Symposium :
"Death and Life Studies and Applied Ethics", 2nd section
"End of Life and the View of Death and Life
      ------ New Forms of Death, Unchanging Forms of Death"

June 21, 2003   14:00-18:00 at the Main Hall of Faculty of Medicine, The University of Tokyo Co-sponsored : The Program of Applied Ethics Studies

Section 2 was held at the large auditorium of the medical school. Overwhelming amount of audience came to this symposium, as the available three hundred seats were immediately filled, and the five hundred and fifty copies of papers were also soon gone. By the time the symposium began, some of the audience was sitting on the stairways and the floor of the auditorium. After a brief opening statement by Inagami Takeshi, the head of the faculty of letters, five panelists discussed and presented their ideas and opinions on the issues of "forms of death" with moderation by Professor Seiichi Takeuchi .

Professor Yoshihiko Komatsu discussed the limiting effect of medical intervention in cased of individual death, while a writer Randy Taguchi focused her talk on those who feel "left out" by the society that holds working as the normative. Doctor Yuriko Nakagami talked on how to achieve and secure death that "reflects the individual personhood" in clinical medicine. Professor Toru Nishigaki considered the view that holds life as a mechanism that overcomes the limits of scientific world view, while Professor Kiyokazu Washida 's talk insisted upon the significance of the "unchanging" form of death that views death as a phenomena that takes place in interpersonal space.

After the presentations, Professor Takeuchi re-articulated the issues brought forward by the panelists and accepted questions from the audience. The lively discussions continued in a friendly and vigorous atmosphere.