School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Research Publications

Permanent URI for this collection

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Vulnerability: too vague and too broad?
    Schroeder, D ; Gefenas, E (Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2009-04)
    Imagine you are walking down a city street. It is windy and raining. Amidst the bustle you see a young woman. She sits under a railway bridge, hardly protected from the rain and holds a woolen hat containing a small number of coins. You can see that she trembles from the cold. Or imagine seeing an old woman walking in the street at dusk, clutching her bag with one hand and a walking stick with the other. A group of male youths walk behind her without overtaking, drunk and in the mood for mischief. It doesn't need an academic to say what vulnerability is. We can all see it, much more often than we care to.
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Justice and the Convention on Biological Diversity
    Schroeder, D ; Pogge, T (Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2009)
    Justice and the Convention on Biological Diversity Doris Schroeder and Thomas Pogge Benefit sharing as envisaged by the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is a relatively new idea in international law. Within the context of non-human biological resources, it aims to guarantee the conservation of biodiversity and its sustainable use by ensuring that its custodians are adequately rewarded for its preservation. Prior to the adoption of the CBD, access to biological resources was frequently regarded as a free-for-all. Bioprospectors were able to take resources out of their natural habitat and develop commercial products without sharing benefits with states or local communities. This paper asks how CBD-style benefit-sharing fits into debates of justice. It is argued that the CBD is an example of a set of social rules designed to increase social utility. It is also argued that a common heritage of humankind principle with inbuilt benefit-sharing mechanisms would be preferable to assigning bureaucratic property rights to non-human biological resources. However, as long as the international economic order is characterized by serious distributive injustices, as reflected in the enormous poverty-related death toll in developing countries, any morally acceptable means toward redressing the balance in favor of the disadvantaged has to be welcomed. By legislating for a system of justice-in-exchange covering nonhuman biological resources in preference to a free-for-all situation, the CBD provides a small step forward in redressing the distributive justice balance. It therefore presentsjustlegislation sensitive to the international relations context in the 21st century.
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Dignity: two riddles and four concepts.
    Schroeder, D (Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2008)
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Too early for global ethics?
    Ladikas, M ; Schroeder, D (Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2005)
  • Item
    No Preview Available
    Benefit sharing: it's time for a definition.
    Schroeder, D (BMJ, 2007-04)
    Benefit sharing has been a recurrent theme in international debates for the past two decades. However, despite its prominence in law, medical ethics and political philosophy, the concept has never been satisfactorily defined. In this conceptual paper, a definition that combines current legal guidelines with input from ethics debates is developed. Philosophers like boxes; protective casings into which they can put concisely-defined concepts. Autonomy is the human capacity for self-determination; beneficence denotes the virtue of good deeds, coercion is the intentional threat of harm and so on. What about benefit sharing? Does the concept have a box and are the contents clearly defined? The answer to this question has to be no. The concept of benefit sharing is almost unique in that various disciplines use it regularly without precise definitions. In this article, a definition for benefit sharing is provided, to eliminate unnecessary ambiguity.