Enhancement and Desire: Japanese Qualms about Where Biotechnology is Taking Us

Sadie S. , ed., Stanley Sadie's Brief Guide to Music (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1987): At 25–26.

LaFleur W. R. , “Body,” in Taylor M. C. , ed., Critical Terms for Religious Studies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998): 36–54, at 37.

Shklar J. N. , Ordinary Vices (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1984): 1–86.

Within the extensive literature on this, see Bock K. , Human Nature Mythology (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994).

Id., at 9.

Zoloth L. , “Uncountable as the Stars: Inheritable Genetic Intervention and the Human Future – a Jewish Perspective,” in Frankel M. Chapman A. , eds., Designing Our Descendents: The Promises and Perils of Genetic Modification (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 2003): at 218.

Dorff E. N. , Matters of Life and Death: A Jewish Approach to Modern Medical Ethics (Philadlephia and Jerusalem: The Jewish Publication Society, 1998): At 333, footnote 45; see also the anonymous item titled “A Bris Milah Overview,” available at <http://www.circumcision.net/bris_overview.htm> (last visited December 11, 2007).

Zoloth L. , “Go and Tend the Earth: A Jewish View on the Enhanced World,” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 36, no. 1 (2008): 10–25.

Noble D. F. , The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention (New York: Penguin Books, 1997): at 193.

Hefner P. , “The Evolution of the Created Co-Creator,” in Peters T. , ed., Cosmos as Creation: Science and Theology as Consonance (Nashville: Abingdon, 1989).

A definitive demonstration of this range is Long C. H. , Alpha: The Myths of Creation (New York: George Braziller, 1963). Japan's cosmogonic myths, put into written form in eighth-century texts, are linked to Shinto and, when interpreted as having significance for ethics, tend to yield conservationist and prudence-counseling norms.

Keown D. , Buddhism and Bioethics (London: Macmillan Press, 1995): At 18–22; see also Promta S. , “Buddhism and Human Genome Research,” available at <http://them.polylog.org/6/fps-en.htm> (last visited November 15, 2007). I am grateful to Jens Schlieter for the latter reference.

Silver L. M. , Challenging Nature: The Clash of Science and Spirituality at the New Frontiers of Life (New York: HarperCollins, 2005): at 337.

Schlieter J. , “Kann ein Klon Buddha werden? Gentechnik aus einer anderen Sicht,” [Can Buddhas Be Cloned?] Neue Zürcher Zeitung, January 7, 2002.

Dreifus C. , “2 Friends, 242 Eggs and a Breakthrough: A Conversation with Woo Suk Hwang and Shin Yong Moon,” New York Times, February 17, 2004.

Schlieter J. , “Some Observations on Buddhist Thoughts on Human Cloning,” in Roetz H. , ed., Cross-Cultural Issues in Bioethics: The Example of Human Cloning (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005): 179–202, at 180.

Awaya T. , “Ningen kaizô,” [Reconstructing Humans] in Ochi M. , eds. Ôyô rinrigaku kôgi: Seimei [Lectures in Applied Ethics: Life] (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 2004): At 206–208.

On how cosmetic surgery, originally despised, was gradually worked into becoming an acceptable part of “therapeutic” medicine, see the excellent treatment in Elliott C. , Better Than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003): 120.

See Awaya , supra note 17, at 208.

Awaya T. , “Zôki ishoku to hito kakumei: Bunmei toshite no iryô tekunorogî no yukue,” [Organ Transplantation and Re-Forming Humans: The Cultural Trajectory of Medical Technologies] in Saitô T. Kôyama A. , eds., Seimei rinrigaku Kôgi [Lectures on Bioethics] (Tokyo: Nihon kôronsha, 1998): 71–97, at 96.

Silver L. , Remaking Eden: How Genetic Engineering and Cloning Will Transform the American Family (New York: Avon Books, 1997).

Matsuda J. , Idenshi gijutsu no shinten to ningen no mirai: Doitsu seimei kankyô rinrigaku ni manabu [The Prospects for Genetic Technology and the Future of Humanity: Learning from Geman Ennvironmental Ethics] (Tokyo: Chisen shokan, 2004): At 144. Washida K. , for instance, is more likely to ground his own analysis in terms of how desires are produced and enflamed by political and economic factors. See Washida K. , Yokubô no tetsugaku [The Philosophy of Desire] (Tokyo: Kôdansha, 1997).

Morishita N. , Kenkô e no yokubô to ‘yasuragi’: Uerubikamingu no tetsugaku [Lusting After Health and Being at Ease: A Philosophy of Becoming Well] (Tokyo: Aoki shoten, 2003): at 13.

Id., at 183.

Lee S. H. , “For Love and Money, Koreans Turn to Facial Tucks,” International Herald Tribune, May 15, 2006.

Demick B. , “A Snip of the Tongue and English Is Yours,” Los Angeles Times, April 8, 2002.

If, as the case seems, the Japanese are more reluctant than some other East Asian peoples to pursue high-risk bio research, then an awareness of history, especially the horrendous medical research done in Manchuria by Japanese military physicians during the Pacific War, should be seen as an inhibiting factor. These egregious acts by medics are more commonly acknowledged in Japanese materials than Japan's neighbors and Western critics are likely to know or admit. For materials on this, see LaFleur W. R. Böhme G. Shimazono S. , eds., Dark Medicine: Rationalizing Unethical Medical Research (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2007).