Continuous sedation until death is an increasingly common practice in end-of-life care. However, it raises numerous medical, ethical, emotional and legal concerns, such as the reducing or removing of consciousness, the withholding of artificial nutrition and hydration, the proportionality of the sedation to the symptoms, its adequacy in actually relieving symptoms rather than simply giving onlookers the impression that the patient is undergoing a painless 'natural' death, and the perception that it may be functionally equivalent to euthanasia. This book brings (...) together contributions from clinicians, ethicists, lawyers and social scientists, and discusses guidelines as well as clinical, emotional and legal aspects of the practice. The chapters shine a critical spotlight on areas of concern and on the validity of the justifications given for the practice, including in particular the doctrine of double effect. (shrink)

This paper proposes that elementary reciprocal sentences have four semantic readings: a strongly reciprocal interpretation, a weakly reciprocal interpretation, a situation-based weakly reciprocal reading, and a collective reading. Interpretational possibilities of reciprocal sentences that have been discussed in the literature are identified as one of these four. A compositional semantic analysis of all of these readings is provided in which the reciprocal expression is uniformly represented as 'the other ones among them' (recasting Heim, Lasnik and May 1991a, b). A reciprocal (...) sentence is thus a special kind of relational plural. Interpretational variability comes about by the same mechanisms of plural predication at work in relational plurals: pluralization operators, LF operations like QR, and addition of contextual information. (shrink)

An extensive body of research documents that women experience a motherhood penalty at work whereas men experience a fatherhood premium. Yet much of this work presupposes that employers are aware of a worker’s parental status. Given the different consequences that parenthood has on outcomes such as pay and promotions, it is conceivable that men and women may deploy their status as parents differently when interacting with employers. Drawing on in-depth interviews with a racially diverse sample, this article examines how mothers (...) and fathers working in the service sector use their parental status when negotiating work and child care responsibilities. Mothers, particularly black mothers, were less likely to openly discuss their children at work. In some cases, women purposefully concealed from their employers the fact that they were mothers or found other ways of signaling their commitment to their jobs. Fathers, on the other hand, were more likely to discuss their children with their employers and overwhelmingly characterized their managers as understanding of their parenting obligations. Together, these findings help us understand how mothers and fathers navigate the consequences of parenthood in the workplace and add nuance to previous studies of motherhood penalties and fatherhood premiums. (shrink)

Veterinarians are increasingly confronted with new technologies, such as Precision Livestock Farming (PLF), which allows for automated animal monitoring on commercial farms. At the same time, we lack information on how veterinarians, as stakeholders who may play a mediating role in the public debate on livestock farming, perceive the use and the impact of such technologies. This study explores the meaning veterinarians attribute to the application of PLF in the context of public concerns related to pig production. Semi-structured interviews were (...) carried out with pig veterinarians located in the Netherlands and Germany. By using an inductive and semantic approach to reflexive thematic analysis, we developed four main themes from the interview data: (1) the advisory role of the veterinarian, which is characterized by a diverse scope, including advice on PLF, generally positive evaluations and financial dependencies; (2) the delineation of PLF technologies as supporting tools, which are seen as an addition to human animal care; (3) the relationship between veterinarian and farmer, which is context-related, ranging from taking sides with to distancing oneself from farmers; and (4) the distance between agriculture and society, in the context of which PLF has both a mitigating and reinforcing potential. The present findings indicate that veterinarians play an active role in the emerging field of PLF in livestock farming. They are aware of and reflect on competing interests of different groups in society and share positions with different stakeholders. However, the extent to which they are able to mediate between stakeholder groups in practice seems to be constrained by external factors, such as financial dependencies. (shrink)

The topic of this paper is the semantic analysis of the sentences in (1). (1a,b) contain the adverbial modifiers 'one after the other' and 'dog after dog', respectively, which add to the simple (1') information on how the overall event of the dogs entering the room is to be divided into subevents based on a division of the group of dogs into individual dogs. We call these adverbials pluractional adverbials, following e.g. Lasersohn's (1995) use of the term pluractionality for the (...) division of larger eventualities into subeventualities. (shrink)

While innovations in modern microscopy, spectroscopy, and nanoscopy techniques have made single molecule observation a standard in many laboratories, the actual design of meaningful fluorescence reporter systems now hinders major scientific breakthroughs. Even though the field of chemical biology is supercharging the fluorescence toolbox, surprisingly few strategies exist that make the transition from model systems to biologically relevant applications. At the same time, the number of microscopy techniques is growing dramatically. We explain our view on how the impact of modern (...) technologies is influenced not only by further hard‐ and software developments, but also by the availability and suitability of protein‐engineering tools. We identify how the largely independent research fields of chemical biology and fluorescence nanoscopy can influence each other to synergistically drive future technology that can visualize the localization, structure, and dynamics of molecular function without constraints. (shrink)

Dopo aver brevemente spiegato le modalità dell'insegnamento dell'Etica a Nicomaco nella Vienna del XV secolo, l'A. si sofferma ad indagare l'influsso esercitato dal commento di Buridano sulla produzione di commenti che fiorì in quel contesto. La maggior parte di tali commenti prodotti nei primi decenni del sec. XV seguivano infatti lo schema delle sue quaestiones: i commenti secundum Buridanum. Nella seconda metà del secolo furono i commenti di Corrado de Susato e le Quaestiones di Johannes Versor a rappresentare un importante (...) punto di riferimento nell'elaborazione filosofica. Si distingue poi tra i commenti più vicini al testo aristotelico e i compendi e le somme di filosofia morale: tra i primi si segnalano in particolare le Quaestiones super libros Ethicorum secundum mentem Henrici de Frimaria di Thomas Teufl ; tra i secondi si ricordano il Compendium philosophiae moralis di Heinrich Plattenberger di Norimberga e la Summa di Michael Lochmair de Haideck . Infine, una tavola riporta la datazione, la tipologia e i mss. contenenti i commenti prodotti a Vienna nel XV secolo. (shrink)

The object of this dissertation is to discover a ground for our common-sense view that a person is morally responsible for her actions. I begin with the assumption that if we are justified in holding an agent morally responsible, it must be possible for her to do better or worse than she does. Using Bergson's concept of duration as the model for how conscious experience develops, I construct a schema for how actions happen that shows how it is possible for (...) the agent to act otherwise than she does. I adopt Bergson's approach to understanding persons and their relationship to their actions because it accounts for the durational/mental aspect of the human being as well as the spatial/physical aspect. We can better understand how the person produces an action if we think of her not only as a living body with repeating life processes but also as an ongoing mental process. ;Bergson's approach can help us to understand and support theories of agent-causation. I have focused on Chisholm's concept of agent-causation and the difficulty in explaining how immanent causation happens. In Bergson's schema, making events happen is an integral part of the process of conscious experience that the human being is. As a physical body a person undergoes events; however, as a process of conscious experience, that same person becomes aware of those events in the context of her experience and can evaluate them in order to envision and implement a new approach to her situation. When the person operates in this creative mode, viewing her situation from what Bergson calls the natural standpoint, she immanently causes her own action. ;For morality, the important choice the agent makes is whether or not to assume the natural standpoint as the point of departure for her efforts. The agent can take the most credit for an action that she has developed herself. Such an action fully engages the agent's knowledge and abilities, and so best represents the person that the agent becomes through completing the action. Even in allowing habit to direct her efforts, however, the agent is minimally responsible for her action insofar as she could have chosen to bypass those directions and to act creatively. (shrink)

Wie müssen wir zurückschauen, um Was sehen zu können und darüber unseren Blick für das Gegenwärtige und Kommende zu schärfen?0Die Beiträge des Bandes, der zu Ehren von Sigrid Schade erscheint, beziehen sich auf vielschichtige Diskursgeschichten an den Schnittstellen von Kunst-, Kultur- und Medienwissenschaften. Sie beleuchten künstlerische, kulturelle und soziale Praktiken und Ordnungen als Aushandlungsort komplexer Bedeutungs- und Beziehungsgefüge.

(1) a. Satoshi sent Thilo the Schw¨abische W¨orterbuch. b. Satoshi sent the Schw¨abische W¨orterbuch to Thilo. Many have entertained the notion that there is a rule that relates sentences such as these. This is suggested by the fact that it is possible to learn that a newly coined verb licenses one of them and automatically know that it licenses the other. Marantz (1984) argues for the existence of such a rule in this way, noting that once one has learned of (...) the new verb shin by exposure to (2a), the grammaticality of (2b) is also learned. (2) a. Thilo shinned the ball to Satoshi. b. Thilo shinned Satoshi the ball. This is explained if there is a rule that ties the double object frame together with the NP+PP frame, making it sufficient to know that a verb licenses one if it licenses the other. Frequently, the rule involved has been taken to be syntactic in nature. See, among many others, Fillmore (1965), Oehrle (1976), Baker (1988), and Larson (1988). The leading idea under this view is that the two frames are simply different surface manifestations of the same underlying structure. Typically, this approach posits that the NP+PP frame represents that underlying structure from which the double object frame is transformationally derived. There is evidence, however, that the two frames instead have different underlying structures, and are not related by transformation. This evidence, then. (shrink)

This paper investigates the semantics of adverbials like ‘page by page’ and ‘stone upon stone’. An analysis is developed in which sentences containing such adverbials have a pluractional semantics; that is, pluralization affects simultaneously the event- and the individual-argument slot of a predicate. Sternefeld's system of plural operators is used and extended for this purpose. The adverbial constrains the relation that is pluralized and makes visible a higher plural operator. In the case of ‘page by page’-type adverbials, this is a (...) fairly standard operator that leads to a simple divisional interpretation. In the case of ‘stone upon stone’-type adverbials, the operator has a stronger semantics that leads to a sequence interpretation. The generality of our theory permits straightforward extension to data like ‘she ran and ran’ and ‘she climbed higher and higher’, among others. Finally we propose that inclusive alternative ordering reciprocals have a pluractional sequence interpretation as well. (shrink)

The semantic literature takes degree operators like the comparative, but also measure phrases, the equative, the superlative and so on, to be quantifiers over degrees. This is well motivated by their semantic contribution, but leads one to expect far more scope interaction than is actually observed. This paper proposes an alternative-semantic analysis of certain degree constructions, in particular constructions with little and other negative antonyms. Restrictions on scope can then be explained as intervention effects.

This paper examines the effect that focus has on repetitive versus restitutive again. It is argued that a pragmatic explanation of the effect is the right strategy. The explanation builds largely on a standard focus semantics. To this we add an anaphoric analysis of again’s presupposition and a detailed analysis of the alternatives triggered when focus falls on again.

Grammatology of Images radically alters how we approach images. Instead of asking for the history, power, or essence of images, Sigrid Weigel addresses imaging as such. The book considers how something a-visible gets transformed into an image. Weigel scrutinizes the moment of mis-en-apparition, of making an appearance, and the process of concealment that accompanies any imaging. Weigel reinterprets Derrida's and Freud's concept of the trace as that which must be thought before something exists. In doing so, she illuminates the (...) threshold between traces and iconic images, between something immaterial and its pictorial representation. Chapters alternate between general accounts of the line, the index, the effigy, and the cult-image, and case studies from the history of science, art, politics, and religion, involving faces as indicators of emotion, caricatures as effigies of defamation, and angels as embodiments of transcendental ideas. Weigel's approach to images illuminates fascinating, unexpected correspondences between premodern and contemporary image-practices, between the history of religion and the modern sciences, and between things that are and are not understood as art. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In the 1970s and early 1980s, many Westerners wrote enthusiastically about science as practiced in socialist China. They applauded the mobilization of broad sectors of the population for science that truly “served the people.” By the mid‐1980s, revelations about the many horrors of the Cultural Revolution worked to discredit these early, optimistic accounts. At the same time, the post‐Mao privileging of economic development over social revolution (which meshes well with dominant Western attitudes) now strongly colors almost all analyses of (...) science in socialist China. This essay encourages historians to retrieve the largely discarded rosy accounts of earlier years. Such sources provide insight into the goals of historical actors and challenge us to recognize the specificity and contingency of our own values. Used in tandem with the later sources, they can help us achieve a critical understanding of science in both socialist China and our own historical context. (shrink)

Research regarding the drivers of acceptance of clinical decision support systems by physicians is still rather limited. The literature that does exist, however, tends to focus on problems regarding the user-friendliness of CDSS. We have performed a thematic analysis of 24 interviews with physicians concerning specific clinical case vignettes, in order to explore their underlying opinions and attitudes regarding the introduction of CDSS in clinical practice, to allow a more in-depth analysis of factors underlying acceptance of CDSS. We identified three (...) general themes from the results. First, ‘the perceived role of the AI’, including items referring to the tasks that may properly be assigned to the CDSS according to the respondents. Second, ‘the perceived role of the physician’, referring to the aspects of clinical practice that were seen as being fundamentally ‘human’ or non-automatable. Third, ‘concerns regarding AI’, including items referring to more general issues that were raised by the respondents regarding the introduction of CDSS in general and/or in clinical medicine in particular. Apart from the overall concerns expressed by the respondents regarding user-friendliness, we will explain how our results indicate that our respondents were primarily occupied by distinguishing between parts of their job that should be automated and aspects that should be kept in human hands. We refer to this distinction as ‘the division of clinical labor.’ This division is not based on knowledge regarding AI or medicine, but rather on which parts of a physician’s job were seen by the respondents as being central to who they are as physicians and as human beings. Often the respondents’ view that certain core parts of their job ought to be shielded from automation was closely linked to claims concerning the uniqueness of medicine as a domain. Finally, although almost all respondents claimed that they highly value their final responsibility, a closer investigation of this concept suggests that their view of ‘final responsibility’ was not that demanding after all. (shrink)

A semantics for interrogatives is presented which is based on Karttunen's theory, but in a flexible manner incorporates both weak and strong exhaustivity. The paper starts out by considering degree questions, which often require an answer picking out the maximal degree from a certain set. However, in some cases, depending on the semantic properties of the question predicate, reference to the minimal degree is required, or neither specifying the maximum nor the minimum is sufficient. What is needed is an operation (...) which defines the maximally informative answer on the basis of the Karttunen question denotation. Shifting attention to non-degree questions, two notions of answerhood are adopted from work by Heim. The first of these is weakly exhaustive and the second strongly exhaustive. The second notion of answerhood is proven to be equivalent to Groenendijk and Stokhof's interrogative semantics. On the basis of a wide range of empirical data showing that questions often are not interpreted exhaustively, it is argued that a fairly rich system of semantic objects associated with questions is needed to account for the various ways in which questions contribute to the semantics and pragmatics of the utterances in which they appear. (shrink)

This paper offers a few elements of an answer to the question to what extent drug patents can be morally justified. Justifications based on natural rights, distributive justice and utilitarian arguments are discussed and criticized. The author recognizes the potential of the patents to benefit society but argues that the system is currently evolving in the wrong direction, particularly in the field of drugs. More than a third of the world’s population has no access to essential drugs. The working of (...) the patent system is an important determinant of access to drugs. This paper argues that drug patents are not easily justified and that the ‘architecture’ of the patent system should be rethought in view of its mission of benefiting society. (shrink)

The last decade has seen a new wave of interest in philosophical and theoretical circles in the writings of Walter Benjamin. In _Body-and Image-Space_ Sigrid Weigel, one of Germany's leading feminist theorists and a renowned commentator on the work of Walter Benjamin, argues that the reception of his work has so far overlooked a crucial aspect of his thought - his use of images. Weigel shows that it is precisely his practice of thinking in images that holds the key (...) to understanding the full complexity, richness and topicality of Benjamin's theory. (shrink)

This paper develops a semantic analysis of data like It is getting colder and colder. Their meaning is argued to arise from a combination of a comparative with pluractionality. The analysis is embedded in a general theory of plural predication and pluractionality. It supports a semantic theory involving a family of syntactic plural operators.

Das Buch der bekannten Literaturwissenschaftlerin untersucht die Formen des Bildertausches zwischen Wissenschaft, Religion, Kunst und Literatur. Jenseits der Kontroverse zwischen pictorial und linguistic turn geht es um das Wissen der Bilder an der Grenze zwischen Messen und Deuten: an der Schwelle zwischen Spur und Zeichen, Imaginärem und Sichtbarem, Material und Figur, Schauplatz und Erzählung, Daten und Graphik/Begriff. Momente des In-Erscheinung-Tretens stehen im Zentrum: von Bildern im Denken, von Affekten im Gesicht, von Transzendenz in Gemälden oder in der Dichtung. Ausgehend von (...) der Differenz zwischen neuronalen Indikatoren und Semantik in den bildgebenden Verfahren der aktuellen naturwissenschaftlichen Forschung, widmet sich Sigrid Weigel vor allem dem Wissen, das Malerei und Einbildungskraft über Bilder bereithalten. Ziel ist es, durch die Aufmerksamkeit für das Detail und für das "Unbedeutende" dem "Geist wahrer Philologie" (Benjamin) zum Ausdruck zu verhelfen. (Quelle: www.buchhandel.de). (shrink)

The paper provides a semantic analysis of intervention effects in wh-questions. The interpretation component of the grammar derives uninterpretability, hence ungrammaticality, of the intervention data. In the system of compositional interpretation that I suggest, wh-phrases play the same role as focused phrases, introducing alternatives into the computation. Unlike focus, wh-phrases make no ordinary semantic contribution. An intervention effect occurs whenever a focus-sensitive operator other than the question operator tries to evaluate a constituent containing a wh-phrase. It is argued that this (...) approach can capture the universal as well as the crosslinguistically variable aspects of intervention effects, in a way that is superior to previous approaches. Further consequences concern other focus-related constructions: multiple focus data, NPI licensing, and alternative questions. (shrink)

An ‘Information Centre’ has recently been established by law which has the power to collect, collate and provide access to the medical information forall patients treated by the National Health Service in England, whether in hospitals or by General Practitioners. This so-called ‘care.data’ scheme has given rise to major and ongoing controversies. We will sketch the background of the scheme and look at the responses it has elicited from citizens and medical professionals. In Autumn 2013, NHS England set up a (...) care.data website where citizens could record their concerns regarding the collection of health-related data by the Information Centre. We have reviewed all the comments on this website up until June 2015. We have also analysed the readers’ comments on the coverage of the care.data scheme in one of the main national UK newspapers. When discussing the responses of citizens, we will make a distinction between the problems that citizens detect and the solutions they propose. The solutions that are being perceived as the most relevant ones can be summarized as follows: citizens wish to further the common good without being manipulated into doing it, while at the same time being safeguarded against various abuses. The issue of trust turns out to figure prominently. Our analysis of reactions to the scheme in no way pretends to be exhaustive, yet it provides various relevant insights into the concerns identified by citizens as well as medical professionals. These concerns, moreover, have a more general relevance in relation to other contexts of medical data-mining as well as biobank research. Our analysis also offers important pointers as to how those concerns might be addressed. (shrink)

The case for the value of self-experimentation in advancing science is convincing. Important features of the method include (1) repeated measures of individual behavior, over extended time, to discover cause/effect relations, and (2) vivid graphical presentations. Large-scale research on Pavlovian conditioning and weight control is needed because verification could result in easy and inexpensive mitigation of a serious public health problem.

We expand on Della Croce’s ambition to interpret “epistemic injustice” as a specification of non-maleficence in the use of the influential four-principle framework. This is an alluring line of thought for conceptual, moral, and heuristic reasons. Although it is commendable, Della Croce’s attempt remains tentative. So does our critique of it. Yet, we take on the challenge to critically address two interrelated points. First, we broaden the analysis to include deliberations about hermeneutical injustice. We argue that, if due consideration of (...) epistemic injustice is to require more than negative ethical obligations in medicine, dimensions of hermeneutical injustice should be explored as an avenue to arrive at such positive duties. Second, and relatedly, we argue that this may encompass moral responsibilities beyond the individual level, that is: positive obligations to take action on a structural level. Building on Dotson’s concept of “contributory injustice” and Scheman’s concept of “perceptual autonomy,” we suggest that the virtues of testimonial and hermeneutical justice may provide additional content not only to negative prohibitions of action (i.e. non-maleficence) but also to positive requirements of action, like respecting patient autonomy. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for a restriction on certain types of LF movement, which I call ‘wh-related LF movement’. Evidence comes from a number of wh-in-situ constructions in German, such as the scope-marking construction and multiple questions. For semantic reasons, the in situ element in those constructions has to move at LF to either a position reserved for wh-phrases, or even higher up in the structure. The restriction (the Minimal Quantified Structure Constraint, MQSC) is that an intervening quantified expression (...) blocks this movement. In the case of every, the MQSC leads to an unambiguously distributive interpretation of the question. In the case of all other intervening operators, including negation, it leads to ungrammaticality. (shrink)

In 1975, a delegation of U.S. entomologists traveled to socialist China to observe Chinese insect control science. Their overwhelmingly positive reports highlighted in relief the pernicious effects of pesticide corporations on U.S. agriculture; some entomologists hoped this would goad the United States to catch up to China in environmentally sensible insect control practices. Of course, insect control in socialist China carried its own political baggage, some of which—for example, mass mobilization and self-reliance—the state made highly visible to visitors, and some (...) of which—for example, harsh treatment of scientists—it sought to obscure. For both the U.S. and the Chinese participants, the act of comparison itself was of primary significance in the exchange, allowing them to construct socialist Chinese science as refreshingly different from U.S. science. At the same time, however, this construction of difference meant forgetting the much longer transnational history in which U.S. and Chinese entomology had been intertwined. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDie Zulässigkeit später Schwangerschaftsabbrüche nach Pränataldiagnostik wirft die Frage auf, ob die deutsche Rechtspraxis nicht widersprüchlich ist, die einerseits Ärzte dazu verpflichtet, zu früh und behindert geborene Kind zu behandeln, andererseits bei einer vorgeburtlich diagnostizierten Behinderung des Kindes aber den Abbruch einer Schwangerschaft bis zur Geburt zulässt. Der Beitrag geht der Frage nach, ob die Unterschiede, die im gesetzlichen Schutz des Lebens einerseits von ungeborenen und neugeborenen Kindern und anderseits von behinderten und nichtbehinderten Föten gemacht werden, aus ethischer Sicht verteidigt (...) werden können. Hierzu werden zunächst weltanschaulich liberale, konservative und vermittelnde Positionen in der Bioethik zum moralischen Status menschlicher Wesen diskutiert. Abschließend wird ein eigener Vorschlag vorgestellt, der von weiten Sorgepflichten der Schwangeren gegenüber ihrem ungeborenen Kind ausgeht und die außergewöhnliche Beziehung zwischen Frau und Kind in der Schwangerschaft berücksichtigt. Diese Argumentation zeigt, dass eine liberale Regelung des Schwangerschaftsabbruchs mit einer allgemeinen medizinischen Behandlungspflicht zu früh oder behindert geborener Kinder aus ethischer Sicht vereinbar ist. (shrink)

Considéré de nos jours comme l’un des principaux représentants de la phénoménologie expérimentale, le psychologue Albert Michotte (1881-1965) n’a adopté que sur le tard le terme de « phénoménologie expérimentale » pour qualifier sa démarche. Dans cet article, j’étudie l’usage qu’il fait de cette dénomination, les implications de ce choix ainsi que l’interprétation qu’il en a donnée. Je montre, notamment, comment une discussion entre Michotte et le traducteur anglais de son livre, Tim R. Miles, a été importante pour déterminer l’orientation (...) de la seule présentation explicite que Michotte a publiée de sa phénoménologie expérimentale. L’étude des différents rôles que ce terme a été amené à jouer dans l’œuvre de Michotte montre également les problèmes soulevés par la communication entre différentes disciplines (la philosophie et la psychologie expérimentale) et écoles psychologiques dans lesquelles ce concept a été à la fois employé et débattu : cette communication demandait un véritable travail de traduction. (shrink)

The Denktagebuch, kept by Hannah Arendt from 1950 until 1973, is not only a fascinating parergon, or secondary work, containing many reflections, observations, and notes on other articles that had not, or not yet, taken on their finished form as essays or books. It presents the foundations and premises of her writing that originate from her notebooks—foundations in a literal sense, i.e., those writings that preceded the author's work in political theory. Several entries contain methodological reflections, explanations of definitions, and (...) analyses of philosophical texts. These are self-commentaries on her own publications, such as reflections on the ambiguous and often…. (shrink)

New-born screening programs for congenital disorders and chronic disease are expanding worldwide and children “at risk” are identified by nationwide tracking systems at the earliest possible stage. These practices are never neutral and raise important social and ethical questions. An emergent concern is that a reflexive professionalism should interrogate the ever earlier interference in children’s lives. The Flemish community of Belgium was among the first to generalize the screening for hearing loss in young children and is an interesting case to (...) study the public justification of early interventions for families with deaf children. This article uses a critical lens to study the archive of the government child healthcare organization in Flanders in order to uncover underlying constructions of childhood, deafness, and preventive health. We focus on two interrelated themes. The first is the notion of exclusion of the human factor through the mediation of technology. The second is the idea of deafness as endangering a healthy development, an impairment that can nevertheless be treated if detected early enough. It is argued that, since deafness cannot be viewed as a life-threatening condition, the public interest which is implicitly defended is not the rescue of deaf children rather the exclusion of otherness. (shrink)

ABSTRACTMore than a third of the world's population has no access to essential drugs. More than half of this group of people live in the poorest regions of Africa and Asia. Several factors determine the accessibility of drugs in developing countries. Hardly any medicines for tropical diseases are being developed, but even existing drugs are often not available to the patients who need them.One of the important determinants of access to drugs is the working of the patent system. This paper (...) first maps out some facts about the global patent regime that has emerged as a consequence of the conclusion of the WTO‐TRIPs Agreement in 1994. Attempts to construct a moral justification of the patent system have been based on three grounds: natural rights, distributive justice, and utilitarian arguments. This paper examines to what extent and on which grounds drug patents can be justified. The final section looks at the so‐called ‘Doha Declaration on the TRIPs Agreement and Public Health’, which was adopted by the WTO Ministerial Conference two years ago, recognising the primacy of public health over the interests of patent proprietors. (shrink)