Symposium :
"Death and Life Studies and Applied Ethics", 1st section
"Beginning of Life and the View of Death and Life"

June 6-7, 2003 Co-sponsored : The Program of Applied Ethics Studies

This symposium was held on the sixth, seventh, and twenty-first of June, 2003 co-sponsored by the Applied Ethics Education program. The symposium consisted of two major sections---- Section 1, "Beginning of Life and the View of Death and Life" took place on June sixth and seventh, and included lectures, presentations and discussions in the round-table format and Section 2, "End of Life and the View of Death and Life" with a subheading, "New forms of death, the unchanging forms of death" held on the twenty-first of June in a more general format of symposium.

The content of the first section, including the discussions, has been published in the Journal of Death and Life Studies. vol.2. and the contents of the second has been published in the Journal of Death and Life Studies, booklet edition.

Section 1 took place at the Lecture Hall 1 and faculty lounge at the faculty of letters on the sixth and seventh of June, filled with passionate discussions and interchanges of ideas. The first day started with two public lectures by Professor Julian Savulescu and Professor Anthony Hope, both of the Oxford University. The topic of the lectures was "the beginning of life" and touched upon issues of bioethics and medical issues. Professor Akira Akabayashi from the Medical School of the University of Tokyo was the moderator.

The discussions and questions included vigorous exchanges on the issues that include subtle and significant issues such as concepts of personality and human embryo research.

The second day featured presentations by scholars who have been pursuing issues related to the beginning of life, and discussions based on the presentations. Participants included scholars from abroad.

Professor Miho Ogino demonstrated that in relation to the issues concerning the beginning of life, a new feminist logic and framework needed to be constructed. Professor Hideyuki Yahata and Professor Shinya Tateiwa , both of whom have been working with handicapped people, provided insightful observations that considers prenatal diagnosis. Presentations by Professor Susumu Shimazono and Professor Akira Deguchi suggested that considerations and researches on varied views of death and life may be pivotal to cross over and move beyond the conventional frameworks for discussing issues regarding the beginnings of life.

Professor Hillel Levine, Professor Tetsuro Shimizu , Professor Sumihiko Kumano , and Professor Helen Hardacre re-articulated the issues that surfaced in the discussions. At the reception, Professor Nobutaka Hirokawa , the chair of the Medical School spoke on the significance of the communication and dialogue between the field of medicine and humanities.