies” that I have advocated for years. Actually, I have studied much from their thoughts, and the idea of life studies has developed through this research. Strictly speaking, their thoughts and actions may be called “life studies” rather than “bioethics,” if the latter should mean some academic analyses and a process of rule-making by ethicists. I had a debate over this topic with some researchers, and the conclusion was that it depends on how we define the concept of “bioethics.”

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She is allowed to abort a disabled fetus if she claims “economic reasons”

In 1974, the Eugenic Protection Law Revision Bill finally failed to pass the Diet. The clause for selective abortion did not added to the law. A group of physicians in abortion clinics have continuously demanded a clause for selective abortion, but every time they insisted it women and disabled people acted against them. Hence, the Japanese law has not had such a clause up to the present. However, we should understand that when a woman has a disabled fetus she is allowed to abort it if she claims “economic reasons.” The debated issue was whether the clause should be added to the law; in other words, it was a debate over the symbolic meaning of the clause when added to the law. (Eugenic Protection Law was revised in 1996, and its name was changed to Maternal Protection Law.)

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Japanese bioethics started as grass-root movements

In 1973, Tomoko Yonezu, Lib Shinjuku Center, said that women were confronted with disabled people by the Establishment. She went on to say that women and disabled people must fight together against the Establishment which indirectly forces women to abort disabled fetuses. (Yonezu was/is a disabled woman.)

In the same year, Lib Shinjuku Center published the article, “the Right to Abortion does not Conflict with the Liberation of “Disabled People.”” They said that women and disabled people should cooperate to build society where women are delighted to give birth to their babies whether babies are disabled or not. Here the “Paradigm of United Front between Women and Disabled People” was formed, and this paradigm made the basis of the Japanese bioethics movement in 1970s and 80s.
The important points are as follows.

1) Japanese bioethics started as grass-root movements. It was created by minority groups such as women and disabled people in their process of fighting against the Establishment. The year of the birth of Japanese bioethics was 1972-1973.

2) They started their bioethical thoughts by gazing at their own “inner eugenic thought.” Selective abortion and eugenic thinking were something they had to fight against and overcome. They were thinking that reducing the number of disabled children was not the answer.

3) They believed that our society based on utilitarianism and the principle of efficiency must be changed into more humane and less competitive one. In such a society, for the first time, women can give birth to disabled babies and raise them embraced by a sense of security.

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How to tackle “inner eugenic thought”

Their accusation was accepted seriously by women’s groups. For example, Kawasaki Women’s Conference stated as follows in 1973.

First of all, we have to criticize ourselves in that we are occupied by eugenic ideology, and in that we have discriminated and suppressed disabled people.
(…)
We have been occupied by the logic of efficiency, and we have considered rapidity as virtue. We have been wishing to give birth to babies with normal bodies. Therefore, in the first place, we have to start by confronting our own inner eugenic ideology.

They stressed the necessity of transforming themselves, and then tried to fight against discriminative society. We should pay attention to their words, “inner eugenic ideology.” This phrase implies that the fundamental problem is situated not outside, but just “inside us.” The word “inner” was added to emphasize this. Later, people began to call this notion “inner eugenic thought,” and these words became a keyword in contemporary Japanese bioethics. I believe the question how to tackle “inner eugenic thought” should be a big topic for our international bioethics and life studies.

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"Abortion is a right of women"

In 1972, women’s liberation groups insisted three points, namely, (a) the state should not interfere in the sex and reproduction of individual women, (b) abortion is a right of women, and (c) we have to create society where women want to give birth based on their own intentions (2). However, the members of Blue Grass Group had a serious doubt about the idea that women have a right to abortion, because such a right logically includes the right to selective abortion, which would suppress and disempower disabled people. They concluded that if “the right to abortion” includes “the right to selective abortion,” it must not be accepted. They accused women’s liberation groups of having the “egoism of people with normal bodies” that belittles and denies the existence of disabled people.

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“An existence which should not exist”

The grounds of their opposition were as follows.

First, it contains “the idea of annihilation of disabled people.” Adding a clause for selective abortion of disabled fetuses to the law is equivalent to legally declaring that disabled people do not need to be born in this society. This easily leads us to think that a disabled person is “an existence which should not exist.” As a result, they would suffer more discrimination and harm. Their lives would be more endangered in this society.

Second, disabled people are psychologically disempowered. In the above situation, more and more ordinary people begin to glance at disabled people; thinking, “I wish they were not born,” and these repeated glances slowly deprive them of power to live by themselves and of a sense of self-affirmation. As a result, they are forced to live passive and negative lives separated from the community. Moreover, members of Blue Grass Group thought that this disempowerment process would gradually broaden to include various minorities, and in the end, all of us would fall victim to it. They consider this to be the most dangerous problem lurking behind selective abortion.

Third, “people without productivity” are abandoned. Those who do not have the ability to product goods would be more and more abandoned in the above society. Not only people with congenital disabilities, but also 1) those who became disabled by accident or disease, 2) senior citizens, and 3) physically weak people would become candidates for discrimination

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“Is It Natural that Disabled People should be Killed?"

In 1972, the Eugenic Protection Law Revision Bill was presented to the Diet. This bill aimed at restricting women’s access to abortion, but at the same time, it contained a clause for selective abortion of a fetus with severe disabilities. Blue Grass Group strongly opposed to this bill because it would deny the existence of disabled people. In the leaflet, “Is It Natural that Disabled People should be Killed?: An Objection to The Eugenic Protection Law Revision Bill,” published in 1972, they wrote as follows.

We disabled people are living. We really want to live.
Actually, many fellow disabled people are trying hard to live their painful lives.
And other people can never judge whether our lives are “happy” or “unhappy.”
It is even more unallowable that egoistic non-disabled people should kill disabled fetuses because they are “defective descendents,” and that they should make an excuse that it is done for the “happiness of disabled people (fetuses).”
All of you citizens, students, and workers.
We strongly oppose to the Eugenic Protection Law Revision Bill that is based on the idea that fundamentally denies the existence of “disabled people” and leads us to kill “disabled fetuses” in their mothers’ wombs.
(Extraction from the document. The expression “defective descendents” was found in Article One of the Eugenic Protection Law.)

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"We do not choose the way of problem solving"

Hiroshi Yokota announced the declaration of activity, “We Act Like This,” in their journal Ayumi in 1970. The following is a translation of the epoch-making document.

We Act Like This
Blue Grass Group (Aoi Shiba no Kai), 1970

* We identify ourselves as people with Cerebral Palsy (CP).
We recognize our position as “an existence which should not exist,” in the modern society. We believe that this recognition should be the starting point of our whole movement, and we act on this belief.

* We assert ourselves aggressively.
When we identify ourselves as people with CP, we have a will to protect ourselves. We believe that a strong self-assertion is the only way to achieve self-protection, and we act on this belief.

* We deny love and justice.
We condemn egoism held by love and justice. We believe that mutual understanding, accompanying the human observation which arises from the denial of love and justice, means the true well-being, and we act on this belief.

* We do not choose the way of problem solving.
We have learnt from our personal experiences that easy solutions to problems lead to dangerous compromises. We believe that an endless confrontation is the only course of action possible for us, and we act on this belief. (Translation by Osamu Nagase, italics by Morioka. See note (5).)

Their declaration was based on the philosophy of “self-affirmation.” They thought that CP people do not need to adjust themselves to society, but that they should present their existence as it is, in other words, the existence as an unsocial and inefficient being.

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Liberation from Parents

It is worth noting that they had to fight against their parents, because it was their parents that most strongly suppressed and bound them. They insisted that disabled people must be liberated from their parents first of all. This emotion urged them to live independently from the family. They opposed the idea that attaches importance to the family more than the individual, which was one of the main features of traditional East Asian ethics.

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All of us have to fight against our “inner consciousness of discrimination”

In the late 1960s, some disabled people with Cerebral Palsy joined “Blue Grass Group (Aoi Shiba no Kai),” a friendship society for people with CP, and started “independent living” in Kanagawa Prefecture. Among them were Koichi Yokotsuka and Hiroshi Yokota, both were the philosophical leaders of the independent living activities at that time. As soon as they joined the group, they began protesting against our society full of discrimination toward disabled people. In 1970, a mother killed her CP child, but the general public sympathized with the mother, not with the killed child. Blue Grass Group accused our way of thinking, and stated that non-disabled people had a strong egoism, that is, our “inner consciousness of discrimination.” They believed that this egoism held by non-disabled people was the main source of discrimination. However, interestingly, they thought that not only non-disabled people, but also disabled people themselves shared this consciousness; hence, all of us have to fight against our “inner consciousness of discrimination.” Of course, their main focus was a discriminative society created by non-disabled people, but they did not turn their eyes away from their own consciousness of discrimination.

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Japanese bioethics is somewhat different from “American” bioethics at its beginning

Japanese bioethics began in the early 1970s. Most Japanese scholars still think that Japanese bioethics began in 1980s, but it is questionable. My recent book, Life Studies Approaches to Bioethics: A New Perspective on Brain Death, Feminism, and Disability, 2001, demonstrated that.

Women’s liberation groups and a disability group brought a new type of thinking into our philosophy and ethics. It should be noted that “minorities” in our society, that is, women and disabled people, founded Japanese bioethics. In this sense, it started as “feminist bioethics” and “disabled people bioethics.” This made Japanese bioethics somewhat different from “American” bioethics. Feminists and disabled people were mainly grass-root activists; they did not write academic papers or books. Instead they wrote a great deal of leaflets and handwritten documents. We can read them today because their publication finally began in recent years. Japanese “academic” bioethics began in 1988 when Japanese Association for Bioethics was founded. I wrote about Japanese feminist bioethics elsewhere, hence, I want to concentrate myself on the Japanese disability movement and its impact on bioethics.

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Bioethics and Philosophy of Life in the 21st century

The Japanese disability movement in the 1970s posed an important question about our inner eugenic thought. Their arguments should be one of the focuses of attention for bioethics and philosophy of life in the 21st century. Their philosophy is comparable with DPI’s declaration, “The Right to Live and be Different,” published in 2000. They are considered to be seeking “life studies,” which has broader and deeper meanings than contemporary academic bioethics.

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"Seimeigaku" is now becoming popular now in Japan

I first used the words "life studies" in my book An Invitation to the Study of Life (1988). Strictly speaking, this book was written in Japanese, hence, corresponding words were "Seimeigaku." I started using the English words "life studies" probably in the early 1990s. "Seimeigaku" is now becoming popular now in Japan, but "life studies" are still unfamiliar to an English audience.

The word "life" has various meanings. We might be bewildered because we come up with so many implications. Let us take a look at some examples on the web.

The words seem to have at least five meanings.

1. The study of one's personal history. See The Aphra Behn Society. 

2. The study of issues of everyday life, for example, food, health, leisure, gender, race, discrimination, etc. See College of Applied Life Studies at University of Illinois.

3. The study of religious, spiritual and ethical aspects of human life. See Center for Life Studies, Sunbridge College, NY.

4. The education about wildlife and ecology, for example, Sea Life Studies,Inc., Life Studies' Homepage.

5. Curriculum of high school courses. See Buffalo Grove High School, and Stockport Grammar School. This categorizing at high schools is very interesting to me.

6. Robert Lowell, well known poet, published the book "Life Studies" in 1959, which received the National Book Award.

I propose to add new meaning to the English words "life studies," and give the words new life.

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Support each other from a distance

6. Support from a distance
We need the network of people in which everyone who fights against him/herself for seeking the meaning of life supports each other from a distance. We do not join a closed community where everyone shares the same standard of value. Instead we keep us in the state of solitude, fight against ourselves, and seek to change the mainstream ideas of this society. Life studies must be a form of wisdom that supports these activities.

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We seek for "Post-Religious Spirituality"

5. Reconsideration of desire, violence, freedom, and spirituality
Life studies strongly reconsiders our “desire” and “violence” that constitute the basic driving force of contemporary civilization. We keep away from the simple affirmation of them, or from extreme abstinence. We criticize them and try to find a way of overcoming our desire and violence. We distinguish "superficial freedom" that supports modern civilization from "rich freedom" that leads us to the real pleasure of life. We seek for "post-religious spirituality" that is not based on a particular religion.

Note: This is the main task of researchers on life studies. I advocated “post-religious spirituality” in my book, How to live in Post-religious Age. I do not aim to deny religion. I wish to have a dialogue between life studies and religious wisdom in mutual respect. 

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From the Perspective of Correlation between "Relationship" and "Irreplaceability"

4. Relationship and irreplaceability
All beings in the universe, especially all living things on the earth, are incorporated into the fundamental “relationships.” They can not exist without these relationships. At the same time, every being in these relationships is fundamentally “irreplaceable” to each other. In life studies we view everything from the perspective of correlation between "relationship" and "irreplaceability."Environmental issues and philosophy of life & death should be considered from this perspective.


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You must gaze at your real self

3. Meaning of life
Our life in this world is limited. We live this limited life and die sooner or later. One of the most important aims of life studies is to contemplate how to live in modern society without regret. The questions such as "How should I live?" "What is the meaning of life?" "How can we face our own death?" are examples of the central questions of life studies. Deep philosophical understanding of life and death must be the basis of the criticism of contemporary civilization.

Note: An important thesis of life studies is that in order to understand the deep structure of contemporary civilization we must first reconsider one's own life and one's own self in everyday reality. I discussed this topic in my book, How to live in a Post-religious Age.The first step of life studies is to reconsider one's own self. By the word "self" I mean his/her way of thinking, living, feeling, and existing, that is to say, what you are actually doing in everyday life. You must gaze at your real self that you have skillfully concealed from yourself and never want to look at. In this process your self will be dismantled, and your existence will start transforming itself. Our way of thinking and living must be changed. Life studies is the wisdom that supports our attempts to change the direction of our lives and our civilization.

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Contemporary civilization kills our wisdom

2. Criticism of contemporary civilization
It is our contemporary civilization that has created bioethical & environmental issues, and today’s psychological crisis. Modern civilization is characterized by scientific technology and capitalism. Life studies connects the criticism of modern civilization with issues concerning life, death, and nature. Life studies sheds light on the nature of modern civilization, and shows a way to overcome the negative effects of scientific technology and capitalism.

Note: Bioethics often lacks this kind of criticism.
Life studies criticizes

* our inner desire to live a comfortable life as long as possible

* the social systems that enable us to pursue this desire

* our self-deception that keeps our eyes away from the dark side of the mind

* scientific technology and capitalism that provide us with transient pleasure and superficial freedom

* contemporary civilization, especially that of North America and Japan, which kills our wisdom

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A Positive Reassessment of Subjective Wisdom

*This is a rough draft written in 2000.
*Please see an edited version in this paper, 2003.

The Declaration of Life Studies: Six Proposals
Nov.19, 2000 by Masahiro Morioka (International Network for Life Studies)

1. Study as a form of wisdom
Life studies is a vivid movement of our wisdom in which we explore the meaning of life, death and nature, struggle against our inner desire, and try to find a way of resolving contemporary issues concerning life, such as the genetic manipulation of human life, the exploitation of the environment, and many other problems we ourselves have created through the centuries.

Note: Life studies is not "science" in the contemporary sense of the word. Life studies is wisdom, not objective knowledge. The wisdom of life studies is subjective, but it is highly synthesized. The aim of science is to increase the objective knowledge. Life studies does not have such an aim. The important thing for life studies is to transform ourselves and our civilization, to "express" what we have learnt from our own life experiences, and to communicate with each other. A positive reassessment of subjective wisdom is needed. We will have to create a new methodology for the study of life that is completely different from that of "modern science". Life studies resembles "philosophy" in its original sense in ancient Greece.

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What we want is "Network"

How is this different from religious approach?

I do not affirm or deny religion. I believe that we can talk about spirituality and the meaning of life without using religious language. Life studies should be a project in which people with and without religion get together to communicate and learn from each other. Personally, I do not have a specific religion. I am an agnostic.

Going to set up an academic journal, an association, or an institute?
What we want is "network," not an academic association or an institute. A bureaucratic and/or hierarchical system kills the "life" of life studies. Borderless network of life studies is preferable. Online Journal of Life Studies could be a future possibility. We have a mailing list for a life studies research group. Please do not hesitate to join us.

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We need wisdom and mutual support on the intelectual level

What is the aim of life studies?

Our ultimate aim is to live in this society without regret. In order to do that, we have to reconsider the meaning of our own life and death seriously. In this materialistic, capitalistic society deeply influenced by scientific technology, we are apt to forget the meaning of life and the value of our existence. We have to fundamentally criticize the negative aspects of contemporary civilization, scientific technology, and capitalism. Gender, sexuality, violence, war, and ecology are also important topics of life studies. We need wisdom and mutual support on the intelectual level. This is why life studies is needed.

But, we have already had bioethics and environmental ethics.

At first I studied bioethics and environmental ethics, but soon I realized that they had a fatal flaw. 1) Bio-medical ethics was separated from environmental ethics. 2) Bioethics did not pose questions about "the meaning of life" and "the nature of contemporary civilization." 3) They concentrated on "ethics," and seemed to make light of other approaches. Hence, I concluded that we need another approach to this topic. I am not satisfied with applied ethics.

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An Interesting Self-Reference Structure Here

Biology, or new religion?

Neither.Life studies is an academic research. It would probably be classified as humanities. It seeks to connect academic research and researcher's own life, because we study "life" but at the same time we ourselves are "life." We can see an interesting self-reference structure here. Life studies is an open-ended project similar to women's studies, disability studies, and peace studies. Pro-life Christian organizations and Yoga groups often use the word "life," but we are not one of them.

But, what is "life" anyway?

"Human life" and "other forms of life on earth." The word "life" has a variety of meanings and implications. For example, human life means not only the state of being alive but also one's journey through life. We believe that life, death, and nature are closely connected with one another. (See my paper on ideas of life).

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The Endless Tendency to Eliminate Pain and Suffering

Life studies urges us to rethink the whole system of contemporary civilization because it doesn't seem to provide us with sufficient opportunity to live a life without regret both in developed countries and developing countries. The critique of contemporary civilization should be included in life studies.

In the book, Painless Civilization: A Philosophical Critique of Desire (2003), I fundamentally criticized the negative aspects of contemporary civilization in terms of life studies, especially that of the USA and Japan. The endless tendency in our civilization to eliminate pain and suffering makes us totally lose sight of the meaning of life that is indispensable to human beings. I examined our desire, and divided it into two categories, "the desire of the body" and "the desire of life." I will translate this book into English and upload to this site. Many bookreviews and commentary have appeared since publication in Japan. I would like to know your response to the concept of "painless civilization."

>> For more details please visit a special page of Painless Civilization.

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But isn't this a convenient excuse for humans?

7) The problem of killing and/or eating other creatures
We eat meat, fish, and vegitables. We kill animals and plants for food. Most modern philosophers have justified this kind of killing and eating, but is this really justifiable from the viewpoint of life studies? Some environmental philosophies insist that all life forms on the earth are equally valuable, but if this is true, then what we are doing to creatures should be severely criticized. Some philosophers distinguish sentient animals and nonsentient creatures, but isn't this a convenient excuse for humans? With the help of biology, ecology and anthropology, we have to tackle this difficult problem.

* I am planning to write a book on philosophy of life. And as a preparation for the book, I will publish some essays and papers. I would like to communicate with the readers concerning these topics.
* Personally, I do not have a specific religion. I am an agnostic, but I have a keen interest in religious approaches. We don't have any special relationship with pro-life Christians or Yoga groups.
* This section was written in 2004.

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A Person Owns His/Her "Life"?

5) Social philosophy based on life studies
The ultimate aim of life studies is to help us live our limited lives without regret. We have to make clear what kind of social principles and social systems are needed in order to attain this goal, and make clear how they are different from other social theories.Future research.

6) Life and ownership
What is the conceptual relationship between "I" and "life"? People who justify suicide may insist that "one's life" belongs to him/herself, but is this the same as saying that the person owns his/her "life"? The problem of "life and ownership" would probably one of the most important research topics in philosophy of life. This has a close connection with the question "What is the relationship between "body" and "ownership"?," which was scrutinized by Shinya Tateiwa's epoch-making book, On Private Property.

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The Metaphysics of "Relationship and Irreplaceability"

2) Three natures of human life
See guiding concepts 7. I think I have yet to investigate this topic more philosophically. This would provide us with a new research perspective on environmental philosophy and ethics. I am planning to write a new paper that enlarges my former works.

3) The idea of "the fundamental sense of security"
See guiding concepts 2 and Morioka's works 5 above.We have to make clear what this concept really means in terms of philosophy.For example, the difference between "the fundamental sense of security" and "human dignity," or the difference between "the fundamental sense of security" and "basic human rights" should be clarified.

4) Relationship and irreplaceability
See guiding concepts 6 above. I called this the metaphysics of "relationship and irreplaceability" in this paper and in the last chapter of Brain Dead person. This concept needs more elaboration.

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What is the exact meaning of "Limited Life"

The following lists are some of the research topics I have in mind.

1) Philosophical inquiry into some basic concepts concerning life, death, and nature
The ultimate aim of life studies is to help us live our limited lives without regret, hence, first, we have to make clear what is the exact meaning of "limited life." We are all going to die sooner or later, but what does this mean to us exactly? Surprisingly, this is an extremely hard qestion to answer. This question is closely connected with another one, "what happens when I die?" But we cannot know anything certain about this question. Hence, the question of life studies would be like this, "What is the meaning of "limited life" when we do know nothing about life after death?" Life studies does not deny religion. Life studies follows a different path from religion, keeping touch with religious people with mutual respest. And we have to make clear other important questions, such as "What is life without regret?", "We are all going to die in the end, so why must we live?" "What is the difference between "life" and "existence"?", and so on. Probably "life without regret" means that when I die I can really believe that I am happy to have been born. Some of the topics were discussed in the book, Painless Civilization (2003). Research on images of life mentioned in the section 1 would be of great help.

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It is time to reconstruct "Philosophy of Life"

"Philosophy of life" constitutes one of the most important pillars of life studies. The task of philosophy of life is to think deeply about the question, "What is life, death, and nature?" Philosophy of life was a major branch of philosophy in ancient times in Europe and Asia, however, especially in the context of contemporary philosophy, it disappeard from the scene. (The exceptions were vitalism, Nietchze, Bergson, and philosophy of biology). There is no category of "philosophy of life" in Yahoo! or Google .

But today, people's interest in bioethics, terminal care, and environmental issues is rapidly growing. It is time to reconstruct "philosophy of life" as a major branch of contemporary philosophy.

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