Japanese Perspectives
In the early years of the twenty-first century ethical concerns related to scientific and technological developments are receiving a great deal of attention in Japan. A focus on globalization has resulted in a renewed concern with the impact of traditional values on technology, as well as in the adaptation of some western perspectives on ethical issues. Currently evolving discussions, in areas ranging from bioethics to nuclear power, make an excellent case study of how a society's ethical considerations both arise out of a given historical context and interact with a wider global context.
Japan is an ancient nation of 127 million people (2003) living mostly on four mountainous islands in the Northern Pacific off the coast of Asia. Records of inhabitance date back to the early centuries of the Common Era. After a long history of isolation followed by tentative openings, during the period of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603–1868), Japan almost totally closed itself off from the outside world and consequently also from the influences of Western scientific and technological developments. It even successfully abolished the production and use of firearms, thus becoming one of the few examples where a more advanced technology, after having been widely utilized, was suppressed for an extended period of time.
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