Commentary

- Masahiro Morioka

International Research Center for Japanese Studies 3-2 Oeyama-cho, Goryo, Nishikyo-ku, Kyoto 610-11, JAPAN


Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 5 (1995), 61-62.

Byk writes "a good policy maker, like a good pilot, should also see the submerged part of the iceberg, which is the most important one." I agree with him on this point, and appreciate his three pillars of biomedical legislative wisdom, namely, Awareness, Assesment, and Decision Making.

However I wonder if it is really possible for us to see the real image of the submerged part of the iceberg, which is completely hidden before our eyes. For example, Byk pointed out two controversial facts: transplantation of pig and baboon livers into terminally ill persons, and cases where women with severe brain damage have been kept alive mechanically to continue their pregnancies. I believe these cases point to what is hidden under the submerged part of the iceberg of our modern scientific civilization, but none of us has probably succeeded seeing through the iceberg and grasping this core image of the deep structure of our modern civilization - that may lead all of us to a catastrophic dead end. Short term cost-benifit anlysis will never show us the long term degradation of our scientific civilization. We need a new way of assessment and decision making.


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