(Received 17 August 1990, accepted 1 November 1990)

    The objective of this paper is to contribute to the international discussions on life and scientific technology by examining the images and concepts of life in contemporary Japan. In English the word Inochi can be rendered as "life". However, the nuances of the Japanese term differ in certain cases, and therefore I have chosen to use the term much as is. I first discuss the linguistic meanings of the word, and then consider several important features of the images of inochi that have appeared in publications and responses from questionnaires on this topic. Some philosophical and metaphysical interpretations of the concept of inochi are then proposed. Finally a brief outline of the study of life is presented, suggesting a new way to approach bioethics and discussions on environmental issues.

Keywords: LIFE, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, MODERN CIVILIZATION, NATURE, JAPANESE THOUGHT, BUDDHISM, CONFUCIANISM, BIOETHICS, ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS, HUMAN ECOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION.

    Modern civilization is characterized by industrialization and advanced scientific technology. It has developed through this century, and as a result, it has brought us great benefits and conveniences. However it is also true that it has caused a number of problems and crises concerning our attitudes toward life and the environment.
    Today we face, on the one hand, global environmental issues such as the destruction of the ozone layer, and on the other hand, ethical problems arising from medical technology such as those associated with freezing early human embryos that are only a few cells. We should regard these problems as a set of interconnected ethical-social issues, because all these matters have been caused by the fundamental invasion of scientific technology into the realm of ‘life’ on this planet.
    I have elsewhere advocated ‘the study of life’ as a comprehensive approach to all the problems arising from our attitudes toward life, the life of humans and of all other living creatures (1). From the viewpoint of the study of life, a number of ethical and social problems of our age can be discussed at the same time in the same way.
    For example, environmental pollution caused by chemical factories, clearly apparent to Japanese people in the 1960’s (in the Minamata and other cases), was one of the first instances which indicated that the conduct of modern scientific and industrial civilization had done structural harm to human life and local ecosystems. The growing global environmental crisis became more apparent [83/84] through the 1970’s and 80’s, and has become one of the most important international political issues in the 1990’s. The main cause of the environmental crisis lies in the fact that the industrialized nations have underestimated the interrelatedness of our life and biosphere on this planet when making plans for their own industrialization and development (2). All forms of life on the earth, including humans and non-human organisms, constitute complicated and interrelated networks. Interrelatedness of this kind is one of the essential features of the images and concept of life (inochi) as we shall discuss later in this paper.
    Let us consider the ethical issues arising from contemporary gene technology. Today we can easily cut and paste portions of the DNA sequence of organisms, including human beings, and then modify the genome of any organism using recombinant DNA techniques. The technology of genetic engineering has become the basic method for biological research in universities and corporations throughout the world. However, many ordinary people may remain unconvinced of the technology which might lead us to play the role of God. The inclination of scientific technology that seeks to deal with parts of a living creature as if they were parts of mere inorganic matter has made ordinary people hesitant to fully accept this technology. In other words, at the basis of these feelings, there are doubts about scientific technology in which life is considered to be merely like a mechanical clock. For people who have an organic or holistic view of the universe (3), life is a kind of self-organized system, which is born from the network of life, grows in relationships with other creatures, transforms its body and shape, gives birth to other life, and finally goes on to die. However, gene technology deals with DNA, the most fundamental part of a living cell, as if it were only part of an automobile or a bicycle. It is said that the principle of this technology was originally invented and developed in order to control the inorganic side of an object. This shows that one of the important ethical problems concerning biotechnology emerges between and organic-holistic view of life and mechanistic approaches in gene technology.
    When scientific technology is applied to human life it can raise many other serious ethical and social problems. For example, we can fertilize ova and sperms in vitro outside the body (IVF), and then freeze surplus embryos, storing them for subsequent medical procedures for an infertile couple. Moreover, in many countries, we can scrap surplus embryos or use them for scientific and medical research within 14 days after fertilization. (In Britain embryos can be specifically made for research.) We can also inspect the DNA sequence and other important factors of embryos at their early stage, and destroy them if a serious defect is discovered. A fertilized embryo, even if it is frozen, has the potential to become a human person. However, that possibility disappears when we scrap [84/85] or make experimental use of it. How should we then evaluate the life of a human being who was conceived only to be a subject for medical research? Don’t we have to respect human life when it is at the very early stage (4)? Isn’t it just like playing the role of God (or the Devil) to perform the ‘selective disposal’ of defective embryos (5)? Here we encounter a collision between the nature of scientific technology and one of our basic traditional norms: ‘respect for life’ (6).
    A number of ethical, social and religious problems have arisen simultaneously between life and scientific technology late in this century. These problems have been studied separately in several disciplines, such as bioethics, human ecology, medical anthropology, the philosophy and sociology of science, environmental ethics, and so on. However, I believe all these problems concerning life and scientific technology should be dealt with simultaneously and comprehensively in the same field, that is the study of life, because they share a fundamental background and several important questions, and because they are inseparably interconnected with each other.
    Through the comprehensive study of life, we will be able to fundamentally criticize modern civilization which has been guided by science and technology. And we will also be able to seek new relationships between life and scientific technology which will never produce as many problems as they have in this century.
 

MEANINGS OF INOCHI IN MODERN JAPANESE

    Before investigating the relationship between life and scientific technology, we first have to clarify what life is. However, this has been one of the most difficult questions humans have encountered, and no universally acceptable definite answer has appeared since the dawn of civilizations. Many religions have made clear the concept of life [85/86] within its own paradigm, and philosophers and biologists have defined it in their own ways. These definitions sometimes contradict each other. What is more important, traditional religious beliefs have not provided a world view powerful enough to elucidate the essence of today’s situations surrounding life. They have yet to explain, for example, the nature of industrialization and its effects on life; the meaning of the advanced nations’ affluent human life which has been brought about through the development of science, industry and imperialism; the historical meaning of global environmental crises in this century, and so on (7), (8).
    What we have to do now is to seek a contemporary understanding of life which describes these situations broadly, can appreciate the fundamental significance of life, and will be accepted by a number of people with different cultures and religions.
    As the first step toward this understanding, I have investigated images of life among modern Japanese people by using open questionnaires. In this paper, I will report on some of the main features of the images of life that appeared in the questionnaires and also in publications on life, and then advocate philosophical interpretations of the concept of life. There are few academic publications which deal with the concept of life (inochi) among modern Japanese. For example, Nakamura (1987) analyses the concepts of life, but mainly those which appeared in ancient Asian thoughts. The objective of this paper is to contribute to world-wide discussions on life and scientific technology by examining the images and concepts of life in contemporary Japan.
    In modern Japanese there are two words, inochi and seimei, which are equivalent to the English word ‘life’. The word inochi (9) (pronounced ‘ee-know-chee’) is commonly used among ordinary Japanese when they refer to everyday phenomena concerning life, death, and nature, while the word seimei (10) does not enjoy such a wide use. Seimei is an academic word mainly used in the fields of biology, medicine, philosophy, and law. Historically speaking, the word seimei was rediscovered from old usages when [86/87] translating the European words ‘life’, ‘vie’ and ‘Leben’ in the Meiji era (19thcentury), and Japanese have accepted it as an academic and/or scientific term. The word inochi has a much longer history than seimei. This word is found in ancient literature such as the Man’yoshu and Kojiki (8th century). Inochi has become established as one of the most popular words in Japanese. Today even a primary school student knows the word inochi, but he/she doesn’t necessarily know the word seimei. Hence, when studying the images of life in contemporary Japan, it is the images of inochi that should be researched.
    Inochi in modern Japanese has three linguistic origins, namely, Chinese, Buddhism, and ancient Japanese. Ming (11) in ancient Chinese corresponds to inochi. The original meaning of ming is to order someone to do something. The well known phrase tian ming (12) (man’s destiny determined by the transcendent being) is a derivation from this meaning. The ancient connotations of ming include ‘destiny’, ‘lifespan’ and ‘one’s nature’ which are determined in advance by the transcendent being.
    The ming which appeared in Buddhist sutras written in Chinese characters has one other meaning: the energy or power of living. In fact, we can find in some sutras words that contain ming which stand for the principle or power that makes something alive from behind that being (13).
    Inochi in ancient Japanese has meanings such as ‘lifespan’ and ‘the power of living’, because it had already been influenced by the meanings of ming imported from the Korean peninsula and China. The word inochi is considered to be made up of i and chi. The former stands for ‘breath’, and the latter stands for ‘inside’ or ‘dynamic energy’. Hence, inochi in ancient Japanese has, in addition to the above, the meaning of the dynamic energy of living in breath, which is equivalent to anima in Latin or psyche in ancient Greek, which is also a derivative of breath.
    In modern Japanese, inochi basically has four meanings. The first meaning is the mysterious power or energy that keeps creatures and humans alive. For example, there are such expressions as ‘wash one’s inochi’ (14), which means the recovery of power that keeps us alive; ‘at the height of inochi’ (15), which means the peak of a creature’s life; and ‘burn up one’s inochi’ (16), which means to burn up one’s energy of living (and die). There is also the expression ‘to take over inochi from one’s ancestors’. This phrase means the succession of the dynamic power of living from generation to generation, rather than the succession of a living state. These meanings have a close relationship to the meaning of inochi as the energy of breath. On the one hand, breath makes an individual creature alive inside its body, but on the other hand, breath flows out of [87/88] an individual and then slips into another individual’s body. In this way, inochi, in the form of breath, incessantly interconnects all living creatures on the earth synchronically and diachronically.
    The second meaning of inochi points to the period between birth and death, or the state of being alive. There are some expressions which stand for dying such as ‘inochi ends’, ‘lose one’s inochi’, and ‘drop one’s inochi’ (17). There are other interesting expressions such as ‘inochi shrinks’ (18), which means to encounter a danger; ‘one’s inochi is short’ (19), which means that there remains a short time until one’s death; ‘deposit one’s inochi with somebody’ (20), which means to leave one’s destiny under somebody’s control; and ‘pick up one’s inochi’ (21), which means to escape death accidentally. There are many more expressions that fall under this category in modern Japanese. At the root of all of these expressions there is an understanding that inochi is limited in time and space. In other words, inochi has its beginning and end, and thus an ‘inochi being (inochi arumono)’ must die sooner or later; at the same time, one’s inochi is completely different from another inochi in its existence and its death. Therefore, one can never die with another, only die one’s own death. The first meaning of life energy and the second of being alive seem to contradict each other. We shall discuss this point further later on.
    The third meaning is ‘the most essential part’ of an object. For example, ‘to take away something’s inochi’(22) does not mean to kill it, but to take away its most important and essential quality – that is, for example, the function of bodily movement in a dancer, or the beautiful song of a canary. This word is sometimes applied to non-living things, such as ‘the inochi of a doll’ (23).
    The last meaning of inochi is eternal life. The phrase ‘eternal inochi’ is to be found in religious materials written in Japanese. For example, Christianity in Japan preaches that we obtain eternal inochi through belief in God, and the Jodo sects of Buddhism preach that we obtain eternal inochi in Sukhavati (Jodo, the pure Land) in the next world (24).
    There is a great variety of usages for the word inochi in modern Japanese, but these are basically variations on a theme which can be classified under one of the four categories mentioned above.
 

IMAGES OF INOCHI AMONG CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE
—an introduction to data acquired from questionnaires—

    We have made clear the linguistic meanings of inochi in modern Japanese in the previous section. Here we turn our attention to images of inochi among contemporary Japanese. [88/89]
    By the term ‘images of inochi’ I mean a set of images, impressions, feelings, representations, notions, ideas, and thoughts which are held in relation to the word inochi. Although it is virtually impossible to investigate the images of inochi of all Japanese people, an investigation of the diversity and patterns of the images of inochi through open questionnaires and interviews hold great significance for our initial research on the topic.
    I have conducted surveys using open questionnaires, since 1989, in order to grasp the images of inochi held amongst ordinary Japanese (25). Here I present some of the representative replies and suggest the core images of inochi to be found among them.
    The only question in the questionnaires is: Will you please express freely, in sentences and/or pictures, the images which come to mind when you hear the word inochi, and/or any ideas you have on inochi (26).
    The replies are diverse and demonstrate extraordinary imagination. I would like to be able to present all the interesting replies, but unfortunately it is impossible in this paper.
    For example, this is from a student nurse in Tokyo.