Lecture: The Utility Fallacy – Japanese Criticisms of Bioethics in America

December 5, 2000

Lecture: The Utility Fallacy – Japanese Criticisms of Bioethics in America
Professor William LaFleur (Professor of Japanese Studies, University of Pennsylvania)
403 Kent Hall, Columbia University (116th St. & Amsterdam Ave.)
6:00 PM
Japanese bioethicists have been struggling with the specific problems of their field but also against the way their American counterparts, dominant in this field, tend to define the issues and offer “solutions.” An awareness of Japan as having once gone – in the case of the horrendous activities of Unit 731 – far too far in the direction of unethical medical research shows up in Japanese bioethical writing and is part of the critique of Utilitarianism. An adequate understanding of the protracted debate in Japan concerning the ethics of organ transplantation in Japan requires attention to this matter.

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