I've discussed that question a bit here, but to summarise: there was absolutely a voice within Japan that called for occupying Southeast Asia without attacking the United States, but such a move was politically impossible within Japan, due to the Navy's desire to turn the Army's desired Southern Operation to its advantage.

The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) had spent much of its existence fighting the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) for standing within Japan, first as a co-equal branch of the military, and--later on--for shares of resources. The IJN had--in particular--wanted an increased share of national resources (including defense budgets and portions of national steel production) for construction of an increasingly powerful fleet. At the same time, some officers in the IJA General Staff had wanted those same resources invested in building up Japan's domestic industrial base in the hopes of establishing an autarkic state in preparation for a potential war with the Soviet Union. However, the outbreak of the war in China changed the situation dramatically. What was supposed to be a quick sharp war to cow Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government and secure Japanese access to the resources of northern China evolved into a long, drawn out war that was rapidly consuming the very same resources IJA General Staff had wanted to be invested into developing the industrial base.

As with everything involving Japan in the late 1930s and early 1940s, nearly everything comes back to the war in China. The IJA sought several routes in an attempt to force the Nationalists to the negotiating table. First, by destroying Nationalist armies in the field, then by occupying the Nationalist economic heartland in the Lower Yangtze, and--when neither of those options brought Chiang to the negotiating table--the IJA ultimately identified foreign aid to China as the lifeline which sustained the Chinese war effort. Thus, the IJA began seeking out ways to cut off that foreign aid, by occupying remaining ports in Southern China, occupying northern Indochina (to cut the Haiphong-Yunnan Railway), and placing diplomatic pressure on the West. However, at the same time, the United States--which strongly disapproved of Japanese aggression in Asia--had been placing economic pressure on Japan in an effort to curtail Japanese activities. With the outbreak of the war in Europe, the Japanese sensed an opportunity in Southeast Asia to simultaneously seize the vital resources present there, but also to drive out the Western imperial powers, cutting off China from external aid, and thus--hopefully--bringing the war in China to an end on Japanese terms.

Interestingly, it was the IJA that began seriously pressing for a Southern Operation aimed at occupying Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. The IJA particularly was interested in doing so without expanding the war to include the Americans, but the IJN strenuously objected to this. There were a multitude of reasons for the Navy's objection, but first and foremost was a desire to use the Navy's support for the Army as a bargaining chip in internal political struggles for shares of national resources. The IJN had long justified its existence by pointing and comparing itself to the U.S. Navy. With the Army now interested in a southern operation, the Navy sensed an opportunity. The Navy insisted that war with British and the Dutch would have to mean war with the United States as well, and that if Japan was to go to war with the U.S. then the IJN would need both the resources and time for a massive building operation. While the Navy did not think it would be ready to challenge the U.S. fleet, the IJN was prepared to use the developing situation to its advantage by demanding major concessions from the IJA in exchange for support--concessions that it would not be able to demand if the war target did not include the United States. The Navy justified this position in a multitude of ways (which I discuss more in the above linked post), including highlighting the threat that American forces in the Philippines could pose to Japanese supply lines from the East Indies, but--ultimately--the inevitability of war with the United States was simply the stated view of the Navy. If the Army wanted the Navy's concurrence and support to carry out the Southern Operation, they would have to concede.

So, to answer your question: yes, there absolutely was a voice in Japan that called for only launching an attack against the British and Dutch, avoiding war with the United States, especially within the Army. However, the IJN had pre-determined that war with the United States was necessary, because the threat of the U.S. Navy was how the IJN had justified its own demands for increased funding. The IJN thus played for a larger share of Japan's domestic resources by making war with the U.S. a precondition for its support of the Army's hoped for Southern Operation.