dai 1-kan. Hō no kihon riron -- dai 2-5-kan. Hōshisō no rekishiteki tenkai -- dai 6-8-kan. Gendai jitteihō no kihon mondai.

Human brain organoids (HBOs), three-dimensional neural tissues derived from human pluripotent stem cells, are at the forefront of biomedical research, provoking intricate ethical quandaries (Sawai...

On March 16, 2020, the Director-General of the World Health Organization said: “We have a simple message to all countries—test, test, test.” This seems like sound advice, but what if limiting the number of tests has a positive effect on infection control? Although this may rarely be the case, the possibility raises an important ethical question that is closely related to a central tension between deontological and consequentialist approaches to ethics. In this paper, we first argue that early during the (...) COVID-19 pandemic, Japan offers an interesting case because it experienced few deaths due to COVID while the number of tests was limited, suggesting that there may be cases in which low testing contributes to infection control indeed. After that, we examine deontological constraints on such a “low-testing” policy, focusing on issues related to a supposed “right to know,” which is a central issue in medical ethics in general. (shrink)

The quantum efficiency (QE) of light-induced metastable defect creation in hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si : H) and amorphous As2Se3 (a-As2Se3) by bandgap and subgap illumination has been deduced from photocurrent measurements. The QE decreases with increasing number of absorbed photons. A higher QE for a-As2Se3 than for a-Si : H has been observed and this is interpreted in terms of the higher structural flexibility of a-As2Se3. We have also found that, for both materials, subgap illumination yields a higher QE than (...) does bandgap illumination. (shrink)

The construct of Cognitive Moral Development (CMD) has drawn much attention in the study of business ethics for over two decades. The Defining Issues Test (DIT) has made a significant contribution to the literature as an easy-to-administer CMD instrument, and the Moral Judgment Test (MJT), an alternative scale, has also been used widely especially in Europe. The two scales differ in their approaches to measuring CMD, focusing on stage preference (DIT) and stage consistency (MJT), yet empirical comparisons have been scarce. (...) The present research empirically compares the two scales in terms of their correspondence with ethical ideology as a reference scale, and it demonstrates a clear distinction between the DIT and the MJT. Although they both aim to measure CMD, their dissimilar approaches lead to distinctly different implications. (shrink)

This book aims at analyzing semantic values of proper names occurring in belief reports. The focus is on the discussion about Frege s puzzle concerning belief reports. The goal is to analyze Frege s puzzle without giving up semantic innocence. To this end, a pragmatic analysis named VarCA analysis is proposed.".