Constructing the foundation of bioethics from the perspective of "everyday = ordinary"

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K00046
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 01010:Philosophy and ethics-related
• Research Institution: Tokyo City University
• Principal Investigator: YAMAMOTO Fumika 東京都市大学, 共通教育部, 教授 (20396451)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: 生命倫理 / 褻 / 日常 / 脳死 / 臓器移植 / 安楽死 / 尊厳死 / 民俗

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The purpose of this project is to reexamine various issues in bioethics from the perspective of "everyday = ordinary". This is because, in the early days of bioethics, there was a direction to widely open medicine and medical care to our daily lives, but that direction has gradually been lost, and now it is mainly concerned with the study of ethics in response to cutting-edge medical practice and medical policy. However, death is not only a medical problem, as one can understand, for example, the issue of death, which is often taken up in bioethics. It is a problem of human beings who live their daily lives, and it is a subject that should be reexamined in daily life.
Based on the above perspectives, this project repositioned brain death and euthanasia in the daily lives of Japanese people, and attempted to elucidate the ethos that underpins both.

Free Research Field

倫理学一般　応用倫理学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

1997年の臓器移植法制定から四半世紀が経つが、日本では脳死下ドナー数が伸び悩んでいる。この理由は医療制度の問題として論じられがちだが、実はその背後には臓器へのアニミズム的感覚や意識の有無だけで生死を区別しない死生観があることを主張した点が本課題の学術的意義である。また積極的安楽死に賛成は七割を超えるという調査結果(2015)があり法制化の動きもあるが、日本人の安楽死容認の理由として頻繁に挙げられる「他人に迷惑がかかるから」は、自己決定では片付けられず、他者への関係性が入り込んでいるため、自己決定の理由としては十分ではない。ゆえに法制化には慎重であるべきだと唱えた点が社会的意義である。