As it is clear from the first article of the Japanese "Care Insurance Law (1997)", the concept of dignity plays a central role within the social insurance systems of Japan. But the concept of dignity in Japan is not clearly determined, and also in the West this concept will be discussed again and reexamined deeply in recent years. Especially the care insurance system of Japan would come to a crisis as a whole in such a situation and become unstable and unsustainable in some cases. At the present time the shrinking of the Japanese society already began because of the declining birthrate and high aging. Further great many baby boomers, that are characterized by a high awareness of their pluralistic values and their own rights, become high aging from now in the long run and the elderly affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake have been placed in a very difficult condition now. If one considers such social problems seriously, so the social insurance system of Japan should be reformed deeply. Historically this system was introduced into Japan following the German concept of the social insurance system. We will take this historical fact into well account in our research project and then promote our research in cooperation with a German research group from the transcultural perspective. 
     Hence our research theme is defined as the following: in the first place we determine the new and flexible concept of "dignity of the elderly (including persons with dementia)" definitely, which is well adaptable to the specific conditions of the elderly and also is best based on the pluralistic concept of values on an analysis and comparison of these present conditions in Japan and Germany from the transcultural perspective. And then we clarify a new model of the social care system as a part of the welfare society, which enables their own dignified lives of the elderly (including persons with dementia) with regional and cultural characteristics on the basis of a new model of consensus corresponding to the diverse needs of the elderly. 

The purpose of the project has been (1) to carry out a cross-cultural comparative study of the dignity of elderly people (including dementia patients) within present-day geriatric care and (2) to explore new possibilities of welfare society based on the results of the study. With generous support mainly from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, our research group has been engaged in research related to the concept of dignity in the West. We have been successful in establishing close ties with foreign, particularly German scholars, and we have thus especially focused on analyzing the discussions on the concept of dignity in Germany. Our research has revealed that 1) the German conception of “dignity” differs from that in Britain and the United States; while in Germany “dignity” means an absolute and objective value, in the Anglo-Saxon context it is a relative and subjective value. By contrast, 2) the definition of dignity in Japan is imprecise and unclear. On the other hand, however, 3) the homepage of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare makes use of the new term “dignity of the elderly”, a category that does not yet exist in the Western context. This has attracted the interest and been taken up as a research topic by our colleagues in Germany. In order to complete and complement the research so far, as it has been supported by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (Kakenhi), we have thus conceived a research theme that especially focuses on problem (3) for our application.
Although the concept of dignity plays a central role in the Japanese “Public Nursing Care Insurance Law”, its conceptual definition is not entirely clear. In particular, the conception of “dignity of elderly people” remains undefined. As the current situation risks to make the Japanese care system intransparent and insecure, the research aims (a) to theoretically define “dignity of elderly people” while considering and comparing the factual circumstances of geriatric care in both the Japanese and German context, and (b) to establish a theoretical basis for the formation of a care system that guarantees dignified living circumstances of elderly people.
Within the frame-work of our project, we have conducted research by regularly holding conferences and workshops and inviting scholars from Japan and abroad who are conducting research related to the project’s theme, -- including German and Japanese scholars from our research group --, to present and discuss the results of their work and thereby offer new perspectives on our topic. Theoretical and representational analyses took up a variety of classical and contemporary philosophical writings and literary works, but within the philosophical tradition, it is Kant’s work that has been found to be of particular significance. Empirical research on nursing care sites in Japan and Germany have mainly been conducted by German sociologists, but we have examined their results by comparing them with Japanese research in the field.
Since we have found it possible to establish the concept of dignity as absolute value by theoretically relying on Kant’s theory of value, we are now preparing to publish a collection of articles adopting this theoretical framework with a German publisher (a conference was held at Hitotsubashi University in July for this purpose). Publication is scheduled for 2018. In addition, a collection of papers, including research papers previously presented at some of our workshops as well several newly written articles, will be published with a university press in Japan in November this year. Both collections provide basic theoretical expositions which are crucial for thinking about “dignity of elderly people”. They are primarily intended for scholars and specialists. However, we are presently also negotiating and planning public lectures and courses for interested citizens which would take a more accessible form, so that our research results may reach a wider audience.