From Agape to Organs: Religious Difference between Japan and America in Judging the Ethics of the Transplant
This essay argues that Japan's resistance to the practice of transplanting organs from persons deemed “brain dead” may not be the result, as some claim, of that society's religions being not yet sufficiently expressive of love and altruism. The violence to the body necessary for the excisi...
| Published in: | Zygon |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Wiley-Blackwell
2002
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| In: |
Zygon
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| Further subjects: | B
waste
B Ogiwara Makoto B Brain Death B Joseph Fletcher B window of opportunity B Jeremy Bentham B Utilitarianism B religious difference B cadavers B Bioethics B Organ Transplantation B Altruism B Cartesianism B autopsies B Buddhism B Agape B determination of death B Harvard Medical School B Confucianism B medical miracles |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This essay argues that Japan's resistance to the practice of transplanting organs from persons deemed “brain dead” may not be the result, as some claim, of that society's religions being not yet sufficiently expressive of love and altruism. The violence to the body necessary for the excision of transplantable organs seems to have been made acceptable to American Christians at a unique historical “window of opportunity” for acceptance of that new form of medical technology. Traditional reserve about corpse mutilation had weakened and, especially as presented by the theologian Joseph Fletcher, organ donation was touted as both expressive of agape and a way of “updating” Christianity via the ethics of Utilitarianism. Many Japanese, largely Buddhist and Confucian in their orientation, view these changed valorizations as neither necessary nor patently more ethical than those of their own traditions. |
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| ISSN: | 1467-9744 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Zygon
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/1467-9744.00441 |