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Bioethics and environmental ethics have been largely separated, in principle. However, the two types of ethics do overlap when dealing with significant issues such as human embryos, animal experimentation, and responsibility to future generations. In this paper, the possibility of synthesizing these two ethics through the concept of care is considered. Accordingly, the range of the object of the concept of care is similarly broadened. Moreover, after considering the serious defects of care-based theory, a care-based position, which regards human rights or their substitute as a complement to care, is advanced. This position can be said to be a Japanese approach to bioethics.

In order to design a Japanese approach to bioethics, it would be necessary to reflect on the history of bioethics in Japan. There are three major historic periods of bioethics in Japan. In the first period, medical law research in Japan started as early as bioethics research in the United States. In the second period (1980–1990) bioethics in Japan developed both its institutional structure and research production. Bioethical research by ethicists and philosophers was also launched in full swing. The third period (1990 to the present) can be characterized as highlighting genetics research and bioethical policies.

Natural selection is the mechanism of evolution originally proposed by Charles Darwin. This process is driven by mutation and death. Therefore, “individual death” is a critical event for evolution of species. Analogous to the significance of individual death in species evolution, recent biological observations have revealed that “cell death” is an important event for maintenance of individuals and offspring. Cell death is caused not only by injuries and pathological conditions, but also by programed intracellular signals. This type of programed cell death is called “apoptosis.” Apoptosis signals are regulated in mitochondria, eukaryotic organelles of symbiotic origin, and play a critical role in survival of individuals by eliminating some cells.

Care for the elderly is the most pressing problem now facing Japan. For maintaining a long and healthy life, it is important to refine the self-care of people and to create a well-balanced system of support involving health care, welfare, nursing care, and medical treatment. Mutual support within each local community is also indispensable for restructuring care-minding areas. Due attention should also be paid to the ethical aspects concerning care of the elderly. This chapter attempts to reflect on the brief history of the care for the elderly in Japan.

Minamata disease was first officially recognized in May 1956. Its earliest victims were small children. Environmental contamination most rapidly and seriously affected the physiologically weak among the residents. However, the outbreak of the disease in humans was preceded by abnormalities in the natural environment such as massive death of fish and shellfish, and the abnormal behavior and death of cats. It used to be considered that poisoning was caused by direct exposure to a toxic substance, and that toxic substances did not pass the placenta. Minamata disease is an indirect poisoning by methyl mercury through the food chain as a result of environmental contamination, and is the first known disease to cause abnomalities in the fetus due to a toxic agent passing through the placenta. Minamata disease, therefore, had implications in various fields. Namely it also stirred up legal, ethical, and eugenic arguments concerning fetal protection. This report reviews the course of Minamata disease, and evaluates its impacts. “Minamata Studies” has three intellectual and scientific missions to change the social systems that caused the disease; to pursue environmental justice; and to explore the possibility of an environment that permits coexistence not only of all humans, but of all living things.

Health professionals are in an ethical dilemma. The patients should be assumed as competent. Involuntary treatment is a violation of human rights. Therefore incompetent patients should be protected. However, one cannot determine a patient's incompetency without testing him/her, which is a violation of the assumption of competency. Thus, we propose two different types of uses for competency tests. One is to measure the appropriateness of information disclosed,but with a poor test result the information should be repeated. Another is to measure the competency of the patients when making major decisions. A poor test result will be followed by the designation of a proxy so that incompetent patients can be protected.

This paper focuses on the citizens’ movement for promoting shizensou that has arisen since the early 1990s in Japan. It ascertains the social backgrounds of the movement, which originally began as an attempt to preserve nature, and the proponents’ view of the next world and their views on nature. This analysis includes social factors such as demographic trends toward the nuclear family. Furthermore, based on written newsletter reports on shizensou, this paper will examine views of the next world, and indicate that their views are animistic. Finally, I will argue that present-day shizensou is a revitalization of the custom of scattering of the ashes, which was performed in ancient Japan, but it also involved other new elements.