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The Implications of Apology: Law and Culture in Japan and the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2024

Hiroshi Wagatsuma  and
Arthur Rosett
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Abstract

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The significance of apology after serious injury depends on social and cultural factors that appear to be understood differently in Japan and America. As a consequence, what is considered a sincere apology is not the same in the two societies. Moreover, the role of an apology as an ingredient in the formal resolution of legal disputes diverges. Salient legal aspects of apology are discussed, along with the possibilities that an apology may be a defense to a claim, that it may be an admission of another's claim, and that an apology may be a legal remedy for injury. The role in Japan of the formal letter of apology, shimatsusho, is described. It is suggested that apology may be an underdeveloped aspect of dispute resolution in America. There are some injuries when an apology alone surely is inadequate compensation, but there are other injuries when traditional common law remedies are unsatisfactory and an apology may be a crucial element in the recognition and restoration of human relationship.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , 1986 , pp. 461 - 498
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

This essay was one outgrowth of the authors' joint teaching and research between 1978 and 1985 (see also Wagatsuma and Rosett, 1983). A first draft was written by Professor Wagatsuma during his last illness on the basis of our research and discussion over several years. It has been revised to its present form by Professor Rosett.

As this and our other joint publication demonstrate, our work together often took the form of spirited debate. Readers will observe, therefore, that similar points may be approached from more than one angle. To suppress these disconnections would at least understate the cultural dissonance inherent in a joint study by an American and a Japanese and at worst demonstrate a crude form of intellectual imperialism.

My grief at losing a delightful and invaluable teacher, friend, and coworker is very great. My loss is aggravated by the fear that, in clumsily completing my friend's part of our work, I have distorted his views. I wish he were here to set me straight.

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