Cultural scripts for a good death in Japan and the United States: similarities and differences.

Japan and the United States are both post-industrial societies, characterised by distinct trajectories of dying. Both contain multiple "cultural scripts" of the good death. Seale (Constructing Death: the Sociology of Dying and Bereavement, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998) has identified at least four "cultural scripts", or ways to die well, that are found in contemporary anglophone countries: modern medicine, revivalism, an anti-revivalist script and a religious script.

Life is more than a survey: understanding attitudes toward euthanasia in Japan.

Empirical studies in bioethics, as well as clinical experience, demonstrate the existence of inter- and intra-cultural diversity in values and perspectives on end-of-life issues. This paper argues that while survey research can describe such diversity, explaining it requires ethnographic methodology that allows ordinary people to frame the discussion in their own terms. This study of attitudes toward euthanasia in Japan found that people face conflicts between deeply held values such as life versus pain, self versus other, and burden versus self-reliance that make it difficult to rely on a "rational person" approach to decision-making.