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Department of Medical Philosophy and Ethics
1. Our Basic Orientation
Very easy is it, even for a high school student, to hold and mention some opinions about bio-medical ethics issues andto write essays down in a pseudo-academic style. Producing such self-proclaimed bioethicists is out of our missions.This department is the first and only one lab in Japan, with “medical philosophy” in its official name. We do hate arough-and ready approach to medical ethics. We are rather developing our speculative and reflective abilities as wellas literary sensitivities and imagination, through close reading of, if eastern or western, classical or modern, texts onnot only theoretical and practical philosophy, but other human and social sciences in addition to literary works.
We have been awarded Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research on the following subjects: “Modern romantichermeneutics as the basis of hermeneutical clinical ethics”(2016-20, 42,5000USD); ”Establishment and evaluation ofthe hermeneutic approach to clinical ethics education” (2013-16, 35,000USD); “Elementary doctrines andmethodology of clinical ethics” (2011-13, 35,000USD); “Ethical problems about interventions in the field of infectiousdiseases” (2012-14, 25,000USD); “Methodology of clinical ethics” (2008-10, 28,000USD); “Ethical problems aboutautonomy and paternalism in preventive medicine” (2005-7, 30,000USD). Also one Health-and-Labour-SciencesResearch Grant: “Effective and ethically desirable strategy for HIV infection prevention among vulnerable” (2008-10,192,500USD).
The collaborative relationships with Prof. Daniel Tsai (National Taiwan University), Prof. Ivo Kwon (Ewha WomansUniversity, Korea), Prof. G. Widdershoven (Free University, Amsterdam), and Prof. J. Kole (Radboud University,Nijmegen) have been broadening our perspectives and activities.
2. Research Topic
You can choose and tackle any particular research topics of your own accord. You are not expected to take over anyportion of the other members’ or staffs’ research projects. Though the teaching staffs would be pleased to help youracademic endeavors by constructive discussion, reading club and the like, they will decline to be co-authors of youroriginal papers, as is usual in the fields of human and social sciences. Your autonomy should be duly respected and youshould be one and only responsible author of your own papers.
3. Application Requirements
You are challenged to improve your reading comprehension level through our rather hard training at weeklyreading clubs. We read Levinas’ Time and Others (2011), Kant’s Critique of Judgment and Dilthey’s ComparativePsychology(2012), Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and Habermas’ Post-metaphysical Thinking (2013), Hegel’sPhenomenology of Mind and Jacobs’s Dimensions of Moral Theory (2014-).
4. Actual Current Situations
One graduate student earned her PhD degree (2013). One is enrolled in doctoral, one master program.
5. Contact
Our lab is located on the 4th floor of the Common Building at the Showa Campus.
medphilosophie@gmail.com or hattorik@gunma-u.ac.jp (Prof. HATTORI Kenji, MD DMedSc MA)