Ethics in science and society: German and Japanese views

In the social sciences there is a discernible trend towards emphasizing the ethical dimension in the analysis of society, or adding one where it had been absent in discussions of the past. Such analyses can be further enhanced by a comparative view. As such, the German Association for Social Science Research on Japan (VSJF) decided to focus on “ethics” as the general theme for its annual conference in 2011. This volume contains selected papers from the conference, which cover a wide range of ethical issues in science and society. Fields like robotics and bioethics, as well as education, civil society and ethical consumption are considered. The regional perspective goes beyond Japan in some of the contributions to include examples from Germany and China.