In political philosophy, reflective equilibrium is a standard method used to systematically reconcile intuitive judgments with theoretical principles. In this paper, we propose that survey experiments and a model selection method—i.e., the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC)-based model selection method—can be viewed together as a methodological means of satisfying the epistemic desiderata implicit in reflective equilibrium. To show this, we conduct a survey experiment on two theories of distributive justice, prioritarianism and sufficientarianism. Our experimental test case and AIC-based model selection method (...) demonstrate that the refined sufficientarian principle, a widely accepted principle of distributive justice, is no more plausible than the prioritarian principle. This tells us that some changes of certain intuitions revolving around sufficientarianism should be examined (separately) based on the findings of the survey experiment and AIC model selection. This shows the potential of our approach—both practically and methodologically—as a novel way of applying reflective equilibrium in political philosophy. (shrink)

This book looks at the core life concepts and shared values that historically and culturally define the quality of "being Japanese." Among these are reverence, love of nature, group loyalty, hierarchical respect, passion for detail, belief in learning, formality, and acceptance of change. How can Western analogues of these Japanese virtues help us improve our own societies and cultivate inner strength, mindfulness, and long-lasting relationships at home and the workplace? This stimulating exploration of an alternative ethics and humanism is a (...) provocative workbook for "decluttering the spirit. (shrink)

We re-examine the history of the element “nipponium” discovered by a Japanese chemist Masataka Ogawa in 1908. Since 1996 H.K. Yoshihara has made extensive research into Ogawa’s work and revealed evidence that nipponium proposed for the place of the atomic number of 43 was actually rhenium. In this paper, we provide critical re-interpretations of the existing information and confirmed that Ogawa left indisputable evidence that nipponium was in fact rhenium. We further discuss the reasons for the existing doubts and criticism (...) against Ogawa’s discovery and Yoshihara’s interpretation, and attempt to resolve them. (shrink)

Originally published as 「明治の哲学界：有機体の哲学とその系譜」in 井上克人編『豊饒なる明治』, Kansai Daigaku Shuppannbu, 2012, 3–22. Translated by Morisato Takeshi. German Idealism was introduced to Japanese intellectuals in the middle of Meiji era and was mainly received from a mystical or religious perspective, as we see in Inoue Tetsujirō’s “harmonious existence,” Inoue Enryō’s “unity of mind and body,” and Kiyozawa Manshi’s “existentialism.” Since these theories envisioned true reality as a unified and living whole, I group them under the label “philosophy of organism” and from (...) there argue that their conviction that “all is truth and truth is all” was shaped in large part by the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana. The understanding of Buddhist concepts by Meiji philosophers was philosophical in its content, and those who devoted themselves to the study of Western philosophy were encouraged to describe Eastern thought in Western philosophical terms. As a result, the philosophical world of the Meiji era developed an original standpoint that unified Eastern and Western perspectives by means of a logic of “phenomena-in-reality.”. (shrink)

A dialectical contradiction can be appropriately described within the framework of classical formal logic. It is in harmony with the law of noncontradiction. According to our definition, two theories make up a dialectical contradiction if each of them is consistent and their union is inconsistent. It can happen that each of these two theories has an intended model. Plenty of examples are to be found in the history of science.

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 4, Page 445-452, May 2022.

This pilot study examines how a number of American and Japanese journalists make the tough calls regarding an escalating social problem: whether to identify juveniles who have been charged with serious capital crimes. Divergent societal and journalistic values of the two countries are explored via a survey of journalists from Honolulu and Hiroshima. Newsroom policies and practices are described regarding general and specific cases of juvenile crime. In general, Japanese journalists are far more likely than U.S. journalists to withhold names. (...) Tables and additional background information are found at jmme.org. (shrink)

This paper offers a new insight on the Condorcet Jury Theorem (CJT) in the theory of epistemic democracy. This theorem states that democratic decision-making leads us to correct outcomes under certain assumptions. One key assumption is the ‘independence condition’, which requires that voters form their beliefs independently when they vote. This paper examines the role of an opinion leader as an informational source, which potentially violates independence. We demonstrate that voters’ beliefs may be correlated in the presence of the leader, (...) and that the CJT can fail if the leader’s opinions are reliable. This leads us to the following paradoxical observation: for epistemic democracy, good leaders may be bad, while bad leaders may be good. (shrink)

Tracheostomy with invasive ventilation may be required for the survival of patients at advanced stages of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. In Japan it has been shown that a proactive approach toward TIV may prolong the survival of ALS patients by over 10 years by preventing the lethal respiratory failure that generally occurs within 3-5 years of the onset of the disease. Measures to prolong life expectancy without foregoing quality of life have produced better results in Japan than in other developed countries. (...) This ‘Japanese bias’ has been attributed to socio-cultural and religious factors as well as to the availability of material resources in Japan. In this article, we use the concepts of onozukara in kadō and amae to illuminate features of patient care that may contribute to this ‘Japanese bias’. (shrink)

Ongoing research on making “human-animal chimeras” or “animals containing human material” to solve the shortage of organs available for transplantation has raised many ethical issues regarding the creation and utilization of such constructs, including cultural views regarding the status of those creations. A pilot study was conducted to explore Japanese public attitudes toward human-animal chimeras or ACHM. The February 2012 study consisted of focus group interviews with citizens from the Greater Tokyo Area, aged between 20 and 54. The 24 participants (...) were divided into four groups. Transcripts of the interviews were analyzed and participants’ attitudes categorized. Five categories of participant attitudes were identified: resistance to the unnatural, concerns about animal welfare, concerns about controlling human-animal chimeras, concerns about the possible birth of intermediate entities, and resistance to creating and utilizing animals containing my material or my child’s material. Our FGI results showed a broader and greater variety of public concerns than those reported in previous studies. While researchers have tried to establish new methods to avoid creating intermediate entities, our participants expressed concerns about not only intermediate entities but also animals containing their own material or their child’s material. Based upon their responses in the interviews, we are introducing a new ethical concern: “animals containing my material/my child’s material.”. (shrink)

In this article, we first study abduction in human dialogues. Given an utterance, objective abduction produces a hearer’s belief that could explain the utterance, while subjective abduction produces a hearer’s belief that could explain the belief state of a speaker. Different types of abduction are formulated using propositional epistemic logic. We next consider conversational implicature used as pragmatic inference in speech acts. Two conflicting implicatures, Q-implicature and I-implicature, are formulated and contrasted with abduction. We also argue how speakers could use (...) abduction or conversational implicature for the purpose of misleading hearers. (shrink)

Research ethics consultation services (RECS), which function as an advisory service to facilitate the resolution of complex ethical issues in clinical research, have been proliferating over the last decade. However, the qualification of an individual who provides RECS, or “a research ethics consultant,” has not been thoroughly investigated, in contrast to healthcare ethics consultants, whose core competencies have been discussed and clarified to a great extent. In this study, we investigated core competencies necessary for research ethics consultants, referring to the (...) core competency models of ethics consultants developed in the healthcare practice context, and propose a competency model for research ethics consultants. (shrink)

This study investigated the circumstances and problems that departments of forensic medicine encounter with bereaved families regarding samples obtained from medico-legal autopsies. A questionnaire was posted to all 76 departments of forensic medicine performing medico-legal autopsies in Japan, and responses were received from 48 . Of the respondents, 12.8% had approached and communicated with bereaved families about collecting samples from the deceased person during an autopsy and the storage of the samples. In addition, 23.4% of these had informed families that (...) samples might be used in research. Eighteen departments had received enquiries and requests from families about the samples, with most requests concerning their return. The response to such requests varied according to the department. Few departments interacted with the bereaved families regarding the procedure for obtaining autopsy samples, and their methods for handling family concerns differed depending on the person within the department authorised to contact the family. Moreover, the procedures for engaging in such communication have long been unclear, and no legal or ethical consensus or agreement with the general public has been established. It is important for researchers to further discuss the correct way for forensic medicine departments to communicate with bereaved families. (shrink)

Luck egalitarianism assigns a central role to personal responsibility in egalitarian justice. In the context of healthcare, luck egalitarianism is the view that the distribution of medical and healthcare resources—or common resources in general—should respond to the (im)prudence of individuals. Recently, Joar Björk, Gert Helgesson, and Niklas Juth have argued that it is impractical to use luck egalitarianism as a normative framework in healthcare because it has no reasonable way of dealing with the imprudent. In response to their argument, this (...) paper first suggests that the epistemic problems of applying luck egalitarianism to the healthcare context raised by Björk et al. can be circumvented by using the exemption system as a policy application of luck egalitarian healthcare justice. This paper then shows that an _ex ante_ policy, a tax system with refunds, can reasonably be adopted as a luck egalitarian institutional design of healthcare policy. We argue that the proposed conception of luck egalitarianism can deal with the problem of differential option luck. Finally, we show that the threshold problem for the definition of imprudence does not refute the proposed _ex ante_ policy. (shrink)

Rhodopsins are one of the most studied photoreceptor protein families, and ion‐translocating rhodopsins, both pumps and channels, have recently attracted broad attention because of the development of optogenetics. Recently, a new functional class of ion‐pumping rhodopsins, an outward Na+ pump, was discovered, and following structural and functional studies enable us to compare three functionally different ion‐pumping rhodopsins: outward proton pump, inward Cl− pump, and outward Na+ pump. Here, we review the current knowledge on structure‐function relationships in these three light‐driven pumps, (...) mainly focusing on Na+ pumps. A structural and functional comparison reveals both unique and conserved features of these ion pumps, and enhances our understanding about how the structurally similar microbial rhodopsins acquired such diverse functions. We also discuss some unresolved questions and future perspectives in research of ion‐pumping rhodopsins, including optogenetics application and engineering of novel rhodopsins. (shrink)

Human space exploration requires massive budgets every fiscal year. Especially under severe financial constraint conditions, governments are forced to justify to society why spending so much tax revenue for human space exploration is worth the cost. The value of human space exploration might be estimated in many ways, but its social significance and cost-effectiveness are two key ways to gauge that worth. Since these measures should be applied country by country because sociopolitical conditions differ in each country and must be (...) taken into consideration, the study on the social significance of human space exploration must take the coloration of a case-study. This paper, focusing on the case of Japan with surveying Japanese literary and national documents as well as taking its sociopolitical conditions into account, examines the social significance of human space exploration. -/- First, we give an overview of the circumstances surrounding Japan's human space exploration program. Derived from the statements of such relevant parties as scholars, journalists, policy makers, and astronauts, this overview indicates that the main concerns about human space exploration in Japan are its social significance and cost-effectiveness (Section 1). Next, an overview of behavioral science—an essential field for human space exploration (referred to in this paper as space behavioral science) that provides support for astronauts—is presented from the perspective of stress research in isolated and confined environments (Section 2). We then give two examples of where such knowledge from space behavioral science research has been applied to terrestrial isolated and confined environments. One is JAXA’s support in 2009 for people who were vulnerable to infection by a new strain of flu and accordingly placed in an isolated and confined facility under the Infectious Disease Law and the Quarantine Law. The other is NASA's support in 2010 for Chilean mine workers who were trapped 700 m underground after a mining accident (Section 3). Based on these case studies, we illustrate the further social utility of such knowledge through a discussion of potential applications in other situations in Japan. Focusing on Japan for its geographical and social features in being an earthquake-prone archipelago and having the world's preeminent aging society, we show that refugees living in evacuation centers and people in an elderly-elderly homecare situation pose socially problematic situations specific to Japan. We then argue that space behavioral scientific knowledge can be applied to support people under these and other isolated and confined environments in various ways (Section 4). Finally, we demonstrate that such an application can be understood as an ethical contribution to Japanese society and that this contribution can be embedded in Japan's space policy (Section 5). We conclude that human space exploration can be a socially significant and cost-effective endeavor that is worthy of tax revenue expenditures because space behavioral science is highly likely to provide unique and useful knowledge to help address various social problems concerning terrestrial isolated and confined environments and support people in sufferings there. (shrink)

ResumoEste artigo analisa o reendereçamento da obra Fita verde no cabelo: nova velha estória ao público infantojuvenil. Em 1992, o conto de Guimarães Rosa foi reeditado pela Nova Fronteira, contando com novo projeto gráfico e com as ilustrações de Roger Mello, em edição dedicada ao público jovem. Além de observar o modo como a obra busca o diálogo com esse público em níveis textuais e imagéticos, o estudo concentra-se na análise das ilustrações. Verifica-se a hipótese de que as imagens, em (...) vez de apenas facilitarem a leitura para um público específico, expandem o sentido da obra original contemplando todos os públicos. Como resultado, demonstra-se a potência das imagens e sua capacidade de enriquecer a experiência de leitura do conto de Rosa.Palavras-chave: João Guimarães Rosa. Reendereçamento. Ilustração. AbstractThis article analyzes the readdressing of the work Fita verde no cabelo: nova velha estória to youth literature. In 1992, Guimarães Rosa's short story was reissued by Nova Fronteira. The book had a new graphic project by Roger Mello. This study focuses not only on how the story is looking for dialogue with the young audience in written-text and visual-image levels, but also in the analysis of illustrations. We verify the hypothesis that the images do not facilitate the reading process for a specific audience, for they are in turn ways to expand the meanings of the original work. The potential of those images is demonstrated along with their capacity to enrich the reading experience of Rosa's short story.Keywords: João Guimarães Rosa. Readdressing. Illustration. (shrink)

This theoretical paper develops a conceptual framework that explains how companies can influence consumer behavior in terms of both social and business benefits through their corporate social marketing initiatives. Drawing from the source credibility literature, the article asserts that the effectiveness of CSM depends largely on the corporate credibility of a company in supporting a social cause. Based on this assertion, the framework identifies ten different antecedents of CSM credibility, which are organized into attributes of the company, attributes of the (...) CSM initiative, and attributes of the cause. Furthermore, this framework shows that CSM credibility affects the two examined consequences, intended prosocial behavior and consumer loyalty. Several research and managerial implications are developed based on the propositions specified in the framework. (shrink)