Voluntary Death in Japan - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Voluntary Death in Japan write by Maurice Pinguet. This book was released on 1993-06-14. Voluntary Death in Japan available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. For most Western observers, the Japanese practice of voluntary death, whether the self-inflicted sword-stroke of a warrior or the simultaneous suicide of lovers, is shocking and difficult to understand. The practice of voluntary death is deeply alien to Western Culture and to the Christian view that God alone is entrusted with power over life and death. In Japan, however,a tradition of voluntary death has existed for more than a millenium. The suicides of samurai warriors, of kamikaze fighter pilots, of artists and lovers are part of a tradition which stretches back over many centuries and which expresses a distinctive way of relating to death. In this profound and sensitive study, Maurice Pinguet carefully reconstructs this tradition of voluntary death and relates it to other aspects of Japanese culture and society. He shows that, in early Japanese myths and legends, acts of self-immolation were often exalted as an ideal. A self-effacing suicide was viewed as an ethical act: a way of restoring order in a world disrupted by conflict or marred by failure. Pinguet examines in detail the customs and elaborate rituals which surrounded the practice of voluntary death in different times and among different groups, from the seppuka practised by warriors in the thirteenth century to the suicide of Mishima in the twentieth. The result is a brilliant and absorbing analysis of Japanese culture and society - an analysis which, by focusing on a practice that is radically different from our own, tells us something about Western civilization as well.
Suicide in Twentieth-Century Japan
Suicide in Twentieth-Century Japan - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Suicide in Twentieth-Century Japan write by Francesca Di Marco. This book was released on 2016-01-29. Suicide in Twentieth-Century Japan available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Japan’s suicide phenomenon has fascinated both the media and academics, although many questions and paradoxes embedded in the debate on suicide have remained unaddressed in the existing literature, including the assumption that Japan is a "Suicide Nation". This tendency causes common misconceptions about the suicide phenomenon and its features. Aiming to redress the situation, this book explores how the idea of suicide in Japan was shaped, reinterpreted and reinvented from the 1900s to the 1980s. Providing a timely contribution to the underexplored history of suicide, it also adds to the current heated debates on the contemporary way we organize our thoughts on life and death, health and wealth, on the value of the individual, and on gender. The book explores the genealogy and development of modern suicide in Japan by examining the ways in which beliefs about the nation’s character, historical views of suicide, and the cultural legitimation of voluntary death acted to influence even the scientific conceptualization of suicide in Japan. It thus unveils the way in which the language on suicide was transformed throughout the century according to the fluctuating relationship between suicide and the discourse on national identity, and pathological and cultural narratives. In doing so, it proposes a new path to understanding the norms and mechanisms of the process of the conceptualization of suicide itself. Filling in a critical gap in three particular fields of historical study: the history of suicide, the history of death, and the cultural history of twentieth century Japan, it will be of great interest to students and scholars of Japanese Studies and Japanese History.
Bioethics Across the Globe
Bioethics Across the Globe - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Bioethics Across the Globe write by Akira Akabayashi. This book was released on 2020-05-19. Bioethics Across the Globe available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This open access book addresses a variety of issues relating to bioethics, in order to initiate cross-cultural dialogue. Beginning with the history, it introduces various views on bioethics, based on specific experiences from Japan. It describes how Japan has been confronted with Western bioethics and the ethical issues new to this modern age, and how it has found its foothold as it decides where it stands on these issues. In the last chapter, the author proposes discarding the overarching term ‘Global Bioethics’ in favor of the new term, ‘Bioethics Across the Globe (BAG)’, which carries a more universal connotation. This book serves as an excellent tool to help readers understand a different culture and to initiate deep and genuine global dialogue that incorporates local and global thinking on bioethics. Bioethics Across the Globe is a valuable resource for researchers in the field of bioethics/medical ethics interested in adopting cross-cultural approaches, as well as graduate and undergraduate students of healthcare and philosophy.
Euthanasia and Other Medical Decisions Concerning the End of Life
Euthanasia and Other Medical Decisions Concerning the End of Life - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Euthanasia and Other Medical Decisions Concerning the End of Life write by P. J. van der Maas. This book was released on 1992. Euthanasia and Other Medical Decisions Concerning the End of Life available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
Euthanasia, Ethics and Public Policy
Euthanasia, Ethics and Public Policy - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Euthanasia, Ethics and Public Policy write by John Keown. This book was released on 2002-04-25. Euthanasia, Ethics and Public Policy available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Whether the law should permit voluntary euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide is one of the most vital questions facing all modern societies. Internationally, the main obstacle to legalisation has proved to be the objection that, even if they were morally acceptable in certain 'hard cases', voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide could not be effectively controlled; society would slide down a 'slippery slope' to the killing of patients who did not make a free and informed request, or for whom palliative care would have offered an alternative. How cogent is this objection? This book provides the general reader (who need have no expertise in philosophy, law or medicine) with a lucid introduction to this central question in the debate, not least by reviewing the Dutch euthanasia experience. It will interest all in any country whether currently for or against legalisation, who wish to ensure that their opinions are better informed.
