La confrontation de l’Open Access avec la propriété intellectuelle demeure mesurée dès lors que l’exercice du droit d’auteur n’est nullement antinomique avec un modèle de gratuité pour l’utilisateur final. L’existence de prérogatives morales fortes présente les garanties mêmes que la communauté scientifique appelle de ses vœux, à savoir l’identification de la source et la traçabilité de la version originale de la publication. Le constat est sans doute moins angélique s’agissant du mouvement du Public Access, lequel ne se soucie (...) plus guère des intérêts des auteurs, mais est tout entier tourné vers la diffusion des savoirs comme remboursement des tributs versés par les contribuables dans le financement de la recherche. La logique suivie devrait à terme nier l’existence même de droits d’auteurs de la part des chercheurs lesquels verraient la diffusion de leurs travaux leur échapper en totalité. Il n’est cependant pas certain que l’alternative proposée conduise à des résultats souhaitables car le chercheur doit pouvoir bénéficier d’une certaine liberté dans sa recherche et dans sa parole pour être incité à produire des travaux de qualité ; court-circuiter son contrôle intellectuel sur le destin de ses recherches risque, au contraire de le brider. La rencontre des deux aspirations est sans doute possible. Il n’est pas nécessaire pour atteindre le libre accès de détruire la libre recherche.The incipient clash between open access and intellectual property need not come to a head as long as the exercise of authorship rights does not contradict free access for end users. The existence of strong moral prerogatives offers the very guarantees that the scientific community is pressing for: identification of sources and traceability of the original version of a publication. The picture is not so well-tempered in the case of the Public Access movement, which has little concern for authorship and is entirely geared to knowledge dissemination as compensation for the taxpayers’ money spent on research. Taken to its logical conclusion, this would deny the very existence of authorship rights for researchers, who would lose all control over the dissemination of their work. However, the alternative solution proposed may not necessarily produce the desired results, since researchers need to have a certain amount of freedom in their work and in their communication to motivate high-quality output. Short-circuiting their intellectual control over the fate of their research is more likely to inhibit them than otherwise. But the clash between these two aspirations may yet be resolved: achieving free access does not necessarily mean destroying freedom for research. (shrink)

This article raises the question of whether in both the United States and in France, an individual’s autonomy and private decision-making right in matters of health care and access to reproductive technologies can be conciliated with the general interest, and more specifically, the role of the State. Can a full-fledged right to privacy, the ability to exercise one’s autonomy, exist alongside the general interest, and depend neither on financial resources like in the United States nor on centralised government decisions (...) or the medical hierarchy like in France? The contrast between these two modern democracies justify the importance of comparing them. I will demonstrate that overlaps do exist: the free exercise of religion and opinion, freedom of expression, the inherent value of each individual. What differs, however, are the institutions and how they provide, protect, promote, or frame access to and expressions of these democratic principles. The impact of the global economy, the exposure of people around the world to each other via the internet, and the mirror effects of social media, blogs, and other such forums, have created new perspectives that countries project onto one another. For example, does France now seem to tout ‘autonomy’ as a new and important value because it appears to be an ‘American success story’? Does the United States now seem to value human rights and a social-democratic approach because of the ‘French model’? There seems to be some truth behind these assertions, but as this article will demonstrate, the portrayals of what the ‘right to privacy’ is in the United States and what ‘socialised medicine’ is in France are not necessarily fully accurate. (shrink)

The era of the Internet of Things provides a free space for the public to participate in the consumption, production, dissemination and sharing of art and aesthetics in a way that is accessible and equal to all. This promotes the development of daily aesthetic and artistic practices of the masses in the age of sharing, thus promoting the development of Community Art. Based mainly on the perspectives and theoretical orientations of the disciplines of art theory and art anthropology, this (...) paper explores the development and impact of Community Art based on the research background of the post-modern art world by comprehensively applying research methods such as theoretical deduction, phenomenology and case study analysis. In the postmodern art world, exchanges and intermingling between different art forms, such as contemporary art, popular art, ethnic folk art and local art, promote dialogue, exchange and cooperation between different groups and classes. Therefore, the postmodern art world has shaped a public aesthetic space based on the popular sharing platform of Community Art, which advances the construction of artistic community. Although this study is dedicated to a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of “Community Art” in the context of the postmodern art world, some points may not be adequately argued due to the author's current level of academic research and the availability of information. Future research can continue to expand the scope of the study and enrich the research methodology with the development of the practice, so as to better make up for the shortcomings of this study. (shrink)

In an earlier piece in these pages, I described the health effects of the still massive problem of global poverty: The poor worldwide face greater environmental hazards than the rest of us, from contaminated water, filth, pollution, worms, and insects. They are exposed to greater dangers from people around them, through traffic, crime, communicable diseases, sexual violence, and potential exploitation by the more affluent. They lack means to protect themselves and their families against such hazards, through clean water, nutritious food, (...) satisfactory hygiene, necessary rest, adequate clothing, and safe shelter. They lack the means to enforce their legal rights or to press for political reform. (shrink)

The number of articles published in open access journals has increased dramatically in recent years. Simultaneously, the quality of publications in these journals has been called into question. Few studies have explored the retraction rate from OAJs. The purpose of the current study was to determine the reasons for retractions of articles from OAJs in biomedical research. The Medline database was searched through PubMed to identify retracted publications in OAJs. The journals were identified by the Directory of (...) Open Access Journals. Data were extracted from each retracted article, including the time from publication to retraction, causes, journal impact factor, and country of origin. Trends in the characteristics related to retraction were determined. Data from 621 retracted studies were included in the analysis. The number and rate of retractions have increased since 2010. The most common reasons for retraction are errors, plagiarism, duplicate publication, fraud/suspected fraud and invalid peer review. The number of retracted articles from OAJs has been steadily increasing. Misconduct was the primary reason for retraction. The majority of retracted articles were from journals with low impact factors and authored by researchers from China, India, Iran, and the USA. (shrink)

In May 2011, the Brazilian Ministry of Health announced the distribution of the first batch of locally produced generic tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) to support its program of universal and free access for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. The inclusion of TDF in the public health program illustrates what has been considered the ‘Brazilian model’ of HIV/AIDS response, as it illustrates the current phase of the Brazilian pharmaceutical economy. Brazil is known for having managed to control the expansion of (...) HIV/AIDS through a unique initiative combining the public health and the industrial production of generics. But, if at first local manufacturers could freely copy ARVs and produce cheaper generic versions that were delivered to the Ministry of Health, since the country started to grant patents on drugs in 1996, the sustainability of this policy has been challenged by the high cost of patented second-line HIV/AIDS treatments. In order to assure continuity of the local production of ARVs, and keep the program of public health alive, Brazilians are now forced to deal with conflicts of drugs' intellectual property rights in order to open the path to generic production. This article aims to describe the experiences surrounding TDF in Brazil and the unprecedented conflicts and challenges it has brought for our different interviewees. Blurring the frontier between the public and the private, the TDF case was driven at the same time by an ethic of drug access and regulation of drug quality, which has inspired Brazilians to intervene and transform the world they live in. (shrink)

Suppose we thought of free inquiry as a social matter, a public good. We might ask not only whether individual scholars are free from illegitimate, especially external, censorship or attempts to control their work. We might ask also how much the university as an institution contributes to overall freedom of inquiry. To answer the second question would require assessing how well universities educate students to be participants in free inquiry, how well researchers communicate their work to raise (...) the quality of public discourse, and whether the results of scientific inquiry are made freely available to advance further inquiry or controlled as private property. It would require asking whether the specific structures and practices through which we organize academic work - from disciplinary departments to evaluation procedures to publication systems - do more to facilitate or obstruct free inquiry. This article will fall short of answering all these questions, but I hope it will put them on the agenda. I present them in the context of two successive transformations - the late 19th century reorganization of universities by disciplines devoted to the production of new knowledge and the dramatic 20th increase in scale and cost which challenged the internal integration of universities. These shifted the constraints and conditions under which students and faculty could take up the project of free inquiry. Appreciating the impact of these transformations is also basic to projects of renewing the university and free inquiry today. (shrink)

Marketing restrictions to promote public health invoke competing rights, including the right to free commercial speech which for-profit entities use to protect their freedom to market products without undue regulation. The right to free commercial speech in South Africa has been developed through case law since the adoption of the first democratic constitution in South Africa in 1996. This article examines the impact of this recent judgment and the lessons for policy makers to ensure effective regulation of (...) marketing practices in South Africa. (shrink)

The market changes sweeping the U.S. health care industry have a distinctive impact on communities that rely on religiously affiliated health care providers. When a sectarian sponsor subsumes multiple providers, its assertion of religious beliefs can preclude the provision of certain health care services to the entire community. In addition, the sectarian provider's refusal to offer certain services may violate state certificates of need, licensing, Medicaid managed care, or even professional liability law. This situation challenges both the provider and (...) the state: the provider seeks adherence to religious law, and the state seeks compliance with its law and citizens access to health care.I propose that the state attempt to ameliorate tensions between civil and religious laws through negotiated accomodation. This concept encourages the sectarian institution to reassess its mission in the current market and to identify alternative avenues of health care delivery that will preserve patients' access to care without excessively diluting religious identity or beliefs. (shrink)

With the rapidly expanding catalogue of scientific publications, especially within the Biomedical Sciences field, it is becoming increasingly difficult for researchers to search for, read or even interpret emerging scientific findings. PubMed, just one of the current biomedical data repositories, comprises over 33 million citations for biomedical research, and over 2500 publications are added each day. To further strengthen the impact biomedical research, we suggest that there should be more synergy between publications and machines. By bringing (...) machines into the realm of research and publication, we can greatly augment the assessment, investigation and cataloging of the biomedical literary corpus. The effective application of machine-based manuscript assessment and interpretation is now crucial, and potentially stands as the most effective way for researchers to comprehend and process the tsunami of biomedical data and literature. Many biomedical manuscripts are currently published online in poorly searchable document types, with figures and data presented in formats that are partially inaccessible to machine-based approaches. The structure and format of biomedical manuscripts should be adapted to facilitate machine-assisted interrogation of this important literary corpus. In this context, it is important to embrace the concept that biomedical scientists should also write manuscripts that can be read by machines. It is likely that an enhanced human–machine synergy in reading biomedical publications will greatly enhance biomedical data retrieval and reveal novel insights into complex datasets. (shrink)

Information and communication technologies (ICT) enable citizens to communicate across state borders with greater ease than ever before, exciting much speculation about the emergence of transnational public spheres. This highly original work introduces this debate to International Relations, by investigating the socio-political implications of ICT in a global governance framework. Classic Habermasian theory is radically reconstructed to take account of contemporary trends in state sovereignty and global civil society. It is argued that if access is not widened and (...) class='Hi'>free speech not sufficiently protected, the early promise of ICT as a liberating force will be neutralized. (shrink)

We introduce Arbitrary Public Announcement Logic with Memory (APALM), obtained by adding to the models a ‘memory’ of the initial states, representing the information before any communication took place (“the prior”), and adding to the syntax operators that can access this memory. We show that APALM is recursively axiomatizable (in contrast to the original Arbitrary Public Announcement Logic, for which the corresponding question is still open). We present a complete recursive axiomatization, that includes a natural finitary rule, and study (...) this logic’s expressivity and the appropriate notion of bisimulation. We then examine Group Announcement Logic with Memory (GALM), the extension of APALM obtained by adding to its syntax group announcement operators, and provide a complete finitary axiomatization (again in contrast to the original Group Announcement Logic, for which the only known axiomatization is infinitary). We also show that, in the memory-enhanced context, there is a natural reduction of the so-called coalition announcement modality to group announcements (in contrast to the memory-free case, where this natural translation was shown to be invalid). (shrink)

This article presents a new classroom experiment in order to illustrate and initiate discussion on the public good provision of prevention of dangerous anthropogenic climate change. The classroom game aids students’ understanding of the difficulty associated with funding public goods; the role of fairness in climate change negotiations; the risks associated with catastrophic climate change impact; and the free riding concept. The classroom game has been played in various business, economics and political science courses. Feedback received from students (...) indicates a rewarding learning experience. (shrink)

Widespread obesity poses a serious challenge to health outcomes in the developed world and is a growing problem in the developing world. There has been a raft of proposals to combat the challenge of obesity, including restrictions on the nature of food advertising, the content of prepared meals, and the size of sodas; taxes on saturated fat and on calories; and mandated “healthy-options” on restaurant menus. Many of these interventions seem to have a greater impact on rates of obesity (...) than does simply providing information about health risks and healthier lifestyles. The more interventionist policy options have, however, been implemented only slowly, in large part because of criticisms that they are unjustified infringements on the liberty of consumers. Food industry groups, free-market think tanks, and the popular press regard measures that incentivize or penalize particular food and lifestyle choices as unjustifiable state regulation of purely self-regarding behavior. To counteract the liberty-oriented position, those who favor a more interventionist role for the state have recently argued for labeling obesity as a public health emergency. By labeling obesity as a public health emergency, policy-makers could override concerns about individual liberty in order to pursue more interventionist policies designed to guide consumer choices toward healthier lifestyles. In this paper, we argue that, contrary to initial appearances, obesity possesses some of the morally relevant features of public health emergencies, though we do not argue that it actually constitutes one. (shrink)

In their book Healthy Eating Policy and Political Philosophy: A Public Reason Approach, Matteo Bonotti and Anne Barnhill defend a conception of public reason centred on the notion of accessibility and advance an ethical toolkit public health policy makers can use to ensure they are reasoning publicly when designing healthy eating policies. Finally, they propose to institutionalise the process of public reasoning informed by their ethics framework by designing certain procedures of consultation and deliberation. This article focuses on their institutionalisation (...) and raises some doubts and concerns by arguing that the procedures designed by Bonotti and Barnhill may be counterproductive to some of their aims, in particular with respect to citizens’ control, epistemic injustice, and the conception of citizens as free and equal. (shrink)

Suicide is a public health problem which will require an integrated cross-sector approach to help reduce prevalence rates. One strategy is to include the legal system in a more integrated way with suicide prevention efforts. Caine explored a public health approach to suicide prevention, depicting risk factors across the socio-ecological model. The purpose of this paper is to examine laws that impact suicide prevention at the individual, relational, community, and societal levels. These levels are fluid, and some interventions will (...) fall between two, such as a community-level approach to training that enhances provider-patient relationships. At the individual level, we will review laws to improve screening requirements across systems. At the relational level, we note interventions with couples having conflict, such as protection orders and access to attorney consultations, which have been known to be injury prevention mechanisms. At the community level, we discuss legislation that recommends suicide prevention efforts for key individuals working as frontline providers in the medical and educational systems. At the societal level, we explore public awareness campaigns that target stigma reduction for those suffering from mental health burden and enhance linkage to care. The article closes with the discussion that laws are good, but their implementation is essential. (shrink)

SUMMARY: Universities (the universal research-providers) as well as research funders (public and private) are beginning to make it part of their mandates to ensure not only that researchers conduct and publish peer-reviewed research (“publish or perish”), but that they also make it available online, free for all. This is called Open Access (OA), and it maximizes the uptake, impact and progress of research by making it accessible to all potential users worldwide, not just those whose universities can (...) afford to subscribe to the journal in which it is published. Researchers can provide OA to their published journal articles by self-archiving them in their own university’s online repository. Students and junior faculty – the next generation of research providers and consumers -- are in a position to help accelerate the adoption of OA self-archiving mandates by their universities, ushering in the era of universal OA. (shrink)

This paper develops three arguments for increasing the strength of database protection under U.S. law. First, stronger protections would encourage private investment in database development, and private databases have many potential benefits for science and industry. Second, stronger protections would discourage extensive use of private licenses to protect databases and would allow for greater public control over database laws and policies. Third, stronger database protections in the U.S. would harmonize U.S. and E.U. laws and would thus enhance international trade, commerce, (...) and research. The U.S. should therefore follow the European example and develop two tiers of protection for databases: 1) protection for creative databases under copyright law; 2) protection for non-creative databases through a special type of sui generis protection. In order to balance private control of data and public access to data, sui generis protections should define a “fair use” exemption that permits some unauthorized extraction of data for private, educational, and research purposes, provided that such extraction does not adversely impact the economic value of the database. (shrink)

Due to their role as a centre of knowledge and character development,public higher education institutions serve as the best platform for emphasisinghealth communication messages and promoting a healthy lifestyle. Highereducational institutions’ employees should have good physical and mentalhealth to enable them to demonstrate good values to the students. Thus,the social cognitive theory was specifically selected to take a closelook at how a conducive environment and knowledge influence employees’intention towards the tobacco-free policy. This study used the partial leastsquares and structural (...) equation modelling software to examinefactors influencing the adoption of tobacco-free policy among employeesin a Malaysian higher education institution. It also measured the impact ofworkplace health promotion on employees’ intention to comply with tobaccocessation regulations. Statistical results confirmed that all three constructsof employees’ environment, self-efficacy, and knowledge have a significant influence on employees’ intention to adopt the tobacco-free policy. The resultsof the study contribute to a better understanding of the effectiveness of highereducation institutions’ tobacco-free policy in Malaysia. The findings are usefulfor policymakers, higher education institutions, and practitioners in enhancingtobacco cessation policy in Malaysia. Limitations and suggestions for futureresearch are also included in this paper. (shrink)

Most environmental philosophers have had little use for 'conventional' philosophical and political thought. This is unfortunate, because these traditions can greatly contribute to environmental ethics and policy discussions. One mainstream concept of potential value for environmental philosophy is the notion of the public interest. Yet even though the public interest is widely acknowledged to be a powerful ethical standard in public affairs and public policy, there has been little agreement on its descriptive meaning. A particularly intriguing account of the concept (...) in the literature, however, may be found in the work of the American pragmatist John Dewey. Dewey argued that the public interest was to be continuously constructed through the process of free, cooperative inquiry into the shared good of the democratic community. This Deweyan model of the public interest has much to offer environmental philosophers who are interested in making connections between normative arguments and environmental policy discourse, and it holds great promise for enhancing environmental philosophy's role and impact in public life. (shrink)

The United Nations deemed internet access to be of critical importance for human rights in 2016. In 2020, schools around the world closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. As schools were closed, inequities in internet access gained widespread public attention as many educational opportunities shifted online. Amidst this shift, this paper analyzes an Ontario provincial announcement to provide 21,000 iPads and free data for young people, during the pandemic. The closure of schools in Ontario, Canada, meant that young (...) people and families who faced technological challenges, such as a lack of devices, stable and affordable internet connections, or sufficient data allowances, could experience barriers to their right to an education. This paper revisits a community informatics model of internet access, the Access Rainbow, to analyze attempts to operationalize the right to an education through technology in Ontario. In parallel to rights, however, the field of CI faces the ongoing presence of profit-oriented corporations within universal access efforts. This paper argues that socio-technical infrastructural elements of access to the internet became visible through the breakdown of the pandemic. Furthermore, it considers the multi-stakeholder efforts required to implement useful and effective access, where school boards responded in varied ways locally. The paper contributes the concept of refraction to offer continued theorization of a distributive paradigm and a rights-informed approach in community informatics against the backdrop of the pandemic, which could also act as an opening for privatization and disaster capitalism. (shrink)

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1986.

In 2016, the United Nation’s General Assembly adopted a non-binding resolution regarding ‘The Promotion, Protection and Enjoyment of Human Rights on the Internet’. At the heart of this resolution is the UN’s concern that ‘rights that people have offline must also be protected online.’ While the UN thus recognises the importance of the Internet, it does so problematically selectively by focusing on protecting existing offline rights online. I argue instead that Internet access is itself a moral human right that (...) requires that everyone has unmonitored and uncensored access to this global medium, which should be publicly provided free of charge for those unable to afford it. Rather than being a mere luxury, Internet access should be considered a universal entitlement because it is necessary for people to be able to lead minimally decent lives. Accepting this claim transforms our conception of the Internet from a technology to that of a basic right. (shrink)

In this paper I suggest practical measures that can address some familiar, and some not so familiar, commercial obstacles to increasing media coverage of dissident opinion.The kernel of my proposal is for media codes of practice and workplace norms to reflect an ethical distinction between different kinds of commercial speech.

Brazil has one of the highest levels of economic disparity in the world. The educational system plays a large role in this reality, acting as a mechanism of social exclusion. Neoliberalism has resulted in the commodification of education, empowering private schools while undermining the public system. This has created a vicious cycle, whereby educational inequality reflects and reinforces social inequality. Such a system violates the rights of children not lucky enough to be born into wealth – the right to equal (...) education; to equal opportunity; and equal treatment. From within this context, we propose a model, dubbed The Eagle’s Flight, for psychological intervention in public schools. This will form an extension of our research group’s Psychosocial Assessment and Intervention – Prevention, Community and Liberation, which has been an on-going project for the past fourteen years. The intervention model advocates monitoring child development from a critical, social and historical perspective, focusing on how school and community affect everyday life. The analysis will be carried out via the daily immersion of psychologists in the public school setting, who pay attention to key aspects which include various expressions of violence, financial difficulties related to unemployment, informal employment or drug dealing, poor access to health services, and the developmental impact of factors such as poverty. Based on Paulo Freire's Emancipatory Education Proposal and Ignacio Martín-Baró’s Liberation Psychology, intervention in school and community must be an interdisciplinary procedure, employing professionals from a range of disciplines involved in the study of child development. The various subjects’ perspectives seek to provide support for everyday problems and solutions, whilst breaking down the hegemonic model of psychological practice that considers the child and family as responsible for their problems. A concrete example of this critical psychosocial intervention model is presented. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 35.4 (2002) 345-367 [Access article in PDF] Imagining in the Public Sphere Robert Asen Contemporary public sphere scholarship has been motivated significantly by a concern to overcome historical and conceptual exclusions in public spheres. Recent theory and criticism has investigated direct and indirect exclusions. Direct exclusions expressly prevent the participation of particular individuals and groups in public discussions and debates. Prohibitions against women speaking in (...) public, for example, have served historically to inhibit women's participation in various forums (see, e.g., Landes 1998). Indirect exclusions function tacitly through discursive norms and practices that prescribe particular ways of interacting in public forums. Indirect exclusions compel participants to conform to established modes of discourse that effectively negate the perspectives and contributions of previously directly excluded individuals and groups. Calls for "objective" and "dispassionate" debate, for instance, sometimes have restricted public agendas by portraying culturally specific forms of address as universally practiced (see, e.g., Warner 1993). Indirect exclusions may regulate discourse in various forums even when direct exclusions have been counteracted. Scholarship seeking to overcome these exclusions has proceeded on two levels. On one level, scholars have recounted the efforts of excluded persons to participate in public life despite restrictions by developing alternative modes of publicity (see, e.g., Ryan 1990; Zaeske 2002). On a second level, theorists have proposed more inclusive conceptual models of the public sphere that may overcome historical exclusions of the bourgeois public sphere while retaining a commitment to critical publicity (see, e.g., Asen 1999; Benhabib 1996; Hauser 1999; Mouffe 2000).Practicing democratic discourse fairly and justly depends indispensably on enabling inclusion. Proponents of deliberative democracy argue that political legitimacy arises from processes of inclusive public debate. Seyla Benhabib asserts that "legitimacy in complex societies must be [End Page 345] thought to result from the free and unconstrained public deliberation of all about matters of common concern" (1996, 68). Others regard inclusive public discourse as crucial for the formation of affirmative individual and collective identities. Craig Calhoun faults bourgeois notions of publicity for treating "identity formation as essentially private and prior to participation in the idealized public sphere of rational-critical discourse" (1993, 274). Identity formation entails mutual recognition among members of diverse cultures, yet theorists have observed that truncated discursive processes may inhibit mutual recognition. Charles Taylor writes that practicing a politics of recognition requires an openness toward other cultures—a presumption of value tested through sustained engagement so that "what we have formerly taken for granted as the background to valuation can be situated as one possibility alongside the background of the formerly unfamiliar culture" (1994, 67). Inclusiveness is also important for individuals and groups seeking to advance self-fashioned interpretations of their interests and needs against interpretations imposed by others. Nancy Fraser explains that self-fashioning is necessary because in public debates and controversies "who gets to establish authoritative thick definitions of people's needs is itself a political stake" (1989, 164).Although inclusion is indispensable, exclusion is never total. Sometimes, people force their way into public forums and agendas. For example, participation by activists in discussions of AIDS research and treatment often has been limited by researchers' assertions of expert privilege in investigating scientific matters. Valeria Fabj and Matthew J. Sobnosky (1995) detail how AIDS activists have responded by engaging in discursive acts of redefinition and translation to gain entry into previously circumscribed forums. At other times, people surreptitiously access public arenas. Prison writing is one way that those officially banished from public view nevertheless continue to participate in oppositional discourses and movements. Gerard A. Hauser (2001) considers how dissident Adam Michnik remained a vibrant voice in Polish civil society through his writings even after his imprisonment in the 1980s by an authoritarian regime. At still other times, typically excluded people may be invited to participate in public discussions. Members of the AIDS activist group ACT UP occasionally have testified in the traditional setting of the congressional committee hearing as invited witnesses. Daniel C. Brouwer (2001) maintains that politically sympathetic committee chairs facilitated ACT UP's "official" appearances before members of Congress. Whether invited or... (shrink)

Before Jonathan Wren's study came out BMJ, April 12, 2005 ) we knew that open-access (OA) copies of scientific journal articles published in non-OA journals were a fairly small subset of the overall journal literature. Wren studied just which subset it was, and found that papers from high-impact journals were more likely to have free online copies at other locations around the web than papers from low-impact journals.

Scientific hedges are communicative devices used to qualify and weaken scientific claims. Gregor Betz has argued—unconvincingly, we think—that hedging can rescue the value-free ideal for science. Nevertheless, Betz is onto something when he suggests there are political principles that recommend scientists hedge public-facing claims. In this article, we recast this suggestion using the notion of public justification. We formulate and reject a Rawlsian argument that locates the justification for hedging in its ability to forge consensus. On our alternative proposal, (...) hedging is often justified because it renders scientific claims as publicly accessible reasons. (shrink)

Asking pregnant women to (co)pay for non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) out of pocket leads to unequal access across socioeconomic strata. To avoid these social justice issues, first-trimester prenatal screening should be publicly funded in countries such as the Netherlands, with universal coverage healthcare systems that offer all other antenatal care services and screening programmes free of charge. In this reply, we offer three additional reasons for public funding of NIPT. First, NIPT may not primarily have medical utility for (...) women and children, but rather offers relevant information and reproductive options, and thus serves important autonomy interests of women. Second, public funding of NIPT can be justified because it results in a reduction of collectively borne costs associated with care and support for children with chromosomal abnormalities. It is important to note that this isnotan argument for individual women to take part in screening or to terminate an affected pregnancy. However, itisa legitimate argument in policy making regarding funding arrangements for screening programmes. Finally, public funding would help to amend current misunderstandings among pregnant women (eg, that they are not at risk), and thus to support informed consent for first-trimester prenatal screening. (shrink)

The internet could be an efficient political instrument if it were seen as part of a democracy where free and open discourse within a vital public sphere plays a decisive role. The model of deliberative democracy, as developed by Jürgen Habermas and Seyla Benhabib, serves this concept of democracy best. The paper explores first the model of deliberative democracy as a ‘two-track model’ in which representative democracy is backed by the public sphere and a developing civil society. Secondly, it (...) outlines the normative concept of the public sphere and its basic ideas, namely the uncoerced communication of equal participants with equal access and equal rights to intervene or propose themes. The third part for discussion shows how the internet could fit into this concept of public sphere and influence the quality of political debates, and emphasizes the important role it can play in the political process. (shrink)

Background In the UK, the solidaristic character of the NHS makes it one of the most trusted public institutions. In recent years, the introduction of data-driven technologies in healthcare has opened up the space for collaborations with private digital companies seeking access to patient data. However, these collaborations appear to challenge the public’s trust in the. Main text In this paper we explore how the opening of the healthcare sector to private digital companies challenges the existing social contract and (...) the NHS’s solidaristic character, and impacts on public trust. We start by critically discussing different examples of partnerships between the NHS and private companies that collect and use data. We then analyse the relationship between trust and solidarity, and investigate how this relationship changes in the context of digital companies entering the healthcare system. Finally, we show ways for the NHS to maintain public trust by putting in place a solidarity grounded partnership model with companies seeking to access patient data. Such a model would need to serve collective interests through, for example, securing preferential access to goods and services, providing health benefits, and monitoring data access. Conclusion A solidarity grounded partnership model will help establish a social contract or licence that responds to the public’s expectations and to principles of a solidaristic healthcare system. (shrink)

In this book, nine thought-leaders engage with some of the hottest moral issues in science and ethics. Based on talks originally given at the annual "Purdue Lectures in Ethics, Policy, and Science," the chapters explore interconnections between the three areas in an engaging and accessible way. Addressing a mixed public audience, the authors go beyond dry theory to explore some of the difficult moral questions that face scientists and policy-makers every day. The introduction presents a theoretical framework for the book, (...) defining the term "bioethics" as extending well beyond human well-being to wider relations between humans, nonhuman animals, the environment, and biotechnologies. Three sections then explore the complex relationship between moral value, scientific knowledge, and policy making. The first section starts with thoughts on nonhuman animal pain and moves to a discussion of animal understanding. The second section explores climate change and the impact of "green" nanotechnology on environmental concerns. The final section begins with dialog about ethical issues in nanotechnology, moves to an exploration of bio-banks (a technology with broad potential medical and environmental impact), and ends with a survey of the impact of biotechnologies on (synthetic) life itself. (shrink)

BackgroundWhile genomic data sharing can facilitate important health research and discovery benefits, these must be balanced against potential privacy risks and harms to individuals. Understanding public attitudes and perspectives on data sharing is important given these potential risks and to inform genomic research and policy that aligns with public preferences and needs.MethodsA cross sectional online survey measured attitudes towards genomic data sharing among members of the general public in an Eastern Canadian province.ResultsResults showed a moderate comfort level with sharing genomic (...) data, usually into restricted scientific databases with controlled access. Much lower comfort levels were observed for sharing data into open or publicly accessible databases. While respondents largely approved of sharing genomic data for health research permitted by a research ethics board, many general public members were concerned with who would have access to their data, with higher rates of approval for access from clinical or academic actors, but much more limited approval of access from commercial entities or governments. Prior knowledge about sequencing and about research ethics boards were both related to data sharing attitudes.ConclusionsWith evolving regulations and guidelines for genomics research and data sharing, it is important to consider the perspectives of participants most impacted by these changes. Participant information materials and informed consent documents must be explicit about the safeguards in place to protect genomic data and the policies governing the sharing of data. Increased public awareness of the role of research ethics boards and of the need for genomic data sharing more broadly is also needed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 30.2 (2006) 410-423 MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]Reading Our Way To Democracy? Literature and Public EthicsSimon Stow The College of William and Mary"I believe," wrote Franz Kafka, "that we should only read those books that bite and sting us. If a book we are reading does not rouse us with a blow to the head, then why read it?" 1 Almost all of us who (...) read books for a living and/or pleasure have undoubtedly experienced that most delightfully troubling of phenomena: a novel that forces us to think differently about the world and the way that we live. In recent years, literature's capacity to generate in its readers "a rigorous scrutiny of everything they believe in and live by" 2 —what Stanley Fish calls its "dialectical" potential—has drawn the attention of a number of liberal-democratic theorists, most notably Martha Nussbaum and Richard Rorty. By "liberal-democratic" is meant here, of course, that system of government with popular rule, regular elections, a commitment to individual rights and the rule of law; one that draws on a tradition of political thought that includes the work of John Locke, John Stuart Mill and John Rawls. Although their exact formulations of the claim differ in important ways, Nussbaum and Rorty are united in the belief that reading can enhance the practice of liberal-democracy by expanding the moral imaginations of a citizenry. Such an expansion will, they believe, promote the values of tolerance, respect for other viewpoints, and a recognition of the contingency of one's own perspective, in short, the values of civil society. Whilst there is undoubtedly something intuitively appealing about their claim, there is much that is philosophically and politically problematic about their respective formulations of it. Both seem to rest for example upon an implausible theory of the impact of literature upon its readers, and an illiberal tendency to treat reader-citizens as means and not as ends. Attempting to capture what is of value [End Page 410] whilst jettisoning what is problematic, I will briefly set out their claims; identify the difficulties within them; and offer an account of how their project might be operationalized in a way that is both more philosophically plausible and more politically consistent with liberalism. My aim will not be to offer another detailed account of the connection between literature and democracy—not least because I believe that the current accounts are overly deterministic—but rather to suggest some ways in which we might nevertheless build upon the current work to capture the potential benefits of reading for liberal-democratic societies.Although Martha Nussbaum and Richard Rorty hold quite different views about the proper role of literature in philosophy—Nussbaum believes that literature is merely a valuable addition to philosophical Reason traditionally conceived, whereas for the postfoundational Rorty, the literariness goes all the way down—both suggest that reading will promote two values that they regard as essential to liberal-democratic practice. Following Rorty we might label these values contingency and solidarity. 3 Contingency arises from the recognition that even one's most deeply held beliefs are always only a perspective. It is connected to civility in that it serves, Nussbaum and Rorty believe, to undermine the vehemence of individual claims. Although this claim about the partiality of individual perspectives sounds dangerously postmodern for thinker such as Nussbaum—Rorty, who calls his political philosophy "postmodernist bourgeois liberalism," 4 has no such qualms—there are limits to this insight in her thought. Nussbaum is simply concerned to show that an excessive and over-confident reliance on philosophical Reason is likely to generate an incomplete understanding of a given situation. For this reason, she suggests, "storytelling and literary imagining are not opposed to... but can provide essential ingredients in a rational argument." 5 She argues, for example, that Hard Times by Charles Dickens will alert its readers—in particular "the person brought up solely on economic texts" who "has not been encouraged to think of workers (or indeed anybody else) as fully human... (shrink)

Is capitalism morally justifiable? Is free enterprise compatible with social justice? Does government have a proper role in a free-enterprise system? This volume provides students with eighteen original answers to these and other compelling questions in business ethics. The contributors include philosophers, business educators, and industrial and labor leaders who together provide a basis for informed discussion of contemporary ethics and public policy issues.

May a hotel owner that objects to same-sex marriage on religious grounds refuse to host a same-sex wedding in its ballroom or deny the couple the right to book the honeymoon suite? Do public accommodation laws oppress religious dissidents by forcing them to act contrary to their religious beliefs or does discriminatory exclusion threaten equal access to the market economy and deny equal citizenship to LGBTQ persons? Answering these questions requires explaining why one property claim should prevail over another (...) and why one liberty should prevail when it clashes with another. And answering those questions requires analysis of the relationship between property and sovereignty. Sovereign power both creates and regulates the types of property rights that can be tolerated in a free and democratic society that values each person equally. Should we view sovereignty as a threat to property or property as a threat to sovereignty? Libertarians choose the first and liberals the second. But this is the wrong way to understand the relation between property and sovereignty. Property and sovereignty are not separate and independent concepts or spheres of social life that can be brought into relationship with each other. Rather, they are imbricated; they overlap like roof tiles. Our aspiration to live in a free and democratic society places certain constraints on both property and sovereignty. Such societies do not recognize absolute power, whether public or private. Free and democratic societies are committed to a substantive vision of both social relations and politics. We have fruitful debates about property and sovereignty and, in the end, must construct a legal system that effects an acceptable compromise between access and exclusion in the property regime. Our historic practices regarding racial and other forms of discrimination and our evolving norms suggest that public accommodation laws enable access to the marketplace without regard to invidious discrimination. Religious freedom cannot operate to deny equal citizenship or opportunity. For that reason, a same-sex couple should not have to call ahead to see if they are welcome to book the honeymoon suite. Public accommodation laws do not infringe on legitimate property rights or religious freedoms; rather, they define the legitimate contours of liberty and property in a society that treats each person with equal concern and respect. (shrink)

How did Romans perceive the changing relationships among leaders, the people, and the public sphere as their commonwealth (res publica) fell under the control of an emperor? This paper examines Ovid’s uses of the Latin adjective publicus, ‘public, common, open’, to explore strands of implicitly ‘republican’ political thought behind his poetic corpus. Ovid first celebrates Augustus’ material benefactions as common goods for private consumption; then dramatises the tragic consequences of arbitrary domination; and finally, from exile, treats the emperor himself as (...) a public property, subject to his people’s spectatorship and sovereignty of judgment. A final section draws on Ovid’s thinking on privacy, publicity, and information access to explore themes related to America’s ‘imperial presidency’, from the Founders’ emphasis on a free press to the recent interplay of secrecy, celebrity, and ‘sunshine’ laws. (shrink)

This article describes a study that examined the experiences of 27 individuals who frequented an Open Access homeless shelter in Toronto, Canada. The overarching aim of this study was to map the social organisation of health care in Toronto, with particular regards to the ways in which literacy, or the lack of literacy, mediates the experiences of homeless individuals attempting to gain access to health care. While terms such as “literate” or “illiterate” might be seen to reflect an (...) individual’s level of acquired education or competence, critical social theorists argue that such terms instead more accurately reflect an individual’s relative class or position within the social hierarchy. Individuals who possess literacy are able to read into texts for their implicit understandings, directives, and power structures. Furthermore, they are able to translate and decode texts as potential pretexts for coordination or control. This study draws on a Freirean critical standpoint, which acknowledges that knowledge and power are inextricably interconnected. This study asked: How does literacy, or the lack of literacy, facilitate or impede access to health care for homeless individuals? What are the social consequences of illiteracy? (shrink)

This article explores the social phenomenon of online hate speech in the contemporary digital public sphere, focusing on the intersection between free speech and the proliferation of misinformation on the Facebook. Two main objectives guide the research: first, to analyse how hate speech manifests itself in the new digital public sphere, where one of the main stages is on Facebook, exploring the dynamics that amplify the dissemination of harmful content; second, evaluate Facebook’s role in the digital misinformation ecosystem, considering (...) its impact on free speech. The methodology is theoretical-conceptual, following exploratory qualitative research, with bibliographical review and documentary research. The research explores the specific case of hate speech on Facebook, involving the dissemination of discriminatory messages and content against the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority in Myanmar, highlighting patterns, narratives, and impacts. The research considers Facebook’s policy responses and their effectiveness in mitigating hate speech. This article seeks to contribute to the critical understanding of the tensions between free speech and digital responsibility, offering valuable insights into the challenges of digital misinformation in the era of Facebook, as well as for a deeper understanding of the dynamics between free speech, social media networks, hate speech and digital misinformation. (shrink)

Existing research shows consistently high levels of concern among people in the UK over the scale of immigration and its impact on jobs, wages and services. At the same time, that same body of research does not provide much in the way of detail about the nature of these concerns. This is partly because much of the data is from opinion polls which say little about the priorities and perspectives that underlie the aggregate numbers. Moreover, very little research has (...) been carried out on what new immigration policies the British public would like to see once the UK leaves the EU and free movement ends. Our research for this report aims to fill these gaps by providing evidence about how people use and understand information about economic impacts of immigration, and what they might wish to see from new, post-Brexit, policies. (shrink)

After two decades in the 21st Century, and despite all the advances in the area, some very important names from past centuries still do not have the recognition they deserve in the global history of library and information science and, specifically, of knowledge organization. Although acknowledged in British librarianship, the name of James Duff Brown still does not have a proper recognition on a global scale. His contributions to a free and more democratic library had a prominent place in (...) the works and projects he developed during his time at the libraries of Clerkenwell and Islington in London. Free access to the library shelves, an architecture centered on books and people, and classifications that are more dynamic were dreams fulfilled by Brown. With this biographical article, we hope to live up to his legacy and pay homage to a true librarian and an advocate of the public library and subject classification. (shrink)

Offensive street speech--racist and sexist remarks that can make its targets feel both psychologically and physically threatened--is surprisingly common in our society. Many argue that this speech is so detestable that it should be banned under law. But is this an area covered by the First Amendment right to free speech? Or should it be banned? In this elegantly written book, Laura Beth Nielsen pursues the answers by probing the legal consciousness of ordinary citizens. Using a combination of field (...) observations and in-depth, semistructured interviews, she surveys one hundred men and women, some of whom are routine targets of offensive speech, about how such speech affects their lives. Drawing on these interviews as well as an interdisciplinary body of scholarship, Nielsen argues that racist and sexist speech creates, reproduces, and reinforces existing systems of hierarchy in public places. The law works to normalize and justify offensive public interactions, she concludes, offering, in essence, a "license to harass." Nielsen relates the results of her interviews to statistical surveys that measure the impact of offensive speech on the public. Rather than arguing whether law is the appropriate remedy for offensive speech, she allows that the benefits to democracy, to community, and to society of allowing such speech may very well outweigh the burdens imposed. Nonetheless, these burdens, and the stories of the people who bear them, should not remain invisible and outside the debate. (shrink)

Some egalitarians argue against public services that are free for all, on the grounds that free access appears to primarily benefit the middle classes. I advocate, instead, the inclusion of the middle classes in public services, arguing that only truly universal intake of public services prevents the inegalitarian effects of economic segregation. Such universal participation in public services is achieved, partly, through subsidies for, and regulation of, privately produced services.

The promise of a free, high-quality public education is supposed to guarantee every child a shot at the American dream. But our widely segregated schools mean that many children of color do not have access to educational opportunities equal to those of their white peers. In Integrations, historian Zoë Burkholder and philosopher Lawrence Blum investigate what this country’s long history of school segregation means for achieving just and equitable educational opportunities in the United States. Integrations focuses on multiple (...) marginalized groups in American schooling: African Americans, Native Americans, Latinxs, and Asian Americans. The authors show that in order to grapple with integration in a meaningful way, we must think of integration in the plural, both in its multiple histories and in the many possible definitions of and courses of action for integration. Ultimately, the authors show, integration cannot guarantee educational equality and justice, but it is an essential component of civic education that prepares students for life in our multiracial democracy. (shrink)

Au Québec, la Loi sur l’accès aux documents des organismes publics et sur la protection des renseignements personnels offre une exception en matière de transparence à la plupart des institutions publiques où la recherche en santé publique est menée en leur permettant de ne pas divulguer leurs utilisations de données à caractère personnel (souvent collectées sans le consentement des personnes étudiées). Cette exception est éthiquement problématique en raison de préoccupations importantes (ex. : la protection de la vie privée et les (...) inconvénients potentiels des utilisations secondaires de données) et nous soutenons que tous ceux qui mènent des recherches doivent être transparents et responsables du travail qu’ils accomplissent dans l’intérêt public. (shrink)

Pharmaceutical sales representatives (PSRs) are one of the most frequently used drug information sources for physicians in both the United States and China. During face-to-face interactions, PSRs use various promotional strategies to impact the prescribing behavior. In the United States, PSRs provide physicians small gifts, free drug samples, and “sincere friendships”, whereas in China, they played an indispensable role in medical corruption over the past three decades. To cope with the undue influence of PSRs, both these countries have (...) taken positive but insufficient measures to eliminate the effect thus far. By comparing the strategies of American and Chinese PSRs, it was found that building a friendly personal relationship with physicians in a relatively closed private environment (such as physician’s office) is a key factor to exert an individualized influence on physicians, even in different social backgrounds and healthcare contexts. Therefore, this essay suggests that it is necessary to limit the establishment of personal relationships and maintain a more professional interaction to reduce the personalized psychological and emotional influences on physicians’ professional judgment. To achieve this goal, it is proposed to transfer the physician-PSR interaction to a professional public space as a supplement to current countermeasures and suggestions. The presence of others and the possibility of third party participation will stimulate more ethical and reputational concerns. It is hoped that the increased transparency of the interaction will promote participants to consider more professional norms and mitigate the undue influence of PSRs’ individualized strategies. (shrink)

One of the most frequently voiced criticisms of free will skepticism is that it is unable to adequately deal with criminal behavior and that the responses it would permit as justified are insufficient for acceptable social policy. This concern is fueled by two factors. The first is that one of the most prominent justifications for punishing criminals, retributivism, is incompatible with free will skepticism. The second concern is that alternative justifications that are not ruled out by the skeptical (...) view per se face significant independent moral objections. Yet despite these concerns, I maintain that free will skepticism leaves intact other ways to respond to criminal behavior—in particular preventive detention, rehabilitation, and alteration of relevant social conditions—and that these methods are both morally justifiable and sufficient for good social policy. The position I defend is similar to Derk Pereboom’s, taking as its starting point his quarantine analogy, but it sets out to develop the quarantine model within a broader justificatory framework drawn from public health ethics. The resulting model—which I call the public health -quarantine model—provides a framework for justifying quarantine and criminal sanctions that is more humane than retributivism and preferable to other non-retributive alternatives. It also provides a broader approach to criminal behavior than Pereboom’s quarantine analogy does on its own. (shrink)

Recent debates about inequality have focused almost exclusively on the distribution of wealth and disparities in income, but little notice has been paid to the distribution of free time. Free time is commonly assumed to be a matter of personal preference, a good that one chooses to have more or less of. Even if there is unequal access to free time, the cause and solution are presumed to lie with the resources of income and wealth. In (...) Free Time, Julie Rose argues that these views are fundamentally mistaken. First, Rose contends that free time is a resource, like money, that one needs in order to pursue chosen ends. Further, realizing a just distribution of income and wealth is not sufficient to ensure a fair distribution of free time. Because of this, anyone concerned with distributive justice must attend to the distribution of free time. On the basis of widely held liberal principles, Rose explains why citizens are entitled to free time—time not committed to meeting life's necessities and instead available for chosen pursuits. The novel argument that the just society must guarantee all citizens their fair share of free time provides principled grounds to address critical policy choices, including work hours regulations, Sunday closing laws, public support for caregiving, and the pursuit of economic growth. Delving into an original topic that touches everyone, Free Time demonstrates why all citizens have, in the words of early labor reformers, a right to "hours for what we will.". (shrink)

Public reason liberals typically defend an accessibility requirement for reasons offered in public political dialog. The accessibility requirement holds that public reasons must be amenable to criticism, evaluable by reasonable persons, and the like. Public reason liberals are therefore hostile to the public use of reasons that appear inaccessible, especially religious reasons. This hostility has provoked strong reactions from public reason liberalism's religion-friendly critics. But public reason liberals and their religion-friendly critics need not be at odds because the accessibility requirement (...) is implausible. In fact, the accessibility requirement is ambiguous between two interpretations, one of which is too stringent and the other too loose. Depending upon the interpretation, accessibility either restricts the use of too many secular reasons or permits appeal to a wide range of religious reasons. The accessibility requirement should therefore be rejected. (shrink)