Takeshi Umehara's argument is wrong

I didn’t emphasize cultural differences in bioethics in the above books, but Takeshi Umehara, a well-known critic, criticized the Western way of thinking lurking behind the concept of brain death in his provocative article, “Opposition to the Idea of Brain Death: A Philosopher’s Point of View,” published in 1990. Umehara stated that the idea of brain death and transplantation goes back to Rene Descartes’ dualism of mind and body, and that Japanese culture is [181/182] based on a kind of animism which tells us that all beings in the world, including animals, trees, and mountains, have souls. He writes as follows:

My view, based upon the studies of the council and upon my own disposition as a philosopher, is that the haughty “brain death theory” of Western science that derives from Descartes’ separation of mind and matter ignores the awe of life and must be rejected. (…) Those who have no doubts about defining death as “brain death” have simply succumbed to the power of science and technology that has enabled the human race to build upon modern civilization and dominate all other life (Umehara 1994: 190).

Umehara’s argument is based on the Japan/West dichotomy, a modified version of the East/West dichotomy, which is prevalent among ordinary people and scholars in Japan. This dichotomy tells us that Japan (or the East) is essentially different from (or sometimes even superior to) the West. For instance, Umehara concluded in the above paper that Japanese Buddhism influenced by animism is superior in nature to the Western Cartesian philosophy that created modern science and technology.

There had already been some articles and essays that contained this dichotomy in the 1980s. Umehara summed up this line of thought in his paper. I have thoroughly criticized his argument elsewhere (Morioka 1994); hence, I would like to point out just one thing here. According to opinion surveys 40-50 per cent of Japanese think of brain death as human death. Opposition to brain death is 20-40 per cent, lower than those who agree to the idea. Umehara fails to explain why the majority of the Japanese, being deeply influenced by animistic Buddhism, are in favor of brain death. From this perspective alone, Umehara’s dichotomy seems to be very problematic. [182/183]


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Cross-cultural Approaches to the Philosophy of Life in the Contemporary World
(2004)
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