Variation in decision-making about end-of-life care among ethnic groups creates clinical conflicts. In order to understand changes in preferences for end-of-life care among Japanese who immigrate to the United States, we conducted 18 focus groups with 122 participants: 65 English-speaking Japanese Americans, 29 Japanese-speaking Japanese Americans and 28 Japanese living in Japan.Negative feelings toward living in adverse health states and receiving life-sustaining treatment in such states permeated all three groups. Fear of being meiwaku, a physical, psychological or financial caregiving burden (...) on loved ones, was a prominent concern. They preferred to die pokkuri (popping off) before they become end stage or physically frail. All groups preferred group-oriented decision-making with family. Although advance directives were generally accepted, Japanese participants saw written directives as intrusive whereas Japanese Americans viewed them mainly as tools to reduce conflict created by dying person's wishes and a family's kazoku no jo– responsibility to sustain the dying patient. These findings suggest that in the United States Japanese cultural values concerning end-of-life care and decision-making process are largely preserved. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Reception of Husserl’s Phenomenology in Japanese PhilosophyShinji HamauzuWhen we talk about the influence of Husserl’s phenomenology, we should discuss in advance what can justify this talk. When we mention keywords— for instance, intuition of essence, intentionality, inner time-consciousness, rigorous science, natural attitude, phenomenological reduction, transcendental phenomenology, noesis-noema, my living body, genetic phenomenology, empathy, intersubjectivity, life-world, and so on—which keywords should we use when talking about the influence Husserl’s (...) phenomenology had on Japanese philosophy? But we should also ask the following question as well: Which of Husserl’s texts could be available for scholars of Japanese philosophy? Interestingly, there were few works, beyond attending Husserl’s lectures, that one could access, because he only published six books and six articles while he was alive. After Husserl died in 1938, many manuscripts were rescued from the Nazi’s hands and placed at Leuven University in Belgium where the Husserl Archive was first established. The manuscripts were edited and published as Husserliana beginning in 1950 (which now has 42 volumes). Given this, we can think of Husserl’s work as consisting of two periods: the period before and the period after the publication of Husserliana.I myself am interested in the problem of “intersubjectivity” within Husserl’s phenomenology. It is on the one hand the problem of “other-experience (Fremderfahrung)”—i.e., “how I experience the other”—which is the problem of other-experience in the empirical dimension. But it is on the other hand the problem of “intersubjective constitution”—i.e., “how the objective world is the correlate of intersubjective constitution through other-experience,”1 which is the problem of how the other participates in the transcendental dimension. It is characteristic of Husserl’s phenomenology that these two problems are discussed together inseparably. [End Page 1]The manuscripts on the problem of “intersubjectivity” from 1905 to 1935 are collected in volumes XIII to XV of Husserliana. Although the fifth meditation of Cartesian Meditations (first published in French translation in 1931) is often mentioned as the representative work on this theme, it is no more than the tip of the iceberg after Husserl struggled for many years on this problem. The genesis of this theme in the manuscripts dates back to 1905 when terms such as “other” (ein Anderer) and “foreign” (fremd) appeared in manuscript 1, or terms such as “empathy” (Einfühlung) and “intersubjective” appeared in manuscript 2. Husserl wrote later that he had discussed this theme to a relatively large extent in the lecture Fundamental Problems of Phenomenology (Hua XIII) in 1910–1911. In the period of 1905–1910, after the “problem of intersubjectivity” was first introduced, we can also find the idea of “phenomenological reduction” appear for the first time in the literature. This tells us that the problem of intersubjectivity and the idea of phenomenological reduction were born as two sides of the same coin.When Husserl’s phenomenology was first introduced to Japan, Japanese scholars were already reading the first volume of Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, where the “intersubjective world” is thought to refer to a “correlate of experience mediated by empathy,”2 and so the task is to clarify the “intersubjective constitution of the objective world.”3 However, when we consider Husserl’s influence in the history of Japanese philosophy and examine whether the problem of intersubjectivity is discussed as a fundamental problem of philosophy, it can be doubted, in my opinion, whether or not there were any researchers who ever faced this problem seriously. In what follows, I survey several generations of philosophers in Japan who engaged with Husserl’s rehabilitation, to investigate the problem of intersubjectivity in his reception and extent of his influence.Nishida Kitarō’s Interest in PhenomenologyNishida Kitarō (1870–1945) looked back at the revision of his first book in 1936 and wrote,The standpoint of this book [An Inquiry into the Good (1911)] is that of consciousness, which might be thought of as a kind of psychologism... I came to realize that it is not that experience exists because there is an individual, but that an individual exists because there is experience. I... (shrink)

Recent scandals allegedly linked to CEO compensation have brought executive compensation and perquisites to the forefront of debate about constraining executive compensation and reforming the associated corporate governance structure. We briefly describe the structure of executive compensation, and the agency theory framework that has commonly been used to conceptualize executives acting on behalf of shareholders. We detail some criticisms of executive compensation and associated ethical issues, and then discuss what previous research suggests are likely intended and unintended consequences of some (...) widely proposed executive compensation reforms. We explicitly discuss the following recommendations for reform: require greater independence of compensation committees, require executives to hold equity in the corporation, require greater disclosure of executive compensation, increase institutional investor involvement in corporate governance (including executive compensation), and require firms to expense stock options on their income statements. We provide a brief summary discussion of ethical issues related to executive compensation, and describe possible future research. (shrink)

This study developed an emotional vulnerability scale and examined its reliability and validity with a sample of university students. In health psychology, a measurement of emotional pain can contribute to the prevention and improvement of physical and mental health problems in daily life. We collected data from 361 Japanese university students. From preliminary interviews with 20 participants, 42 semantic units were extracted. For scale development, a questionnaire survey was conducted using the 42 extracted categories, and exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (...) were performed. Four factors emerged, which were both reliable and valid: “vulnerability toward criticism or denial,” “vulnerability toward worsening relationships,” “vulnerability toward interpersonal discord,” and “vulnerability toward procrastination and emotional avoidance.” This scale can be useful to understand vulnerability in everyday situations and grasp the vulnerable conditions experienced by individuals. This can help prevent stress responses and mental health problems, which are valuable contributions to health psychology. (shrink)

Theories of institutions can be classified into two broad approaches: institutions-as-rules and institutions-as-equilibria. According to the first approach, institutions are conceived as rules that guide the actions of individuals engaged in social interactions. On the other hand, the second approach views institutions as behavioral patterns. In order to have a complete picture of institutions, we need to take both approaches into consideration. Individuals construct mental models to produce expectations about institutions, while institutions make individual expectations relatively compatible. The main purpose (...) of this paper is to develop a general framework within which it is possible to analyze coevolution of individual mental models and institutions. (shrink)

近代日本において一様に捉えきれない多様な「悪」の姿と、それがどのように扱われたのかを、イデオロギーと実践の双方の面から描く。.

In The Human Condition, Hanna Arendt explained the rise of the social realm during the early modern period from the ancient dichotomy between the public and the private domains. For her, the rise was relevant to the establishment of political economy. This establishment was also linked with the intellectual change of a non-Western region. When Japanese intellectuals began importing Western political economy, they confronted a problem of how to fit that science to the Japanese situation, which they saw as having (...) no public realm composed of equal citizens. Although scholars have studied the reception of political economy in Japan, how the intellectuals transformed their understanding of society remains a research gap. I argue that some intellectuals in Japan thought that in order to provide space for the concept of political economy, they needed to create both a public and a social realm, and this caused some tension – a tension different from that in the European context. Indeed, Japanese people had a unique reception of Adam Smith’s political economy. Especially after Westernization (or the Meiji Restoration) began in 1868, the concept of political economy began to spread throughout Japan. Yukichi Fukuzawa (1835–1901), the most influential Enlightenment thinker in the Meiji era, denied the traditional, neo-Confucian view of economics and declared that the pursuit of wealth should be the goal of society; he thus introduced space for the concept of political economy into Japan. This space was regarded as troublesome, and Shigeki Nishimura (1828–1902), an advocate of national morality, challenged the concept, arguing that society should be based on ethics, not on the pursuit of wealth. (shrink)

More attention needs to be given to Adam Smith's view of South America. Although scholars have elucidated Smith's view of colonization, these studies have not fully clarified how Smith was influenced by the depiction of societies in South America from travel books. Though he read travel books on South America, Smith does not necessarily follow their original description of the societies found there. Instead, he sometimes distorted the original in consideration of the effects of colonization. To evaluate the impact of (...) colonization, he supposed that societies in South America were not civilized, so colonized societies could be seen as part of the process of civilization. However, he did not belittle precolonial societies. He emphasized the moral quality of the so-called savage people. As I argue in this paper, he had at least two criteria in evaluating society. In addition to economic development, Smith also recognized moral degradation as part of social development. Smith evaluated s... (shrink)

In the trolley problem, a well-known moral dilemma, the intuitive process is believed to increase deontological judgments, while deliberative reasoning is thought to promote utilitarian decisions. Therefore, based on the dual-process model, there seems to be an attempt to save several lives at the expense of a few others in a deliberative manner. This study examines the validity of this argument. To this end, we manipulate decision-making time in the standard trolley dilemma to compare differences among 119 Japanese female undergraduates (...) under three conditions: intuitive judgment, deliberative judgment, and judgment after a group discussion. The current results demonstrate that utilitarian judgments decreased from 52.9% in the intuition condition to 43.7% in the deliberation condition and 37.0% after the discussion. Additional analysis suggests that the decrease in utilitarian judgments may be related to psychological unwillingness to assume responsibility for the lives of others rather than to an increase in deontological judgments. Finally, these results are discussed from an adaptationist perspective. (shrink)

Background: In sports psychology research, the Stroop test and its derivations are commonly used to investigate the benefits of exercise on cognitive function. The measures of the Stroop test and the computed interference often have different interclass correlation coefficients. However, the ICC is never reported in cross-over designs involving multiple variances associated with individual differences.Objective: We investigated the ICC of the Stroop neutral and incongruent tests and interference, and reverse Stroop task using the linear mixed model.Methods: Forty-eight young adults participated (...) in a cross-over design experiment composed of 2 factors: exercise mode and time. Before and after each intervention, participants completed the Stroop neutral and incongruent, and the reverse-Stroop neutral and incongruent tests. We analyzed for each test performance and interference and calculated ICC using the linear mixed model.Results: The linear mixed model found a significant interaction of exercise mode and time for both the Stroop and reverse-Stroop tasks, suggesting that exercise mode influences the effect of acute exercise on inhibitory function. On the other hand, there was no significant effect of exercise mode for both the Stroop and reverse-Stroop interference. The results also revealed that calculating both the Stroop and reverse-Stroop interference resulted in smaller ICCs than the ICCs of the neutral and incongruent tests for both the Stroop and reverse-Stroop tasks.Conclusion: The Stroop and reverse-Stroop interferences are known as valid measures of the inhibitory function for cross-sectional research design. However, to understand the benefits of acute exercise on inhibitory function comprehensively by cross-over design, comparing the incongruent test with the neutral test also seems superior because these tests have high reliability and statistical power. (shrink)

This paper examines two paths by which F. A. Hayek’s work has influenced the cognitive theory of institutions: cognition and cultural evolution. It argues that there is a relationship between the sensory order and the social order. The explanation of social order begins with the human mind. This is illustrated with ideas relating to understanding culture from a cognitive viewpoint. Human cognition makes cultural evolution an endogenous process. The paper draws on ideas of co-evolution of individuals’ mental models and their (...) actions. Mental models can be modified by feedback from altered perceived reality as a consequence of peoples’ altered actions. A key to understanding cultural evolution is an understanding of how individuals modify their mental models. (shrink)

While there are many studies that address how well Japanese companies have adopted explicit CSR practices, our understanding of their own views on such practices is still limited, particularly of the difference in their views before and after the process of making implicit CSR explicit. The present research thus aims to address this apparent change by providing comparative case studies of two Japanese companies selected from two different time periods. The findings indicate there is a continuity observable in the mindset (...) of these companies not a change. This contradicts existing literature and suggests that the process of making CSR explicit has not been accompanied by any real change in their mindset. The result shows that ethically questionable practices have been going on behind the explicitly articulated CSR policies and implies the difficulties of delegating the power to address societal issues to business organisations. This is important particularly now when the expectations of the public regarding the responsibilities of business towards society are on the rise. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

The ignorance of Helsinki declaration is continuing in Japan for approximately 20 years. More than 400 children including preschoolers with developmental conditions including temper tantrums, hyperactivity, and/or autistic characteristics have been already operated. The cranioplasty for isolated mild trigonocephaly had been empirically introduced by a physician to re-establish the brain spatial environment, and a government-granted and multi-centered clinical observation study is now in operation without scientific verification of the procedure’s validity. The characteristic of the skull shape are too mild and (...) sometimes too subtle to be recognized by the parents and health checkup doctors. A physician may tentatively and extraordinarily use an unproven procedure in exceptional circumstances where proven and effective interventions do not exist. However, the intervention must as soon as possible be subjected to scientific scrutiny according to ethical principles in order to stop the utilization in case of misprediction. (shrink)

This study reveals that strong feelings of altruism were found to be statistically significant in explaining prosocial and pro-environmental behaviors. However, this was not the case for the latent trait biosphere in explaining pro-environmental behavior. Regardless of whether they are overseas graduates or not, subjects in this study are more altruistic than biospheric by nature. Using the Graded Response Model approach, the study found that the biosphere and altruism are obviously independent of each other and merging them into one dimension, (...) in this instance referred to as “self-transcendence,” makes the construct less reliable. That is why this study in consistence with previous studies could not detect the effect of self-transcendence statistically, as it affects both the past volunteering in environmental affairs and the past volunteering in social welfare. (shrink)

Organisms must adapt to environmental stresses to ensure their survival and prosperity. Different types of stresses, including thermal, mechanical, and hypoxic stresses, can alter the cellular state that accompanies changes in gene expression but not the cellular identity determined by a chromatin state that remains stable throughout life. Some tissues, such as adipose tissue, demonstrate remarkable plasticity and adaptability in response to environmental cues, enabling reversible cellular identity changes; however, the mechanisms underlying these changes are not well understood. We hypothesized (...) that positive and/or negative “Integrators” sense environmental cues and coordinate the epigenetic and transcriptional pathways required for changes in cellular identity. Adverse environmental factors such as pollution disrupt the coordinated control contributing to disease development. Further research based on this hypothesis will reveal how organisms adapt to fluctuating environmental conditions, such as temperature, extracellular matrix stiffness, oxygen, cytokines, and hormonal cues by changing their cellular identities. (shrink)